Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 1

Ixxviii INTRODUCTION.
that side ; and wlien he would give a sweep on the
other side, a shower of silver would fall from that side.
Then he opened another room, and it was full of every
sort of food that a man might think there had ever
been."
And so in many other instances the comb is a trea-
sure for which men contend with giants. It is asso-
ciated with gold, silver, dresses, arms, meat, and drink ;
and it is magical.
It is not so precious in other collections of popular
tales, but the same idea is to be traced in them all. There
is a water-spirit in Grimm which catches two children,
and when they escape they throw behind them a brush,
a comb, and a mirror, wliich replace the stone, the twig,
and the bladder of water, which the Gaelic prince finds
in the ear of the filly, and throws behind him to arrest
the giant who is in pursuit. In the nix of the mill pond
an old woman gives a golden comb to a lady, and she
combs her black hair by the light of the moon at the
edge of a pond, and the water-spirit shews the hus-
band's head. So also in Snow White the wicked queen
combs the hair of the beautiful princess with a poisoned
comb, and throws her into a deadly magic sleep. That
princess is black, white, and red, like the giant in
No. 2, and like the lady in Conal ; and like a lady
in a Breton story ; and generally foreign stories in wliich
combs are mentioned as magical, have equivalents in
Gaelic. For example, the incidents in the French story
of Prince Cherie, in wliich gifted children comb jewels
from their hair, bear a general resemblance to many
Gaelic and German stories. Now there is a reason for
everything, though it is not always easy to find it out ;
and the importance of the comb in these stories may
have a reason also.
In the first place, though every civilized man and