tale, however, and if rewritten in a literary form
suited to the child, might become even preferable.

_Sleeping Beauty_, which is another romantic tale that might claim to
be the most popular fairy tale, has for its theme the long sleep of
winter and the awakening of spring. The Earth goddess, pricked by
winter's dart, falls into a deep sleep from which she is awakened by
the Sun who searches far for her. This tale is similar to the Norse
_Balder_ and the Greek _Persephone_. Some of its incidents appear also
in _The Two Brothers_, an Egyptian tale of the Nineteenth Dynasty of
Seti II, in which the Hathors who pronounce the fate of the Prince
correspond to the wicked old Fairy. The spindle whose prick caused
slumber is the arrow that wounded Achilles, the thorn which pricked
Siegfried, the mistle-toe which wounded Balder, and the poisoned nail
of the demon in _Surya Bai_. In the northern form of the story we find
the ivy, which is the one plant that can endure winter's touch. The
theme of the long sleep occurs in the mediaeval legend of _The Seven
Sleepers of Ephesus_, in the English _The King of England and His
Three Sons_, poetically as Tennyson has given it in his _Day-Dream_,
and in the _Story of Brunhilde_, in _Siegfried_. Here a hedge of
flames encircles Brunhilde who is awakened at the touch of Siegfried's
magic sword, just as Sleeping Beauty is awakened by the Prince's kiss.
The kiss may be a survival of an ancient form of worship of some local
goddess. In the Hindu _Panch-Rhul Ranee_, seven ditches surmounted by
seven hedges of spears, surround the heroine. Of the Perrault and
Grimm versions of _Sleeping Beauty_, the Perrault version is long and
complex because it contains the minor tale of the cruel stepmother
added to the main tale, while the Grimm _Briar Rose_ is a model of
structure easily separated into ten leading episodes. _Sleeping
Beauty_ appeared in Basile's _Pentamerone_ where there is given the
beautiful incident of the baby sucking the spike of flax out of its
sleeping mother's fingers. The Perrault version agrees with that of
Basile in naming the twins, who are Sun and Moon in the _Pentamerone_,
Day and Dawn.

_Red Riding Hood_ is another romantic tale[11] that could claim to be
the one most popular fairy tale of all fairy tales. Similar tales
occur in the story of the Greek Kronos swallowing his children, in the
Algonquin legend repeated in _Hiawatha_, and in an Aryan story of a
Dragon swallowi