Note 18.1 — Chapter XVI · THE RESCUE OF ANDROMEDA IN MÄRCHEN.

In an earlier chapter I have abstracted a Lithuanian tale where the hero, having taken charge of a sister, is betrayed by her to a robber. This is quite a common incident in Slav märchen, not always found in connection with the Rescue of Andromeda. Another Lithuanian tale presents a brother and sister, turned out of doors by their father for bad conduct, arriving at a robber’s dwelling. Before leaving home, the youth had possessed himself of his father’s magical staff, which paralysed opponents. Aided by this he slays eleven of the twelve robbers, and severely wounds the twelfth. Having thrown their corpses into a Bluebeard’s chamber, already used for a similar purpose by the robbers themselves, he gives the keys of the house to his sister, forbidding her to enter the room where the bodies lie. She naturally disobeys, and is seized by the still living robber and compelled to bring him certain healing plants, which are hanging from the ceiling. The robber makes love to her, not without success, and persuades her to feign illness, and get her brother to procure, first, wolf’s milk, and then lioness’ milk, wherewith the wounded man is completely restored to health. When this is effected he comes forth, attacks the brother and threatens him with death. But in procuring the milk the hero has also won the favour of the she-wolf and lioness, as well as of a hare, for sparing their lives; and they have given him each a whistle to be blown when he is in need of help. He now blows; and immediately the grateful beasts rush to his help, tearing the robber and his paramour to pieces. Setting out with the animals, he comes to a town where the king’s last daughter is about to be given to a nine-headed dragon. His conquest of the dragon follows, and the cutting out of its nine tongues; after which he and his beasts lie down and fall asleep with utter weariness. While he sleeps, the princess puts her ring on his finger. She has hardly done so when some servants of the king, her father, come to the place, kill and bury him, and oblige her to take an oath to recognise their chief as her deliverer and bridegroom. On awaking, the hero’s animals miss their master and disperse, to meet again at the same spot three years later, in accordance with a tryst given them by him before lying down to sleep. The bear smells the corpse; the lion and wolf dig it up; and the hare fetches some leaves of a herb used by two snakes they have seen in combat at an earlier stage of their adventures. With these he restores the hero to life; and they all return to the town, as luck will have it, on the day of the wedding. The hare carries a letter to the princess, who induces her father to invite the stranger to the festivities. There he inquires what token of victory over the dragon the bridegroom had produced; and when the heads are shown him he draws the tongues out of his pocket, fits them into the throats and adds as a proof of his own identity the princess’ ring. The pretender is torn to pieces by oxen, and the hero happily married to the princess.18.1 Variants of the story are well known in Italy. It is found in Brittany and Andalucia, and has even crossed the Atlantic with the Portuguese to Brazil.18.2 None of these need be mentioned now, save a Piedmontese version, which accounts for the hero’s refusal to claim his bride as soon as he has won her, by the excuse that he was in mourning for his sister, slain by his dogs for her treachery, together with her paramour.18.3 In variants from Bohemia and Transylvania, the sister is, after her lover’s death, shut up by her brother for her misconduct, and left when he goes abroad on his travels. When he is married he releases her and takes her to live in the palace. But she sticks in his bed a knife which pierces and kills him. He is brought to life again by his hounds, and his sister receives the reward of her double guilt.19.1 In these two, as well as in a Sienese variant, the dogs are enchanted men who regain their true form after the hero is finally settled in life.