forgetting. It is related in one of the Icelandic settings, that the prince, returning home, drank water (in spite of the warning of the bride!) from a golden goblet, and as a result forgot the bride.
In "The True Bride" (Rittershaus) we have a wish-structure of a sexual nature from the standpoint of Isol. Instead of the wish-prince being enchanted and changed by a bad power into a sexually symbolic form, here the forgetting of the bride is brought about by the sorceress, and the overcoming of the difficulty and the wish-fulfillment lies in this, that Isol is able to bring his memory back, similarly as the heroine in the "Forgotten Bride," through other means. In a Greek fairy tale[1] the princess also[2] escapes a dragon by letting herself be locked in a chest. This chest comes now into the possession of her beloved, who as a result of the mother's kiss had forgotten the bride. After a few days the maiden is discovered by him and he marries her (Rittershaus, p. 132).
In a fairy tale cited from Rittershaus (p. 141–2), Jonides and Hildur, after many persecutions, reach the castle of Jonides' parents from whom Jonides had once been stolen by a dragon. Hildur rubs an ointment on him which works so that Jonides cannot forget Hildur when he goes in the castle in order to be proclaimed the lawful king. Then comes along a bitch and licks the ointment off and Jonides forgets his bride completely and marries a maiden, who later turns out to be the sorceress whom Hildur had meant to annihilate. Then later it happens that he finds Hildur in a peasant village after he has lost his way. She anoints him with the same salve and then there returns to him the memory of his bride whom he marries.
The motive of forgetting in fairy tales has the same significance that we have learned from Freud's researches into the meaning of forgetting.[3]
Isol, for example, finds the beautiful boy Tistram on the shore and rescues him in order later to espouse him. In this way is indicated the association in youth of the love and play of children
- ↑ Schmidt, "Griechische Märchen, Sagen und Volkslieder," Leipzig, 1877, Pd. 12. "Der Drache," cited from Rittershaus.
- ↑ The above fairy tale is related to the chest motive. The chest, which is to be opened by the beloved, looks very sexually symbolic.
- ↑ See Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series, No. 15.
