(6) The flight of the brothers pursued by the Ogre in
seven-league boots.
(7) Little Thumb, stealing the boots and winning court favor, or
the Ogre's treasure.
Some say that in this tale, symbolically, the forest represents night;
the crumbs and pebbles, stars; and the Ogre, the sun. Little Thumb,
because of his cunning and invention, has been called the Ulysses of
the fairy tales. His adventure with the Ogre at the rock, while not a
parallel one, reminds one of Ulysses and Polyphemus. Both succeeded in
getting the better of the giant. An English edition of this tale was
illustrated by William Blake.
_Snow White and Rose Red_
_Snow White and Rose Red_, besides blending the romantic and the
realistic, illustrates rather completely how the old tale may stand
the tests which have been emphasized here. As a romantic type, it
contains adventure and the picturesque. It arouses emotion. It
contains objects of beauty; and the strange Bear and the stranger
Dwarf, about both of whom there is a sense of mystery. It exaggerates
character and incidents beyond the normal,--the Mother and Daughters
were more lovely than mortals usually are,--and the harmony between
man and beast may belong to the millennium rather than to this common
earth. This is one of the most romantic of fairy tales in that it is a
highly idealized type.
The story was current in Germany before the time of the Grimms, and
appeared in the collection of Caroline Stahl. The rhyme,--
Snowy-white, rosy-red,
Will ye strike your lover dead?
was taken from a popular song, and is found in a child's story in
_Taschenbuch Minerva_ for 1813.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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