In nearly all complicated fairy tales there is some kind of conflict. The hero must overcome obstacles in order that he may at last win his reward. A large series of stories throughout the European and western Asiatic area confront the hero with some type of supernatural adversary. Frequently the exact nature of the opponent is not made clear or will vary from one version of the story to another. In those which we shall first consider this adversary is sometimes a dragon, a horrible animal, or simply an undefined monster.

In spite of the unstable character of the chief opponent, the tales relating to these adventures are well defined and are among the best known of all narratives current in this area. [p. 24]

If one wished to study the ways in which a tale in the course of centuries becomes scattered over the whole of Europe he could not do better than to direct his attention to the two closely related folktales, The Two Brothers (Type 303) [11] and The Dragon Slayer (Type 300). The Two Brothers, as a regular part of its construction, contains almost the whole of The Dragon Slayer, so that it is necessary to study the two tales together if one is to secure an accurate picture of their mutual relationships, and of the history of the two stories, both when they are merged together and when they exist separately. In his thorough study of these two types Ranke [12] has had available for analysis some 770 versions of The Two Brothers and 368 of The Dragon Slayer. When it is realized that practically all examples of the first story contain the second, and that since the appearance of Ranke's study more than a hundred additional variants of the two stories have been reported, it will be clear that about 1100 examples of The Dragon Slayer are now known, and new ones are being constantly collected.

It will be convenient to discuss The Dragon Slayer as an independent story before considering its relationship to other tales with which it has combined. As a result of his analytical study Ranke has arrived at a form of the tale which would seem to include all the original elements. From this form, or one very much like it, all the other thousand or more variants seem to have been derived. This reconstruction is as follows: A poor married couple have two children, a boy and a girl. When the parents die they leave behind them only a small house and three sheep. The girl inherits the house, and the boy the animals. He exchanges these animals for three marvelous dogs and sets out with them into the world. On the way he meets an old man (or a woman) from whom, in recognition of a courtesy which he has shown, he receives a magic sword or a magic stick. Everything that he strikes with it will fall dead.

He arrives at the royal city which he finds all hung with black cloth, and he learns at an inn of the cause of the mourning. He discovers that a seven-headed dragon who lives on a mountain in the neighborhood demands periodically a maiden as a sacrifice, else he will lay waste the entire country. The sacrifice has been agreed upon and the lot has fallen to the princess. The king promises that whoever saves her shall have her hand and half his kingdom.

The young man goes with his animals to the place where the dragon lives and reaches there at the same time as the princess, who has been brought by the king's coachman. He approaches her, comforts her, and promises to fight the dragon for her. The monster appears with a great roar, but the young man does not let himself be frightened. He goes against him and with his [p. 25] sword strikes off all his heads. In this action, the dogs help him by holding the dragon fast. The hero now cuts out the tongues from the dragon's heads and puts them into his pocket. The rescued princess wishes him to go back with her to her father to receive the promised reward, but the hero wants to wander about for a while and to experience adventures. They agree upon a definite time when they will see each other again. He bids her to preserve silence in spite of everything, and goes on his way.

The coachman, who has accompanied the princess and has remained near by so as to see what happens, comes now and threatens her with death if she will not agree, on oath, to tell the king that it is he who has slain the dragon. As further witness, he takes along the heads of the slain dragon. These he shows to the king and, supported by the declaration of the princess, demands the promised reward. The king is much pleased, and sets a time for the wedding. His daughter, however, is able to have it postponed until the time when she has agreed to meet her rescuer. But when at this time he still does not appear, the time for the wedding is definitely fixed.

On the very day of the wedding the young man arrives in the city which is now, in contrast to the first time, decorated in red. In the same inn he inquires about the rejoicing and learns of the wedding. The innkeeper expresses the wish that he may have food to eat from the royal table, and the young man sends his dogs several times with a basket and with a message written on a card tied to their necks. The princess recognizes the animals and fulfills the directions of her rescuer. She, or the king, orders him to be invited in and he appears at the castle. He immediately declares that he is the real dragon slayer and asks whether the dragon heads have tongues in them. The heads are brought forth and it appears that they have none. The young man takes them out of his pocket and lays each of them in that particular head where it fits. The king and all those present acknowledge him as the true rescuer of the princess and immediately carry out the marriage of the two. The impostor is punished.

