The Briar Rose, or The Beauty of Sleeping Wood, as it comes to us from Perrault's hands, is the story of a maiden who was cursed by an offended fairy to pierce her hand with a spindle and to die of it--a curse afterwards mitigated into a sleep of a hundred years. Every effort was made by the king, her father, to avert the doom, but in vain; and for a whole century the princess and all her court remained in the castle in a magical sleep, while the castle itself and all within it were protected from intrusion by an equally magical growth of brambles and thorns, which not only prevented access, but entirely hid it from view. At length a king's son found his way in at the very moment the fated period came to an end; or, as we have it in other versions, he awakened the maiden with a kiss. In the old stories of the Niblungs and the Volsungs Odin has pricked the shield-maid Brynhild with a sleep-thorn, and thus condemned her to sleep within the shield-burg on Hindfell. Attracted by the appearance of fire, Sigurd comes to the shield-burg and, finding Brynhild, releases her from her slumber by ripping up her armour with his sword. This is chronologically the earliest form of the myth of the Enchanted Princess with which we are acquainted; and it is interwoven with the very fibres of the Teutonic mythology. It is no wonder, therefore, that the Germans have given it so prominent a place in their folklore. So far as now appears it is less conspicuous in the folklore of the other European races with the exception of the Slaves, and when it does show itself it shows itself chiefly as a _märchen_. But, although what we know of the folklore of the Teutonic and Slavonic races may suggest reasons for this, we must not forget how rarely we can dogmatize with safety on national characteristics. To this rule the folklore of a nation is no exception; nay, rather, the rule applies with a double emphasis to a subject the scientific investigation of which has so lately begun and has yet achieved so little.
Declining this speculation, therefore, we turn to a last point in the sagas before us, namely, the propitious time for the disenchantment. Different times of the year are spoken of for this purpose. In some stories it is Advent, or New Year's night, when the lady makes her appearance and may be delivered. In a Pomeranian saga, where a woman cursed her seven daughters and they became mice, a woman, who is of the same age as the mother when she uttered the curse, must come with seven sons of the same ages as the daughters were when they were cursed, on Good Friday at noon, to the thicket where the mice are, and put her sons on a certain round stone there. The seven mice will then return to human shape; and when the children are old enough they will marry, and become rich and happy for the rest of their lives. A Carinthian tale requires the deliverer to come the next full moon after "May-Sunday"; and May-night is the date fixed in another case. But the favourite time is St. John's Day, either at noon or midnight.[182] Some of these days are ecclesiastical festivals; but perhaps the only one which has not superseded an ancient heathen feast is Good Friday. The policy of the Church, in consecrating to Christian uses as many as possible of the seasons and customs she found already honoured among the peoples she had conquered, seized upon their holy days and made them her own. And if the science of Folklore has taught us anything, it is that the observances on these converted holy days external to the rites demanded by the Church are relics of the ceremonies performed in pagan days to pagan deities. In none of these instances has the proof been more conclusive than in that of St. John's, or Midsummer Day. Grimm, first, with abundant learning, and more recently Mr. Frazer, with a wealth of illustration surpassing that of Grimm himself, and indeed inaccessible in his day, have shown that the Midsummer festival was kept in honour of the sun; that it consisted of the ceremonial kindling of fire, the gathering and use of floral garlands, the offering of human and other sacrifices, and the performance of sacred dances; and that its object was to increase the power of the sun by magical sympathy, to obtain a good harvest and fruitfulness of all creatures, and to purge the sins of the people. It was, in fact, the chief ceremony of the year among the European races.