ntasy, that is, in the story, he stamps his brothers, who are in real
life more efficient, and whom he envies, as malicious, disagreeable
characters. (In real life we can generally observe how suspicious are, for
instance, physically deformed people. Their sensitiveness is well known.)
Like the fox to whom the grapes are sour, he declares that what his
stronger fellows accomplish is bad, their performance of their duty
defective, and their aims contemptible, especially in the sexual sphere,
where he feels himself openly most injured. The tale treats specifically
from the outset the conquest of a woman. The carpet, the ring, are female
symbols, the first is the body of the woman, the ring is the vagina (Greek
kteis = comb = pudenda muliebria). (The carpet is still more specifically
marked as a female symbol in that the brothers take it from the body of a
shepherdess. Shepherdess--a coarse "rag"--coarse "cloth"--in contrast to the
fine carpet of the hero.)

The simpleton is one who does not like much work. When he also ascribes
negligence to his brothers he betrays to us his own nature, in that his
"feather," i.e., himself, does not go far, while his brothers' feathers go
some distance. In order to invalidate this view of himself the
distribution of the feathers is put off on chance, as if to a higher
determining power. This has always been a favorite excuse with lazy and
inefficient people.

One of the means of consoling himself for the unattainableness of his
wishes is the belief in miracles. (Cf. my work on Phantasy and Mythos.)
The simpleton gains his advantage in a miraculous manner; roasted pigeons
fly into his mouth.

In his erotic enterprises he sticks to his own immediate neighborhood. He
clearly bears within himself an Imago that holds him fast. [This is an
image, withdrawn from consciousness and consequently indestructible, of
the object of one's earliest passion, which continues to operate as a
strongly affective complex, and takes hold upon life with a formative
effect. The most powerful Imagos are those of the parents. Here naturally
the mother imago comes to view, which later takes a position in the center
of the love life (namely the choice of object).] Whither does he turn for
his journey of conquest? Into the earth. The earth is the mother as a
familiar symbol language teaches us. Trap door, box, subterranean holes,
suggest a womb phantasy. The toad frequently appears with the significance
of the uteru