Note 29.1 — Chapter XVI · THE RESCUE OF ANDROMEDA IN MÄRCHEN.

Another Gipsy tale concerns a youth who piped so well for the dancing of a silver-clad river-nymph, daughter of the moon-king, that she gave him a silver sickle and prayed him to come again on the morrow and she would give him yet fairer gifts. But he is late for the tryst, and finds her dead on the ground, heart-broken at his breach of faith; for these ladies’ hearts are very fragile. Her sister appears from the river and curses him, if a man, to become a woman, if a woman, to become a man. She then carries the dead nymph back into the river, and, as it seems, there restores her to life; for immediately afterwards a magnificent black steed stands before the desolate youth (now become a girl) and declares that he is sent by the deceased maiden to bear him where his fortune blossoms. Mounted on the steed, he is borne through the air like lightning to the aid of a king’s daughter, given to a dragon who dwells in a fountain and requires a maid once a year for dinner. He slays the dragon with the sickle; and the king in his joy gives him his daughter to wife. He accepted the lady amid the general excitement, without thinking that he was no longer a man but a woman. This was awkward. The bride complained to her father, who was afraid to attempt his life by direct means. Wherefore he sent him instead to rob the cloud-king of three golden apples which had the property, one of them of making wealthy, another of making lucky, and the third of making healthy. His steed helps him to accomplish the task. But when the monster, half-man, half-dog, that guards the apples, finds that he has been cozened, he flings the curse after the robber: “If a man, become woman; if a woman, become man.” The curse sets matters right again. “I don’t know what has happened, dearest father,” says the bride to the king, “but my husband is a man after all.”29.1 In an Albanian variant the dragon-slayer is born a girl. She kills a lamia to whom the king has given his son, and is rewarded with a magical steed. Later on she wins another king’s daughter in marriage by a feat of athletics, and, as in the last tale, is guilty of the thoughtlessness of taking the bride. Being prescribed a series of tasks by the king with the same object of getting rid of her, she at last is cursed by some serpents with the requisite change of sex.29.2