Note 58.1 — Chapter II · THE STORY IN MODERN FOLKLORE—THE KING OF THE FISHES TYPE.

The Slavs of various parts of Russia are familiar with the type now under consideration. In a Lettish tale the brothers steal and eat the bird after having sold it. They then flee together. Coming to a crossway, they find an old man who gives them each a horse, dog, whip and bottle. The bottle is the life-token: its contents turn red if the owner’s brother die. The dragon is a serpent with thrice nine heads. The hero is enticed to the Medusa-witch’s hut by a roebuck.58.1 A soldier’s two sons, in a story given by Afanasief, receive from an old man wonderful horses and swords. The life-token is not detailed in the abstract of the story before me. One brother weds a king’s daughter. The other delivers another king’s daughter from a dragon, and marries her. He follows a stag, whose tracks he loses, and, after shooting a pair of ducks, comes to a deserted castle. There he meets the Medusa-witch, in the shape of a fair maiden, who changes into a lioness and swallows him. His brother compels her to cast him up and bring him to life again with Living-and-Healing-Water. She then changes back into a maiden and begs forgiveness. They weakly pardon her. Afterwards each of them is met by a beggar, who, being transformed into a lion, tears him to pieces. These lions are the Medusa-witch’s brothers.59.1 A Lithuanian tale speaks of three brothers and a sister. The brothers, sparing a wolf, boar, fox, lion, hare and bear, receive a whelp apiece. Parting from one another, each of them chooses a birch-tree and strikes it with his axe: the mark will run with milk or blood, according as he is alive or dead. The eldest brother takes charge of the sister, by whom he is betrayed to a robber. He subdues the robber with the assistance of his beasts, nails his sister by hands and feet to the wall of the robber’s castle, and leaves her. After slaying a nine-headed dragon and rescuing the princess, the latter takes him into her carriage; but on the way to her house he is put to death by the coachman and lackey. His lion catches a crow and compels it to bring the Water of Life to restore him. He is recognised by means of the ring and handkerchief the princess has given him, and marries her. Going hunting, he falls at night into the power of the Medusa-witch, whom he finds in the shape of an old woman at a fire. The youngest brother first attempts his rescue, and afterwards the second, who is successful.59.2