84 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 



the latter is not a primitive characteristic like the 

 betrothal -kiss under the linden tree. Indeed, what 

 business has a priest to be hanging about in the court- 

 yard of a wonder-castle ? He is obviously an incon- 

 gruity introduced in the course of tradition by a pious 

 narrator, who thought that the consecration of the 

 marriage would atone for the very heathen origin of 

 the creature comforts the pair were about to enjoy. 



Yet the reader may object that, out of the five 

 ' patriarchal ' Marchen with church marriages to which 

 we have referred, one at the least, namely Aschenputtel 

 or Cinderella, is a typical fairy tale ; and that in this 

 typical tale the prince obviously inherits his father's 

 kingdom, takes his bride to church, and afterwards to 

 his own home. Why, then, is mother-right any more 

 than father-right to be considered peculiar to the period 

 when fairy tales took their origin ? Why is Cinderella, 

 with its general currency and many versions, to be put 

 on one side for Hans seeks his Luck ? To answer these 

 questions, I must remind the reader that my thesis 

 is not that all, but only that the majority of Marchen 

 take their rise in matriarchal not in patriarchal times ; 

 and, further, that more than one Marchen, which is now 

 current in a patriarchal form, can be traced back to a 

 version in which the distinctive features are matriarchal. 

 This is peculiarly the case with Cinderella. 



In order to grasp this we must bear in mind how much 

 stress ought to be laid on a comparative study of the Mar- 

 chen of different lands, and how often a difficulty which 

 arises in the version current in one land or district may be 

 elucidated by that of another. Thus, take the Teutonic 



