Matheson Collection > Popular tales of the west Highlands > Volume 1

Ixxvi INTRODUCTION.
tioned in Gaelic stories it has something marvellous
about it.
So in German, in the Man of Iron, a princess throws
a golden apple as a prize, which the hero catches three
times and carries off and wins.
In Snow AVhite, where the poisoned comb occurs,
there is a poisoned magic apple also.
In the Old Griffin, the sick princess is cured by rosy-
cheeked apples.
In the Giant with the Three Golden Hairs, one of
the questions to be solved is, why a tree which used to
bear golden apples does not now bear leaves ? and the
next question is about a well.
So in the White Snake, a servant who acquires the
knowledge of the speech of birds by tasting a white
snake, helps creatures in distress, gets their aid, and
procures a golden apple from three ravens, which " flew
over the sea even to the end of the world, where stands
the tree of life." When he had got the apple he and
the princess ate it, and married and lived ha^^pily ever
after.
So in Wolf's collection, in the story of the Won-
derful Hares, a golden apple is the gift for which the
finder is to gain a princess ; and that apple grew on a
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