remarkable parallel in the Saga
of Aslaug, the daughter of Brunhild and Sigurd. Here the King Ragnar
demands that Aslaug should come to him naked yet clothed, eating yet
not eating, not alone but without companion. She uses the fish-net as
in the Folk-Tale, bites into an onion, and takes her dog along with
her. From the last incident some of the Folk-Tales have possibly taken
the awkward attitude of limping along with one of her feet on the back
of a dog. But the first incident, being dragged along in a fish-net,
is so unlikely to occur to anybody's mind without prompting, that one
cannot help agreeing with the Grimms that the incident was taken into
the Folk-Tale from the Saga, or that both were derived from a common
source. On the whole subject of the curious ride, R. Kohler has an
elaborate treatment in his _Gesammelte Schriften_, i., 446-56.

The attraction of the riddle for the folk mind is well known, and
before the spread of cards appears to have been one of the chief forms
of gambling in which even life was staked, as in the case of Samson or
the Sphinx. In the Folk-Tale it often occurs in the form of the
Riddle-Bride-Wager, in which a princess is married to him that can
guess some elaborate conundrum. The first two of Child's Ballads deal
with similar riddles, and his notes are a mine of erudition on the
subject: on the Clever Lass herself see his elaborate treatment,
_English Ballads_, i., 485 _seq._

It is perhaps worthy of note that the questions as to the strongest,
most beautiful, and richest occur in Plutarch's Symposium, 152 a, and
it is a striking coincidence that, in the same treatise, 151 b, occurs
another practical riddle, how to drink up the ocean, which occurs in
several variants of the Clever Lass. But there is no evidence of any
story connection between the two riddles in Plutarch, and one can
easily imagine this sort of verbal amusement spreading from the
learned to the folk.

The plan by which the Clever Lass becomes reconciled to the King, by
carrying off what is dearest to her, is found in the Midrash probably
as early as the eighth century. A still more remarkable parallel is
that of the True Wives of Weinsberg who, when that town was invested,
were allowed by the besiegers to carry off with them whatever they
liked best. When the town gate was opened they tottered forth, each of
them carrying her husband on her shoulders. But whether the incident
ever really occurred, and if it occurred,