Note 16 — Chapter VI · The Grateful Dead and The Water of Life or Kindred Themes.

This well-known märchen has been treated by various scholars, most recently by G. L. Kittredge, in Arthur and Gorlagon (Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, viii.) 1903, pp. 226 f., from whom I take the liberty of transcribing the following references, some of which would otherwise be unknown to me. In note 2 to p. 226 he says: “See Benfey, Das Märchen von den ‘Menschen mit den wunderbaren Eigenschaften,’ Ausland, 1858, pp. 969 ff. (Kleinere Schriften II. iii. 94 ff.); Wesselofsky, in Giovanni da Prato, Il Paradiso degli Alberti, 1867, I. ii. 238 ff.; d’Ancona, Studj di Critica e Storia Letteraria, 1880, pp. 357–358; Köhler-Bolte, Ztsch. des Ver. f. Volkskunde, vi. 77; Köhler, Kleinere Schriften, i. 192 ff., 298 ff., 389–390, 431, 544; ii. 591; Cosquin, Contes pop. de Lorraine, i. 23 ff.; Crane, Italian Popular Tales, p. 67; Nutt, in MacInnes, Folk and Hero Tales, pp. 445 ff.; Laistner, Rätsel der Sphinx ii. 357 ff.; Steel, Tales of the Punjab, pp. 42 ff.; Jurkschat, Litauische Märchen, pp. 29 ff.; etc.” A peculiarly interesting specimen is that in Bladé, Contes pop. de la Gascogne, 1886, iii. 12–22. See also Luzel, Contes pop. de Basse-Bretagne, 1887, iii. 296–311; Carnoy and Nicolaides, Traditions pop. de l’Asie Mineure, 1889, pp. 43–56; and Goldschmidt, Russische Märchen, 1883, pp. 69–78.