The related story of The Two Brothers actually provides a larger number of examples of that part of the story given above containing the dragon slaying, the impostor, the dragon-tongue proof, and the marriage with the princess than does the form we have just discussed. Nearly 800 of these stories are known, and only a few lack the dragon fight. This story in outline is as follows: [13]

A fisherman who has no children catches the King of the Fishes, who begs to be let loose. In return for his freedom he promises the fisherman other fish or shows him the place where they can be caught. When the fisherman catches him the second time the Fish once more persuades him to let him swim away. When this happens a third time, the Fish advises the fisherman to cut him up into a certain number of pieces and to give one part each to his [p. 26] wife, to his mare, and to his dog, and to bury the rest in the garden under a tree. The wife bears two sons, and at the same time the mare and dog each give birth to two young ones, and in the garden there grow two swords and trees. The twin boys are nearly identical, as are also the animals.

When the boys grow up, the first of them wishes to go out into the world. If any misfortune should happen to him his particular tree will fade and the brother will come to his rescue.

He sets forth with his sword, horse, and dog, and after a while arrives at a royal city. From this point on the story is identical with The Dragon Slayer tale given above, but after the marriage with the princess the narrative proceeds:

On the marriage night the curiosity of the young king is aroused by an extraordinary sight, a fire in the woods or on a mountain. He asks his wife about the appearance of this fire, and she tells him that no one who has gone to the fire has ever returned. She warns him not to follow it. But he is overcome with the desire for adventure and decides to find out the cause of this mystery. He saddles his horse and rides with his dog and sword toward the light of the fire. He comes to a house in which lives an old woman who is a witch. She pretends to be afraid of his dog and bids him to lay one of her hairs on it so that the dog will be quiet and not harm her. The young man performs her bidding. The hair transforms itself into a chain. She now approaches and strikes him with a rod and turns him to stone.

Back home the tree fades, and the second brother sees from this that the first is in dire peril or possibly dead. He saddles his horse, takes his dog and sword, and sets forth. After a long wandering he comes to the city in which his brother has become king. The innkeeper with whom he first stops and the young queen to whom he then goes mistake him for her husband, since he looks exactly like his brother. He realizes immediately that people are mistaking him for his brother and he lets them believe this, so that he may more easily find out something about his brother's fate.

At night when he is to sleep with his sister-in-law, he lays the naked sword between her and him.

He also sees the curious light and asks about its occurrence. The queen is astonished at his question, which she remembers to have already answered once, and warns him a second time. But he rides away, since he realizes now where his brother has had his misfortune, and comes to the hut and finds the old woman. He does not obey her order to lay the hair on the dog, but he sets the dog on to the witch and threatens her with death. She gives him the rod with which she has enchanted the first brother, and he strikes the stone with it and in this way disenchants him. The old woman is killed, and both brothers return together to the city.

Such, in a general form, are these two well-known tales. It will be noticed that when the incident of the dragon slaying is used in the Two Brothers [p. 27] story the only modification necessary is that the hero be accompanied by only one dog instead of three. Several other possible introductions are to be found and some differences in detail, but the story as given above has a remarkable stability over the entire area where it is found.

