ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 81 



sig, and Det liar ingen N<t>d med den, som alle Kvind- 

 folk er forlebt i, 1 we are distinctly told that the hero 

 received one-half the kingdom with his bride. Still 

 farther north in Lapland we find in such tales as Alder - 

 tree Lad and The Boy and the Hare the same law of 

 inheritance. 



Many things in Mdrchen are, of course, inexplicable 

 on any rationalistic grounds. Much of the faith in magic 

 though not all is chiefly of value to the folklorist as 

 enabling him to appreciate the intellectual development 

 of the minds in which such beliefs were current. But 

 the social customs illustrated in the Mdrchen have 

 nothing to do with magic ; they are not the mere topsy- 

 turvy invention of story-tellers seeking after nonsense, 

 for had they been they would not have been so self- 

 consistent, nor spread with such uniformity from Italy 

 to Lapland. They represent the social customs of the 

 age in which the Mdrchen took their origin, and in that 

 age we may safely assert that the law of inheritance 

 was mother-right, descent through the woman and 

 that the habits of the people were not so far removed 

 from that primitive type I have dealt with in the essays 

 on " Woman as Witch" and " Group-Marriage." 



The reader may here possibly remark that he has noted 

 in the Mdrchen nothing of the sex-festivals or kindred- 

 marriages discussed in the above papers. The reason for 

 this is, that few fossil customs which are intelligible to a 

 later age, and clearly offensive to its moral ideas, will be 

 preserved by the oral tradition which circulates round 



1 In this tale the other half of the kingdom is to follow on the death of the 

 old king. 



VOL. II G 



