boldly, till at the first flush of dawn three geese fly
thither, strip off their feathers, and plunge, as lovely maidens, into
the water to bathe. Then the youth chooses the most beautiful of the
three pairs of wings he finds on the shore, hides them, and awaits
events; nor does he give them up again to the owner until she has
betrothed herself to him. Elsewhere the damsels are described as ducks;
but a more common shape is that of doves. A story is current in Bohemia
of a boy whom a witch leads to a spring. Over the spring stands an old
elm-tree haunted by three white doves, who are enchanted princesses.
Catching one and plucking out her wings, he restores her to her natural
condition; and she brings him to his parents, whom he had lost in the
sack of the city where they dwelt. The Magyars speak of three pigeons
coming every noontide to a great white lake, where they turn somersaults
and are transformed into girls. They are really fairy-maidens; and a boy
who can steal the dress of one of them and run away with it, resisting
the temptation to look back when she calls in caressing tones, succeeds
in winning her. In the "Bahar Danush" a merchant's son perceives four
doves alight at sunset by a piece of water, and, resuming their natural
form (for they are Peries), forthwith undress and plunge into the water.
He steals their clothes, and thus compels the one whom he chooses to
accept him as her husband. The extravagance characteristic of the
"Arabian Nights," when, in the story of Janshah, it represents the
ladies as doves, expands their figures to the size of eagles, with far
less effect, however, than where they retain more moderate dimensions.
No better illustration of this can be given than the story from South
Smaland of the fair Castle east of the Sun and north of the Earth,
versified so exquisitely in "The Earthly Paradise." There a peasant,
finding that the fine grass of a meadow belonging to him was constantly
trodden down during the summer nights, set his three sons, one after
another, to watch for the trespassers. The two elder, as usual in these
tales, are unsuccessful, but the youngest keeps wide awake until the sun
is about to rise. A rustling in the air, as of birds, then heralds the
flight of three doves, who cast their feathers and become fair maidens.
These maidens begin to dance on the green grass, and so featly do they
step that they scarce seem to touch the ground. To the watching youth,
one among them