Note 2 — Chapter LXXVI · (Vetála 2.)

See the numerous parallels in Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales, p. 232; and Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology, p. 185, note, where he refers to the story of the Machandel boom (Kinder und Hausmärchen, No. 47), the myth of Zeus and Tantalus, and other stories. In the 47th tale of the Pentamerone of Basile, one of the five sons raises the princess to life and then demands her in marriage. In fact Basile’s tale seems to be compounded of this and the 5th of the Vetála’s stories. In Prym and Socin’s Syrische Märchen, No. XVIII, the bones of a man who had been killed ten years ago, are collected, and the water of life is poured over them with the same result as in our text. There is a “Pergamentblatt” with a life-restoring charm written on it, in Waldau’s Böhmische Märchen, p. 353.