NOTES of the impersonation of the Twelve Months re-
presented as seated round the great central fire of
the sun. The fire-wheel occurs in traditional
usage, not only in Sclavonic but also in Gaulish

ands.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.—One of Mme.
de Beaumont’s tales, and it is the only one of hers
that has lived, and it has lived for one reason only,
that it is not an original creation of her brain, but
is based on an universally-known myth of a woman,
loving and consenting to union with a transformed
prince who has a monstrous shape. Very generally
the sexes are reversed, and the young lady is
transformed into a serpent or a dragon. I know
a certain precipice in the Montafun Thal, in the
Alps, where a maiden changed into the form of a
monstrous toad, with poison dribbling from her
lips, was said to be doomed to squat in a cave till
a youth would kiss her on the mouth.

THE YELLOW DWARF.—One of the Countess
D’Aulnoy’s tales. At bottom this is the same story
as Grimm’s Rumpelstilskin, which is a very old
one, and is referred to by Fischart in his ‘Gar-
gantua,’ 1575. Mme. D’Aulnoy spoiled a good
story. All the portion of it relative to the King of
the Gold Mines is her addition. The fact was that
she did not understand the significance of the task
set to discover the name of the dwarf, and so she
cut that away and substituted some trash of her
own for it. The result has been that a good folk-
tale has suffered, and ‘The Yellow Dwarf’ has never
attained the popularity of some of her other tales,
in which she has more faithfully followed tradition.
The demand of the Dwarf for the Queen’s daughter
enters into a whole string of fairy tales, and refers
back to the date when the fair-haired Gaul or
Briton or Teuton had overcome the dusky Ugric
240