66 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 



old woman, a social outcast, who wrought only ill. But 

 rather the idea was that of a wise woman, a woman in 

 not only spiritual but also temporal authority, hostile 

 indeed to a civilisation which brought customs of 

 marriage and descent other than those upon which her 

 influence and power were based. 



After, but only after, the sacerdotal comes the kingly 

 element in the Mdrchen, presenting us with another side 

 of the same old primitive civilisation, with its mother- 

 right customs. In trying to appreciate the king of the 

 Marchen, the reader must put on one side all modern 

 impressions as to royalty, and return to the early 

 Teutonic significance of the term. In the side valleys of 

 Norway the wanderer may yet come across Gaards- 

 mcBnd, who hold themselves somewhat aloof from their 

 fellow -peasants, although to the eye of the observer 

 their house and barns, their stock of cattle, and cluster of 

 dependants are not more extensive than those of their 

 neighbours. Questioned as to the cause of the indifferent, 

 or even slightly contemptuous reception the stranger 

 has met with, the neighbours will tell him with a smile 

 that his hosts were Smaakonge, or descendants of the 

 old petty kings of the valley. During a day's march, 

 within even the same valley, merely by crossing an 

 arm or two of the forest, several such Smaakonge might 

 in olden time have been found, and they approached 

 very closely to the Mdrchen conception of a king. Not 

 a man set in royal dignity far above swineherds and 

 goose-girls, but one who could associate with them, nay, 

 who might have risen from their ranks by some valiant 

 act, which won him a bride and the kingdom. Indeed 



