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

INTKODUCTION. IxXXÌÌÌ
sort of tree of -which there was but one in the whole
world.
In Norse it is the same ; the princess on the Glass
Hill held three golden apples in her lap, and he who
could ride up the hill and carry off the apples was to
■win the prize ; and the princess rolled them down to
the hero, and they rolled into his shoe.
The good girl plucked the apples from the tree
which spoke to her when she went down the well to
the underground world ; but the ill-tempered step-sister
thrashed down the fruit ; and when the time of trial
came, the apple tree played its part and protected the
good girl.
So in French, a singing apple is one of the marvels
wliich the Princess Belle Etoile, and her brothers and
her cousin, bring from the end of the world, after all
manner of adventures ; and in that story the comb,
the stars and jewels in the hair, the talking sooth-
saying bird, the magic water, the horse, the wicked
step-mother, and the dragon, all ajjpear ; and there is
a Gaelic version of that story. In short, that French
story agrees with GaeHc stories, and with a certain
class of German tales ; and contains within itself much
of the machinery and incident which is scattered else-
where, in collections of tales gathered in modern times
amongst the people of various countries.
So again in books of tales of older date, and in
other languages, apples and marvels are associated.
In Straparola is an Italian story remarkably like
the Gaelic Sea ]\Iaiden, and clearly the same iii ground-
work as Princess Belle Etoile. A lady, when she has
lost her husband, goes off to the Atlantic Ocean with
three golden apples ; and the mermaid who had swal-
lowed the husband, shews first his head, then his body
to the waist, and then to the knees ; each time for a