ength; the reader who desires to follow it out can do
so in Mr. Frazer's profoundly interesting work on "The Golden Bough."
Assuming, however, the custom and belief, as here stated, to be
admitted, it will be seen that the underlying thought is precisely that
which we want in order to explain this mode of disenchantment. For if,
on the one hand, what looks like murder be enjoined in a number of
stories for the purpose of disenchanting a bewitched person; and if, on
the other hand, the result of solemnly slaughtering a victim be in fact
held to be simply the release of the victim's spirit--nay, if it was the
prescribed mode of releasing that spirit--to seek a new, sometimes a
better, abode in a fresh body, we may surely be satisfied that both
these have the same origin. We may then go further, and see in this
unspelling incident, performed, as in the Enchanted Princess stories, in
this way, at a haunted spot, frequently on a day of special sanctity,
one more proof that the princess herself was in the earlier shape of
the traditions no other than a goddess.

Finally: the myth of the Enchanted Princess has preserved in many of its
variants a detail more archaic than any in that of the Sleeping Hero,
and one which is decisive as to the lady's real status. If Frederick
were to arise and come forth from his sleeping-place, the Kyffhaeuser
itself would remain. If Arthur were to awake and quit the Castle Rock,
the rock itself wherein he lay would still be there. But the lake or
mountain haunted by an enchanted maiden often owes its very existence,
if not to her, at least to the spell which holds her enthralled. When
she is delivered the place will be changed: the lake will give way to a
palace; the earth will open and a buried castle will reascend to the
surface; what is now nothing but an old grey boulder will forthwith
return to its previous condition of an inhabited and stately building;
or what is now a dwelling of men will become desolate. One of the best
examples of this is the superstition I have already cited concerning
Melusina. When she finishes her needlework she will be disenchanted, but
only to die; and the ruins of the town of Luxemburg will be her grave
and monument. In other words, the existence of the town is bound up with
her enchantment,--that is to say, with her life. In the same way the
bespelled damsel of the Urschelberg, near Pfullingen, in Swabia, is
called by the very name of the mountain--the Old Ursche