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daughter runs away with the king's son, she cuts an Apple into 

 a mystical number of small bits, and each bit talks. When she 

 kills the giant, she puts an Apple under the hoof of the magic filly, 

 and he dies, for his life is the Apple, and it is crushed. When the 

 byre is cleansed, it is so clean, that a golden Apple would run from 

 end to end and never raise a stain. There is a Gruagach who 

 has a golden Apple, which is thrown at all comers, who, if they 

 fail to catch it, die. When it is caught and thrown back by the 

 hero, Gruagach an Ubhail, dies. There is a certain game called 

 cluich an ubhail — the Apple play — which seems to have been a 

 deadly game. When the king's daughter transports the soldier to 

 the green island on the magic table-cloth, he finds magic Apples 

 which transform him, and others which cure him, and by which he 

 transforms the cruel princess, and recovers his magic treasures. 

 When the two eldest idle king's sons go out to herd the giant's 

 cattle, they find an Apple-tree whose fruit moves up and down as 

 they vainly strive to pluck it ; in fact, in all Gaelic stories, the 

 Apple when introduced has something marvellous about it. 



So, in the German, in the ' Man of Iron,' a princess throws a 

 golden Apple as a prize, which the hero catches three times, and 

 carries off, and wins. In ' Snow White,' where the poisoned comb 

 occurs, there is a poisoned magic Apple also. In the 'Old Griffin,' 

 the rich princess is cured by rosy-cheeked Apples. In the ' White 

 Snake,' a servant who understands the voice of birds, helps 

 creatures in distress, gets them aid, and procures golden Apples 

 from three ravens which fly over the sea to the end of the world, 

 where stands the tree of life. When he had got the Apple, he and 

 the princess eat it and marry. Again, in the 'Wonderful Hares,' a 

 golden Apple is the gift for which the finder is to gain a princess ; 

 and that Apple grew on a tree, the sole one of its kind. 



In Norse it is the same: the princess on the glass mountain 

 held three golden Apples in her lap, and he who could ride up the 

 hill and carry off" the Apples was to win the prize; and the princess 

 rolled them down to the hero, and they rolled into his shoe. The 

 good girl plucked the Apples from the tree which spoke to her 

 when she went down the well to the underground world ; but the 

 ill-tempered step-sister thrashed down the fruit; and when the 

 time of trial came, the Apple-tree played its part and protected the 



poor girl. 



In a French tale, a singing Apple is one of the marvels which 

 Princess Belle Etoile and her brothers and her cousin bring from 

 the end of the world. In an Italian story, a lady when she has lost 

 her husband goes off" to the Atlantic Ocean with three golden Apples ; 

 and the mermaid who has swallowed the husband shows first his 

 head, then his body to the waist, and then to the knees, each time 

 for a golden Apple. Then, finally, in the ' Arabian Nights,' there 

 is a long story, called the Three Apples, which turns upon the theft 

 of one, which was considered to have been of priceless value. 