Both forms, the longer Two Brothers tale and the simpler Dragon Rescue story, have approximately the same distribution. A definite indication of this distribution will be interesting as showing the relative importance of boundary lines, national, racial, cultural, or linguistic, for determining the dissemination of a widely-known tale which has been handed down by word of mouth for a long time. In the following list the number of reported versions of the Two Brothers story are given first and then those for the simpler Dragon Rescue tale. It will be noted that all of them contain the central core: the rescue from the dragon, the impostor, the dragon-tongue proof, and the marriage with the princess. The distribution is as follows:

German 65 57 Cashubian 5 0 Jewish 2 0

Dutch 1 0 Polish 0 11 5 Caucasian 11 1

Flemish 14 9 Great Russian 15 0 Armenian 1 0

Danish 66 129 White Russian 6 0 Persian 2 0

Swedish 11 8 Little Russian 13 0 Indic 6 2

Finnish-Swedish 8 13 Lithuanian 47 88 Cambodian 1 0

Norwegian 42 18 Lettish 67 9 Malayan 2 2

Icelandic and Faroe 3 0 Estonian 31 1 Japanese 0 1

French 14 2 Livonian 3 0 Arabian in Africa 3 3

Rhaetian 3 2 Finnish 141 2 Berber and Kabyle 8 2

Italian 27 14 Lappish 3 5 Central African 5 8

Spanish 8 4 Volga peoples (Mordvinian) 1 0 Madagascar 1 0

Portuguese 5 3 Votyak 1 0 North American Indian 8 8

Roumanian 21 2 Hungarian 15 0 Cape Verde Island 3 1

Breton 3 2 Osman 3 0 French Canadian 1 0

Scottish 3 1 Chuvassian 7 0 Jamaican 2 1

Irish 10 4 Basque 2 4 Puerto Rican 5 3

Serbo-Croatian 15 1 Albanian 4 0 Haitian 0 1

Bulgarian 3 0 Greek 5 4 Mexican 0 1

Czech and Slovak 38 23 Gypsy 5 5 Brazilian 2 2

Wend 0 2

If certain countries in this list seem to be represented with a disproportionate number, it must be borne in mind that collecting has been much more thoroughly carried out in Germany, Denmark, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Finland than in most other countries. It seems quite certain, for example, that if French tales had been thoroughly collected during the last generation their showing would be much better. As it is, every French collection which we possess indicates the presence of these tales in the area which it covers. [p. 28]

The place where a folktale is most likely to suffer change is in its introduction, where a preliminary action really proper to another story but capable of being logically joined to the one in question is easily substituted. Such a substitution may very well be accepted and may set up a new tradition which, in a limited area, may live on side by side with the more regular form of the tale. This has happened with the two stories we are considering.

In The Two Brothers there has occurred confusion with the story of The Magic Bird-Heart (Type 567). [14] Since this is a tale of two brothers with magic objects, the confusion is not strange. This introduction generally appears as follows: A poor man comes into possession of a magic bird which lays golden eggs. The man sells the eggs and becomes rich. Once he goes on a journey and leaves the bird behind with his wife. She is persuaded to serve the bird to her lover for dinner. The bird possesses a marvelous characteristic—that whoever eats of its head will become ruler and whoever consumes the heart will have gold appear under his pillow while he sleeps. The bird is prepared, but by chance falls into the hands of the sons of the house hold, and the young men, without knowing of the wonderful power of the bird, eat the head and the heart. From this point on in the story we usually have an account of the loss and recovery of the magic powers, but the narrative may also proceed with the parting of the brothers and the regular adventures proper to The Two Brothers.

Another story frequently amalgamated with The Two Brothers is the East European tale of The Three Brothers. This begins with the fishing episode of The Two Brothers, proceeds with adventures proper to supernaturally strong men (Type 650), then, with some variation, goes into The Two Brothers tale. The very nature of the story, however, makes it necessary to repeat many episodes. For example, the first two brothers fall into the hands of the witch, and the sleeping with the naked sword is repeated.

In some twenty percent of all versions of The Two Brothers occurs the motif of The Jealous Brother. In these tales the younger brother, having been resuscitated and having heard that his brother has slept with his wife, kills his rescuer. Then on hearing the truth he repents and resuscitates him. Ranke feels that this ending is hardly an original part of the story since it is far from uniform in its occurrence, and since the means of resuscitation is usually the same as that already used for disenchantment in the same tale. On the other hand, the motif is not a recent invention. It occurs in Basile's Pentamerone (1634-36) and also has a wide distribution, indicative of a relatively long history.

