of the rescue. But we may
conjecture, from the precedents, that the huntsman had to endure
torture. The issue was that he was successful, the castle ascended out
of the earth, and husband and wife were reunited.[190]

This story differs in many important respects from the type; and it
contains the incident, very rare in a modern European saga belonging to
this group, of the recovery of the bride. I shall have occasion to
revert to the curious inability of the enchanted princess to open the
chest containing the wonderful shift. Meanwhile, let me observe that in
most of the tales the feather-dress, or talisman, by which the bride may
escape, is committed to the care of a third person--usually a kinswoman
of the husband, and in many cases his mother; and that the wife as a
rule only recovers it when it is given to her, or at least when that
which contains it has been opened by another: she seems incapable of
finding it herself.

There is another type of the Swan-maiden myth, which appears to be the
favourite of the Latin nations, though it is also to be met with among
other peoples. Its outline may, perhaps, best be given from the nursery
tale of the Marquis of the Sun, as told at Seville. The Marquis of the
Sun was a great gamester. A man played with him and lost all he had, and
then staked his soul--and lost it. The Marquis instructed him, if he
desired to recover it, to come to him when he had worn out a pair of
iron shoes. In the course of his wanderings he finds a struggle going on
over a dead man, whose creditors would not allow him to be buried until
his debts had been paid. Iron Shoes pays them, and one shoe goes to
pieces. He afterwards meets a cavalier, who reveals himself as the dead
man whose debts had been paid, and who is desirous of requiting that
favour. He therefore directs Iron Shoes to the banks of a river where
three white doves come, change into princesses, and bathe. Iron Shoes is
to take the dress of the smallest, and thus get her to tell him whither
he has to go. Obeying this direction, he learns from the princess that
the Marquis is her father; and she shows him the way to his castle.
Arrived there, he demands his soul. Before conceding it the Marquis sets
him tasks: to level an inconvenient mountain, so that the sun may shine
on the castle; to sow the site of the mountain with fruit trees, and
gather the fruit of them in one day for dinner; to find a piece of plate
which the Marquis's great-grand