Such, then, seems to be the relationship of The Water of Life and allied motives to the main theme of our study,--purely subsidiary and relatively late. The theory which has been proposed involves the necessity of placing the entrance of the Semitic maerchen into Europe not much earlier than the twelfth century, though such matters of chronology must be left somewhat to speculation; it shows the points of contact between the various motives concerned; and it avoids contradictions of space and time. Writer and reader may perhaps congratulate themselves on finding so clear a road through the maze. Should subsequent discovery of material necessitate modification of the views here expressed, it should be welcomed by both with equal pleasure. CHAPTER VII. THE RELATIONS OF THE GRATEFUL DEAD TO THE SPENDTHRIFT KNIGHT, THE TWO FRIENDS, AND THE THANKFUL BEASTS. We have met at various points in our study with tales in which the motive of the hero's fateful journey was his impoverishment through extravagance; we have seen that many variants make the division of a child part of the agreement between the ghost and the hero; and we have noted the appearance of the ghost in the form of a beast in a large number of instances. The bearing of these phenomena we shall do well to investigate before proceeding to general conclusions. Occurring as they do in versions which have been assigned on other accounts to different categories, are they of sufficient importance to disturb the classification already proposed? Furthermore, what cause can be found for their introduction? Are they in reality sporadic, or are they the result of some determinable factor in the history of the cycle? Eleven variants, namely, Richars, Oliver, Lope de Vega, Dianese, Old Swedish, Icelandic I., Icelandic II., Rittertriuwe, Treu Heinrich, and Sir Amadas, have more or less clearly expressed the motive of a knight who has exhausted his patrimony and goes out to recruit his fortunes by winning a princess in a tourney. The figure of such a knight or adventurer is not an uncommon one in the fiction of Europe, and scarcely requires illustration. Of the variants just named all except Oliver, Lope de Vega, and Old Swedish actually state that the hero sets out from home on account of his poverty. In the two former the motive of the incestuous stepmother is introduced in place of this, and in Old Swedish the trait is obscured without any substitution, implying that the hero is led merely by ambition to undertake the tourney. On the other hand, the tourney occurs in all save Icelandic I. and II., which are the only folk-tales in the list. The second of these, moreover, makes the hero a merchant instead of a knight; but since the two come from the same island and are in other respects rather similar, [214] this is perhaps not very significant.