longing to the Cinderella group represents the heroine
as changed into a reindeer-cow by an ogress who takes her place as wife
and mother. But her babe will not be comforted; so a woman, to whose
care he is committed, carries him into the forest, and sings the
following incantation:

"Little blue eyes, little red-fell,
Come thou thine own son to suckle,
Feed whom thou hast given birth to!
Of that cannibal nought will he,
Never drinks from that bloodsucker;
For her breasts to him are loathsome,
Nor can hunger drive him to them."

The reindeer cannot withstand this appeal. She casts her skin, and comes
in human form to suckle her child. This results, after two repetitions
in the husband's burning the reindeer hide and clasping her in his arms.
But, like Peleus, he has to hold her fast in spite of various
transformations, until he has overcome the charm and has her once more
in her pristine shape![237]

It was not strength so much as boldness and tenacity that conquered
here. In the Kaffir story the husband's first attempt to pull his wife
out of the water by sheer force failed. Thus, too, in one of the
Tirolese stories already mentioned the husband lies in wait for his wife
when she returns, as usual, to comb her little girl's hair on a
Saturday. He catches her by the arm as she enters; and she tells him
that if he can hold her for a little while she must stay: otherwise she
will never come again. All his strength is, however, too little to
struggle successfully with her. The mother's visits to her children are,
indeed, a frequent sequel to the story; and occasionally the tie which
compels her to return is taken advantage of by the forsaken husband to
obtain possession of her again. But fraud, not force, is the means
employed, as in the Lapp story of the Maiden out of the Sea, where the
mermaid's clothes are once more confiscated. In a legend of Llyn y
Dywarchen (the Lake of the Sod), not very far from Beddgelert, the
water-nymph subsequently appears to her husband, conversing with him
from a floating turf while he stands on the shore. Here the motive of
the reappearance is the unusual one of conjugal, rather than parental,
affection.[238]

I must not omit to add that the first Sunday in August is kept in the
neighbourhood of the Van Pool as the anniversary of the fairy's return
to the lake. It is believed that annually on that day a commotion takes
place in the lake; its waters boil to