Note 28.1 — Chapter XVI · THE RESCUE OF ANDROMEDA IN MÄRCHEN.

There remain one or two types of a more abnormal kind briefly to mention. A märchen of the Gipsies of Southern Hungary speaks of a dragon which threatened a certain city with destruction, unless in ten years the king’s fair daughter were given to him. In the interval she marries a man who wins the favour of a Keshalyi (a forest-fairy, or Fate) by kindly combing her hair. The Keshalyi’s hairs, as we have already seen, are powerful talismans, identified in Gipsy superstitions with the floating cobwebs of autumn. He obtains one of them, and by this means is able to take from the horns of the moon-king’s black cattle a gold ring, a similar ring from the horns of the sun-king’s white cattle, and one from the horns of the cloud-king’s yellow cattle. These he gives to his bride. Their virtue causes her to give birth successively to three heroes, of whom one is so strong he can throw high into the air a stone which ten horses cannot move, another can by blowing burn everything around him to ashes, and the third can spit balls from his mouth farther and truer than the best guns can carry. When, at the appointed time, the great dragon comes for her, sons like these prove invaluable. Though the very houses shook with the monster’s voice, the youths quickly riddled his skin with balls, buried him beneath great rocks, and burnt him up.28.1