62 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 



So viel 1st gewiss, class die Alte keine Hexe war, wie die Leute 

 glaubten, sondern eine weise Frau, die es gut meinte. Wahrscheinlich 

 ist sie es auch gewesen, die der Konigstochter schon bei der Geburt 

 die Gabe verliehen hat Perlen zu weinen statt der Thranen. 



To a later age the notion of the witch as, at bottom, 

 friendly and wise had become inconceivable. 



Other Mdrchen illustrating similar points may be 

 noticed more briefly. In Die zwolf Bruder the 

 kingdom is to go, not to them, but to the thirteenth 

 child, a daughter ; * and we may probably take as 

 evidence of the declining strength of the old custom, 

 the desire that these sons should be killed in order that 

 they may not seize or share the inheritance. Here it is 

 a friendly old woman who instructs the girl how to save 

 her brothers from enchantment. The reference to the 

 biblical Benjamin and the tag in which the girl goes 

 away to the husband's house, appear to be later additions ; 

 the latter being quite out of keeping with the commence- 

 ment of the story in which the girl is to inherit the 

 kingdom in preference to her brothers. In Hansel und 

 Grethel the witch is evil, and has the cannibal instincts, 2 

 which are not so much a sign of her wickedness as of the 

 human sacrifices which were certainly associated with 

 primitive matriarchal societies. In Das Rcitlisel the 

 witch is a poison - brewing hag, hostile to wandering 

 kings' sons ; but yet a king's daughter, and presumably 



1 Cf. the Norse De tolv Vildcender. 



2 The age of human sacrifice will never be found very far removed from the 

 age of cannibalism, for the primitive sacrifice was essentially a feast. There 

 are traces of cannibalistic tendencies in such tales as Von dem Machandelboom, 

 Fundevogel, Sneewittchen, etc., besides the usual man-eating propensities of 

 the giants. Traces of this primitive cannibalistic sacrifice have even remained 

 in the ceremonial of the most developed religions of highly civilised peoples. 