These are the most important variations of The Dragon Slayer and The Two Brothers. Ranke has attempted, on the basis of his huge collection and his careful analysis, to arrive at some conclusions as to the history of the stories. It seems clear that The Dragon Slayer is the older of the two stories, [p. 29] and that The Two Brothers has simply taken over this old tale as a cluster of motifs in its composition. Ranke's study is not concerned with any possible earlier forms of The Dragon Slayer before it assumed its present definite structure. He realizes that the concept of the dragon is old; he sees unmistakable resemblances between this story and the Greek myth of Perseus and Andromeda, and with many older tales of rescues from monsters. He knows also that, as Hartland has pointed out in his three-volume work on The Legend of Perseus, many of the separate motifs in the story, such as the life-token, the enchantment and disenchantment, and the magic birth, are found in nearly all parts of the world, and may appear in a multitude of narrative connections. But with more than a thousand examples of the fully developed stories before him, he has confined his task to the establishment of a typical form of the tale which would approximate the original from which all the rest have been derived. These typical forms of the tale are those which we have outlined here.

On the basis of the entire study, he is convinced that The Dragon Slayer as we know it at present was developed in western Europe where the versions are closest to the typical form. As one goes east, greater and greater variation occurs. Particular departures from type show special geographic distribution, and are therefore to be listed as different redactions of the tale. To illustrate once for all the way in which such a story develops new forms, let us examine these redactions of The Dragon Slayer (and the Dragon Rescue episode of The Two Brothers) as worked out by Ranke.

I. The Romance Cycle of Redactions

(a) French. Like type except that in about half of versions impostor is a charcoal burner.

(b) French Colonial. On the periphery of French, and in the colonies (Cambodia, North America, Malay peoples).

(c) Spanish. Like French but not so regularly developed. Impostor a charcoal burner or Negro. In 63 percent of Type 303 no dragon fight. Spain, Puerto Rico, Jamaica.

(d) Portuguese. Like French. But one Portuguese and Brazilian have introduction from Hansel and Gretel. Portugal, Cape Verde Islands, Brazil.

(e) Italian. Near to original form. Basile's version (1634), recent Italian, Albanian.

(f) General Romance redaction. Main characteristics: periodic sacrifice to dragon. Change of details as one gets away from France. Found (in addition to Romance countries) in all parts of Europe. This form has apparently spread through Germany to Scandinavia, the Baltic Countries, and Russia and sporadically to Japan. [p. 30]

II. Central European. No periodic sacrifice to dragon. Sometimes this may be an unintentional omission. The spread is from Germany eastward and in a few cases northward. Some of these tales may be influenced directly by Grimm's version.

III. The Murder Redaction. The dragon slayer is killed by the impostor and later resuscitated. About half the Two Brothers tales in this group have The Magic Bird Heart (Type 567) as introduction, and thus show the influence of Grimm. It is a German reworking of the Romance redaction and then a dissemination (a) to Scandinavia and the Baltic, (b) to South Germany and the Balkans, and (c) to Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Little Russia.

IV. The Northern Redaction Cycle.

(a) General Northern Redaction. Giant adventure precedes dragon fight. Red Knight attempts rescue but in fear climbs tree and witnesses fight, later to appear as impostor. Three dragons. Battle at sea side. Princess louses hero and leaves ring in his hair. Recognition by ring. This version is certainly Scandinavian, probably from Norway (1) to Denmark and North Germany, (2) to Sweden and the Baltic countries, (3) to Scotland.

