Note 17 — Chapter VII · The Relations of The Grateful Dead to The Spendthrift Knight, The Two Friends, and The Thankful Beasts.

As to the introduction of the child, the trait by means of which, according to my theory, the actual combination of motives came about, the two folk-tales of the type The Grateful Dead + The Poison Maiden as well as Sir Amadas, are of great importance. Since the great majority of the variants which have the child belong clearly to the compound type with The Ransomed Woman, it is only by reference to these three that one can say with assurance that the modified trait indicates no vital connection with The Two Friends. Yet with these in mind there can be little doubt about the matter. The story-tellers have simply extended the division of the hero’s possessions from property and wife to child, a process perhaps made easier by the existence of such stories as The Child Vowed to the Devil17 and some forms of the Souhaits Saint Martin.18 This might have happened to any particular variant with equal facility. At the same time, the fact that the change was made in only three cases outside the group, which has The Ransomed Woman in combination, gives that family additional solidarity.