He begs the hero to unloose the horse, promising, in return, to save him from three deaths. [Into the mystery of the forbidden chamber I will not enter fully at present. Suffice to say that there can be little doubt as to its being the same as that in which Bluebeard kept the corpses of his dead wives. In the Russian, as well as in the Oriental stories, it is generally the curiosity of a man, not of a woman, which leads to the opening of the prohibited room. In the West of Europe the fatal inquisitiveness is more frequently ascribed to a woman. For parallels see the German stories of "Marienkind," and "Fitchers Vogel." (Grimm, _KM._, Nos. 3 and 46, also the notes in Bd. iii. pp. 8, 76, 324.) Less familiar than these is, probably, the story of "Die eisernen Stiefel" (Wolf's "Deutsche Hausmärchen," 1851, No. 19), in which the hero opens a forbidden door--that of a summer-house--and sees "deep down below him the earth, and on the earth his father's palace," and is seized by a sudden longing after his former home. The Wallachian story of "The Immured Mother" (Schott, No. 2) resembles Grimm's "Marienkind" in many points. But its forbidden chamber differs from that of the German tale. In the latter the rash intruder sees "die Dreieinigkeit im Feuer und Glanz sitzen;" in the former, "the Holy Mother of God healing the wounds of her Son, the Lord Christ." In the Neapolitan story of "Le tre Corune" (Pentamerone, No. 36), the forbidden chamber contains "three maidens, clothed all in gold, sitting and seeming to slumber upon as many thrones" (Liebrecht's translation, ii. 76). The Esthonian tale of the "Wife-murderer" (Löwe's "Ehstnische Märchen," No. 20) is remarkably--not to say suspiciously--like that French story of Blue Beard which has so often made our young blood run cold. Sister Anne is represented, and so are the rescuing brothers, the latter in the person of the heroine's old friend and playmate, Tönnis the goose-herd. Several very curious Gaelic versions of the story are given by Mr. Campbell ("Tales of the West Highlands," No. 41, ii. 265-275). Two of the three daughters of a poor widow look into a forbidden chamber, find it "full of dead gentlewomen," get stained knee-deep in blood, and refuse to give a drop of milk to a cat which offers its services. So their heads are chopped off. The third daughter makes friends with the cat, which licks off the tell-tale blood, so she escapes detection. In a Greek story (Hahn, ii. p. 197) the hero discovers in the one-and-fortieth room of a castle belonging to a Drakos, who had given him leave to enter forty only, a magic horse, and before the door of the room he finds a pool of gold in which he becomes gilded.