Of this Northern cycle, Ranke distinguishes a number of sub-groups: (b) Porter (hero as porter for king; dragon knocks at door). Denmark to Schleswig-Holstein. (c, d, e) "Peril" redactions (no sacrifice, but king has promised daughter to monster to save his life). Denmark to rest of Scandinavia and Finland, (f) Danish hesitation redaction (dragon postpones sacrifice three days), (g) Lillekort ("little short"). Tiny hero. Dragon fight plus experience with sea troll. Recognition by costly garments of princess. Norway to all parts of Scandinavia, (h) Finnish wake redaction. Like Norwegian but princess awakens hero who sleeps with his head on her lap. (i) Glass mountain tradition. Continuation with Type 530. In Denmark and Holstein. (k) Swedish Dragon Slayer redaction (no examples of Two Brothers). Three trolls, three princesses. First two brothers successful. Third brother rescued by his dogs. Sweden (1) to Pomerania, Schleswig Holstein and Denmark (2) to Finland. (1) Troll redactions. Miscellaneous adventures with trolls. Only in Denmark.

V. Binding redaction. Ogre magically bound. A mixture with Type 330. Seven German versions and scattered to Baltic countries, Denmark and as far southeast as Serbia. Only a few versions.

VI. Irish shoe redaction. Slipper recognition like Cinderella. Otherwise resembles Northern redaction.

VII. Spring redaction. Dragon guards spring and refuses to give people water. Arose in Balkans. Then (1) to Hungary, Russia, Poland, and [p. 31] Baltic States, (2) to Greece and Turkey and around the Mediterranean to North and Central Africa and to Cape Verde Islands.

VIII. Baltic Impostor redaction. Like Central European (II) but hero places the dragon tongues under a stone which the impostor cannot lift. From Baltic to Finland, Poland, and Russia.

IX. Slavic Waking redaction. Hero sleeping with head in princess's lap is awakened by hot tears. Expansion of Central European (II). Great Russia to (1) Baltic lands, (2) Little Russia, Roumania, Greece, Arabia.

X. Baltic Wrestling redaction. Hero and dragon sink into ground as they struggle. Baltic countries and Denmark.

XI. Lettish Devil redaction. Like Central European (II) but devil or devils instead of dragon. From Latvia to other Baltic countries.

This investigation of the Dragon Rescue both in The Dragon Slayer (Type 300) and in The Two Brothers (Type 303) shows certain obvious facts about its history. The place in which the form characteristic of these two tale-types took shape would seem to be France, both because the French versions are nearer to the typical form and also because dissemination from France in all directions offers the best explanation of the distribution of the tale. From France it went to the Hispanic peninsula and thence to the New World. Eastward it spread to Germany and southeastward to Italy. Secondary centers of dissemination in these two places sent the tale, modified in many ways, into surrounding countries. From Germany it went to Scandinavia, the Baltic countries, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Balkans. In both Norway and Denmark new redactions arose and spread —the Norwegian to Denmark, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Danish to all the rest of Scandinavia, to North Germany and Finland. From Italy it traveled to the surrounding islands of Sicily and Malta and to Albania, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. Less important centers of dissemination are the Baltic States, Great Russia, and Yugoslavia.

The very few versions of this tale found outside of Europe are clearly the result of the telling of the story by travelers or colonists. The American Indian variants are all from the French or Spanish, and the Cape Verde Island from the Portuguese. The appearance in Cambodia, Sunda Island, and Japan is purely sporadic.

Careful analysis of the Dragon Slayer story indicates that literary versions have had very little, if any, influence on its development. It has apparently spread east over Europe and only slightly into countries beyond, where it has undoubtedly been carried long distances by travelers or colonists.

The Two Brothers (Type 303) seems likewise to have arisen in western Europe and very likely in northern France. From there it has traveled in all directions, and the farther it has gone from this center, the more changes [p. 32] have taken place in its structure. The redactions do not correspond exactly to those of the Dragon Slayer episode which forms a part of it, but the general picture of the dissemination shows a similar group of centers: France as primary and Germany, Italy, Spain, and Denmark as secondary. It is impossible to tell just how old these two tales are. They have usually been placed as among the oldest stories belonging to the European tradition. As for The Dragon Slayer(Type 300), Ranke cites four reasons for believing that it is very old. (1) It has a great variety of redactions, each of which has taken time to develop and to spread far and in great numbers. (2) It is combined with other forms (especially Type 303) in spite of the fact that it has developed a form of its own which has a wide and active distribution. (3) Since it is possible to show special developments within particular redaction cycles, but often no direct connection between the various redactions, these fundamental differences must go far back. (4) Its presence Type 303 shows that it is at least as old as that type.

