Ns of the magical towel of her brother, makes a bridge arise over the river, over which the monster-serpent, in…
- Date of account
- English edition published 1872
- Source
- Zoological Mythology; or, The Legends of Animals, Volume 1 (of 2)
- Reference
- Zoological Mythology; or, The Legends of Animals, Volume 1 (of 2) · selected passage 86
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
ns of the magical towel of her brother, makes a bridge arise over the river, over which the monster-serpent, in the form of a handsome young man, crosses to take her; how the brother is sacrificed in the battle which he is obliged to fight against the monster, who disarms him by fraud; and how the battle between the he…
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyns of the magical towel of her brother, makes a bridge arise over the river, over which the monster-serpent, in the form of a handsome young man, crosses to take her; how the brother is sacrificed in the battle which he is obliged to fight against the monster, who disarms him by fraud; and how the battle between the hero and the monster begins when the maiden, passing the bridge, abandons the hero, her brother, who falls and sheds his blood in the unequal struggle. I have already remarked that in the popular belief the bloody sun of evening forebodes war, and the red cow of German tradition represents no other than this sky. As to the bridge, an interesting note of Kuhn and Schwartz[431] seems to confirm the hypothesis which I have already hinted at in connection with the Slavonic story, _i.e._, that it represents the milky way; from this note, too, in which a resemblance is noticed between the bridge of the red cow, which determines the beginning of a battle, and the Scandinavian celestial Bîfröst (as perhaps there is between it and even the Persian bridge Cinvant itself), I gather that in Frisia the milky way is called Kau-pat (or Kuh-pfad, cow's-path).
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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