king's son, and marries her. A large number of parallel instances might
easily be given; but they would lead us too far afield. The lady of the
Princess Hill, near Warin, in Mecklenburg, has to be held fast from
midnight until one o'clock in spite of all frightful apparitions of
snakes, dragons, and toads which crowd around and threaten the
adventurer. In the same way Peleus, desiring to secure Thetis, had to
hold her fast through her various magical changes until she found
resistance useless, and returned to her true form. In a modern Cretan
tale the hero, by the advice of an old woman, seizes at night a Nereid
by the hair and holds her until the cock crows, in spite of her changes
successively into a dog, a snake, a camel, and fire. The process of
disenchanting Tam Lin, in the ballad of that name, was for his lady-love
to take him in her arms and hold him, notwithstanding his transformation
into a snake, a bear, a lion, a red-hot iron, and lastly into a "burning
gleed," when he was to be immediately flung into a well.[176]

We have already seen that the task is sometimes to carry the maiden to a
churchyard. At the Castle Hill of Buetow she was to be carried to the
Polish churchyard and there thrown to the ground with all the
deliverer's might. A castle is said to have stood formerly on the site
of Budow Mill in Eastern Pomerania. An enchanted princess now haunts the
place. She is only to be freed by a bachelor who will carry her in
silence, and without looking behind him, around the churchyard; but the
spirits which hold her under their spell will seek in every way to
hinder her deliverance. On the Mueggelsberg is, or was (for it is said to
be now destroyed), a large stone under which a treasure lies. It was
called the Devil's Altar; and at night it often seemed, from the
neighbouring village of Mueggelsheim, to be in a blaze; but on drawing
near the fire would vanish from sight. At Koepenick, another village not
far off, it was called the Princesses' Stone, but the lake at the foot
of the hill was called the Devil's Lake. The stone was said to occupy
the site of a castle, now enchanted and swallowed up in the earth.
Beneath it a hole ran deep into the mountain, out of which a princess
was sometimes of an evening seen to come, with a casket of pure gold in
her hand. He who would carry her thrice round the church of Koepenick
without looking about him, would win the casket of gold and deliver her.
The names of the sto