As mentioned before, Ranke is not attempting a history of The Dragon Slayer before it assumed the typical form found in the modern folktale. What its connection with Perseus and Andromeda or with Saint George and the Dragon may be he does not consider. There may well have been such older dragon fight stories which served as a foundation for the present tale, but the special complex which seems to have spread outward from France had taken on all of its present characteristics before its dissemination began. And it is only with the history of this fully formed tale that he is concerned.

As to The Two Brothers (Type 303) Ranke considers it as distinctly younger than the Dragon Rescue episode which it contains. It appears in the Bjarka saga of the fourteenth century and in Basile in the seventeenth. Its distribution would indicate considerable age, though its logical and complex structure, Ranke thinks, prevent it from being placed too far back.

In the case of both these tales (Types 300 and 303) the conclusions about age are extremely vague. They both have old elements, but as well-formed tale-types they would not seem to go back to antiquity. A combination of the currents of population movements since the beginning of the Middle Ages and the natural slow spreading of tales from place to place offers sufficient explanation for the present phenomenal distribution of these two tales over Europe and their sporadic occurrence in other continents.

Although the two stories which we have just considered in detail are those usually associated with the dragon fight, the dragon may also figure as the supernatural adversary in several other well-known tales. There is a tendency in these other stories, however, to leave the nature of the ogre or monster very vague—sometimes with human form, sometimes as a giant, and some times as a frightful being in half animal form.

Probably the best known of this whole group of stories is John the Bear, [p. 33] or The Bear's Son (Type 301). [15] In the most usual form of this tale, the hero has supernatural strength because of his marvelous birth. He has been supernaturally conceived or else he is the son of a bear who has stolen his mother. Even as a small boy he shows his extraordinary strength by breaking tools or by killing his playmates. He is eventually sent off from home and on his way he is joined by several extraordinary companions, a man of extraordinary sight, a keen hearer, and a great runner. [16] The three companions come to a house in the woods. They take turns in keeping house while the others are abroad. One after the other they are attacked by a monster who comes from an opening in the earth. On the third day, the hero keeps house and chases the monster through the hole to his abode in the lower world. His two companions let him down after the monster by means of a long rope, and they await his return while he has adventures in the lower world. There he finds a marvelous sword and conquers several monsters and rescues three maidens. He returns to the rope and has his companions raise the girls to the upper world. They take the girls off with them and leave him to his fate below.

He eventually reaches the upper world through the help of a spirit or, more often, of an eagle who carries him on his back and who demands to be fed. The hero feeds the eagle with his own flesh. He arrives at the home of the rescued princesses on the wedding day and, just as in the Dragon Rescue story, he sends his dogs to steal from the wedding feast, presents tokens, unmasks his rivals, and marries the most beautiful of the princesses.

Most versions of the tale are fairly true to the outline just given. Frequently, however, an entirely different introduction appears. A monster comes in the night and steals from the king's orchard. One after the other, the king's sons guard the orchard and watch for the monster. The youngest son pursues the thief and follows him into the lower world. The elder brothers wait for the hero, expecting to pull him up on a rope. The treacherous abandonment, the theft of the girls, and the conclusion of the story are exactly alike, whether introduced by John the Bear or by the Watch for the Devastating Monster.

