ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 69 



Schloss, ich habe Flachs genug, da soil sie spinnen so viel sie Lust 

 hat. 



Both the queen and the son hold that a poor but 

 diligent maiden will make the most useful bride. In 

 Rumpelstilzchen we have a variation of the same theme, 

 a poor miller's daughter becoming the king's bride on 

 account of her supposed capacity for spinning. In 

 Spindel, Weberschiffchen und Nadel it is again the 

 diligent spinning of the maiden which makes her, in the 

 eyes of the king's son, at once the poorest and richest. 

 But it is not only diligent spinsters who find, for 

 economical reasons, favour in royal eyes, the bridal 

 selection is frequently made, without any regard to rank 

 in the modern sense, from all the maidens of the king- 

 dom. In Die kluge Bauer ntochter, which in itself 

 portrays the close relations of king and peasants, the 

 king marries the peasant's daughter for her wisdom. 

 In De drei Vugelkens the king and his two chief 

 counsellors marry, without any reason being considered 

 apparently needful, three maidens herding their cows 

 under the Keuterberg. In Die weisse und die schwarze 

 Brant the king marries a peasant girl, the sister of one 

 of his servants. In Das Waldhaus the prince's bride is 

 the daughter of a woodman. In Die drei Federn the 

 king's sons bring home " die erste beste Bauernweiber," 

 and so forth, for the cases can be easily multiplied, and 

 the brides are drawn from the whole range of women 

 following simple domestic and agricultural avocations, 

 which in those days were as important to kings as 

 to other folk. In the Norse Vesle Aase Gaasepige 

 there is a king who has so many geese that he 



