discover the secret, they peep
through the keyhole one day and see a lovely fairy come out of the
milk-jar. Then they enter their house suddenly and the girl tells her
story: the wood-cutter's wife burns the wooden lid to force her to
keep her own form, and goes to the king's son to tell him where he
will find his Pomegranate-bride again. In the Greek story a Lamnissa
eats the citron-girl, but a tiny bone falls unnoticed into the water
and becomes a gold-fish. The prince not only takes the Lamnissa home
with him, but he takes the gold-fish too, and keeps it in his room,
"for he loved it dearly." The Lamnissa never rests till he gives her
the fish to eat. Its bones are thrown into a garden and from them
springs a rose bush on which blooms a rose which the king's old
washerwoman wishes to break off to sell it at the castle. From out of
the bush springs the beautiful citron-maiden, and tells the old woman
her story. She also gives her the rose for the king's son, and in the
basket with the rose she lays a ring he had given her, but charges the
old woman to say nothing about her to him. The next day he comes to
the old woman's cottage and finds his real bride.

5. The youngest prince alone can gather the lotus-flower and
bel-fruit. Compare the Pomegranate-king, pp. 10 and 11, and paragraphs
1 and 4, pp. 245, 252, of the notes to that story. In his _Northern
Mythology_, vol. I., in the footnotes at p. 290, Thorpe mentions a
maiden's grave from which spring "three lilies which no one save her
lover may gather." I think he must quote from a Danish ballad.

6. The princess after drowning is first in a lotus-flower; then in a
bel-fruit again; and, lastly, her body is changed to a garden and
palace. Signor de Gubernatis at p. 152 of the 1st volume of his
_Zoological Mythology_ mentions an Esthonian story where a girl (she
who addressed the crow as "bird of light"--see paragraph 2, p. 259 of
the notes to "Brave Hiralalbasa") while fleeing with her lover is
thrown into the water by a magic ball sent after them by the old
witch, and there becomes "a pond-rose (lotus-flower)." Her lover eats
hogs'-flesh and thus learns the language of birds, and then sends
swallows to a magician in Finnland to ask what he must do to free his
bride. The answer is brought by an eagle; and the prince following the
magician's instructions helps the girl to recover her human form. And
just as Surya Bai is born again in her mango (_Old Deccan Days_, p.
8