This story is one of the most popular in the world. It is scattered over the whole of Europe, being especially well known in the Baltic states and in Russia. It is found in the Near East and North Africa but seems to have traveled only in fragments as far east as India. It is very popular among the French and Spanish who have taken it to America, where it has been adopted by American Indian tribes and also is told by the French in Canada and in Missouri. [p. 34]

In the story of The Skillful Hunter (Type 304) the supernatural opponents are usually spoken of as giants. With his magic gun which he has received from a green-clad huntsman or from an old woman, the hero displays his skill as a marksman. Among other exhibitions is the shooting of meat from the hands of giants. With these giants he agrees to go to abduct a queen. He enters the palace and then calls the giants in. As they enter one by one, he cuts off their heads. In the palace he finds a sleeping princess and lies with her without waking her. When he leaves he takes from her a handkerchief, a ring, or the like to use as a token. As in the Dragon Rescue story, an impostor comes forth and this time claims to be the unknown father of the princess's child. She refuses to marry him, however, and is punished by being made to live in a house in the woods and cook for everyone, or else to stay at an inn where all comers must tell their life history. In due time the hero appears to her, tells his story, produces his token, and receives the princess in marriage.

This tale has some interesting motifs, especially the deception of the giants and the princess's recognition in the inn, but it has never achieved great popularity among taletellers. Although it is current through most of central Europe and as far east as the Caucasus, only a single version appears in France, and no other so far west. Even in Finland, where tales have been so well collected, there are but few variants, and in the huge Lithuanian collections it does not appear at all, nor has it been carried by travelers or colonists to other continents. In all, not more than seventy-five versions have thus far been reported. [17]

The tale of The Danced-out Shoes (Type 306) presents the supernatural opponent of the hero in human form and as the lover of the princess. [18] It is discovered that a princess absents herself at night and always returns with her shoes danced to pieces. She is offered in marriage to the man who can solve the mystery of her conduct. She has succeeded in giving a narcotic to all those who have tried to follow her, but the hero refuses to drink and accompanies her on a magic underground journey. He possesses the power of making himself invisible and is able to observe her when she dances with the super natural being whom she visits every night. By means of tokens which he has brought from this subterranean realm, he is able to prove his story and to claim his reward.

This tale, like the last, seems to be primarily Central European with most frequent appearance in the area from Serbia north to Finland. It does not, so far as is now known, go east of Russia and is represented but once in France and Portugal. A single version is found in central Africa, and it has not thus [p. 35] far been reported in any other continents. Within its rather narrow geographical range it seems to be fairly popular, since somewhat more than a hundred variants are known.

The heroine in The Danced-out Shoes does not seem to be anxious to be rescued from her otherworld lover. In most tales, however, these supernatural lovers have forced themselves upon the princess and keep her in duress. One of the most popular tales of rescue from such an ogre lover is the story of The Monster with His Heart in the Egg (Type 302). The hero comes into possession of certain magic objects or powers which he finds useful in his adventures. He secures these magic aids in various ways: in some versions from grateful animals for whom he has made a just division of food, in some from giants whom he tricks into trading him their magic objects, in some from his animal brothers-in-law who give him the power of self-transformation. In any case, he hears that a princess has been carried off by an ogre and he goes to her rescue. He finds her and together they plot against the life of her unwelcome lover. She beguiles the ogre into telling her where he keeps his heart or what his life is bound up with. He tells her that his heart is to be found in a certain egg, very difficult of access or in a bird or insect which is guarded by dangerous beasts. The hero follows the instructions she gives him and finds the ogre's heart. When he destroys the heart, the ogre dies and the hero returns the princess to her home and receives his reward and takes the princess as his wife.

In the whole area from Ireland to India this tale has had a deserved popularity. It is frequently well told and the adventures of the hero and the princess in overcoming the monster lover have wide appeal to those who listen to tales of wonder. Within this area the tale has been reported some 250 times and seems to be well represented everywhere. In contrast to all the stories thus far mentioned it is popular in India. It has been pointed out that the versions in Asia place the ogre's heart in a bird or insect, whereas the typical European form has it in the egg. The story has been carried several times to Africa and to America, where it has taken its place in the traditions of the native Africans and the American Indians.