Note 30.1 — Chapter XVI · THE RESCUE OF ANDROMEDA IN MÄRCHEN.

In this tale it is no longer Andromeda who is rescued, but a young man. The variation is doubtless due to Oriental influence, conveyed through a Mohammedan channel. At least, all the variants of this form with which I am acquainted are of Arab or Indian provenience. In a story from the Panjáb the hero is the younger of two brothers, princes, the elder of whom has eaten a parrot and the other a starling. Now the fate of these birds was that whoever ate the parrot would become a king, and whoever ate the starling a prime minister. The elder brother received his kingdom; but the younger is slain by a snake-demon and afterwards restored to life. Coming into a strange town, he takes shelter with an old woman whose turn it is to provide the victim for an ogre who daily eats a young man, a goat and a wheaten cake. She has no difficulty about the goat and the cake; and the prince volunteers to take the place of the human victim, in order to kill the ogre. He is successful; and then, cutting off the monster’s head, he ties it up in a handkerchief and falls asleep. An impostor in the shape of a scavenger finds him, buries him in a clay-pit and, taking the ogre’s head, claims from the king half the kingdom and his daughter in marriage, as a reward for overcoming the monster. We should expect the end to be the impostor’s conviction and the hero’s wedding. However, the further adventures of the latter result in his obtaining a different wife. With self-denial unusual in polygamous countries, he finds one enough; so he makes the princess over to his brother.30.1 It would seem as though we had here a relic of an earlier form of the tale wherein it is a maiden who is rescued. Another tale, also from the Panjáb, countenances the supposition.30.2 As given in the Siddhi-Kür, on the other hand, there is no reference to a lady. Two dragon-frogs who dwell at the source of a river and can withhold the water, demand every year a human being to eat. The lot falls on the khan himself; and no one but his son will go in his stead. The son is accompanied by a poor man’s son, who is his friend and will not quit his side. They overhear the frogs incautiously talking, after the manner of supernatural beings in fairy tales, and telling one another how they may be subdued. Thus they succeed in ridding the land of the pest; and further, by eating the frogs’ heads, the one acquires the power of spitting gold and the other of spitting emeralds—an endowment which develops the plot in a new direction.31.1 It would be strange if the endless adventures of the favourite Arab hero, Hatim Taï, did not include the incident. Accordingly, we learn that Hatim reaches a village where a giant devours one of the villagers every week. That week the lot has fallen upon the chief’s son. Hatim rescues him from his impending fate by causing a mirror to be prepared and set up in the monster’s path. When the giant beholds his own ugliness he bursts with rage in the most natural but horrible manner. Substantial rewards are offered to the deliverer. He rejects them, however, and goes about his business as if nothing had happened.31.2