aken possession of it; on the other hand, to that of the
Briar Rose, illustrated by Mr. Burne Jones' series of paintings.

The Briar Rose, or The Beauty of Sleeping Wood, as it comes to us from
Perrault's hands, is the story of a maiden who was cursed by an offended
fairy to pierce her hand with a spindle and to die of it--a curse
afterwards mitigated into a sleep of a hundred years. Every effort was
made by the king, her father, to avert the doom, but in vain; and for a
whole century the princess and all her court remained in the castle in a
magical sleep, while the castle itself and all within it were protected
from intrusion by an equally magical growth of brambles and thorns,
which not only prevented access, but entirely hid it from view. At
length a king's son found his way in at the very moment the fated period
came to an end; or, as we have it in other versions, he awakened the
maiden with a kiss. In the old stories of the Niblungs and the Volsungs
Odin has pricked the shield-maid Brynhild with a sleep-thorn, and thus
condemned her to sleep within the shield-burg on Hindfell. Attracted by
the appearance of fire, Sigurd comes to the shield-burg and, finding
Brynhild, releases her from her slumber by ripping up her armour with
his sword. This is chronologically the earliest form of the myth of the
Enchanted Princess with which we are acquainted; and it is interwoven
with the very fibres of the Teutonic mythology. It is no wonder,
therefore, that the Germans have given it so prominent a place in their
folklore. So far as now appears it is less conspicuous in the folklore
of the other European races with the exception of the Slaves, and when
it does show itself it shows itself chiefly as a _maerchen_. But,
although what we know of the folklore of the Teutonic and Slavonic races
may suggest reasons for this, we must not forget how rarely we can
dogmatize with safety on national characteristics. To this rule the
folklore of a nation is no exception; nay, rather, the rule applies with
a double emphasis to a subject the scientific investigation of which has
so lately begun and has yet achieved so little.

Declining this speculation, therefore, we turn to a last point in the
sagas before us, namely, the propitious time for the disenchantment.
Different times of the year are spoken of for this purpose. In some
stories it is Advent, or New Year's night, when the lady makes her
appearance and may be delivered. In a Pomerania