Seite:Kinder und Hausmärchen (Grimm) 1856 III 280.jpg

	Brüder Grimm: Kinder- und Haus-Märchen Band 3 (1856)

Geschichtchen von Bezauberungen und Von bösen Geistern, von der Todtenuhr, Die fürchterlich dem Bösewichte tönet, Durch die die Witwe darbt, die Waise weint: Von Seelen, die, geheime Schuld zu mildern, Rastlos dem Grab entstiegen: von Gespenstern, Die Ketten schleppend, Höllenbrände schwingend, Um Mitternacht des Mörders Bett umspuken. Bei jeder Pause weichen schüchtern alle Zurück und sehn sich an: mit kalter Angst Durchrieseln Schauer sie; doch nach dem Ausgang Begierig, dringen bald zum Mütterchen Sie wieder hin, vor süßer Furcht kaum athmend.

32.

W. Scott in den Anmerkungen zu seinem Gedicht Lady of the lake (Edinb. 1810) p. 392. A work of great interest might be compiled upon the origine of popular fiction and the transmission of similar tales from age to age and from country to country. The mythology of one period would then appear to pass into the romance of the next century, and that into the nursery-tale of the subsequent ages. Such an investigation, while it went greatly to diminish our ideas of the richness of human invention would also shew that these fictions, however wild and childish, possess such charms for the populace, as enable them to penetrate into countries unconnected by manners and language and having no apparent intercourse to afford the means of transmission. It would carry me far beyond my bounds, to produce instances of this community of fable, among nations, who never borrowed from each other any thing intrinsically worth learning. Indeed the wide diffusion of popular fictions may be compared to the facility, with which straws and feathers are dispersed abroad by the wind, while valuable metals cannot be transported without trouble and labour. There lives, I believe, only one gentleman, whose unlimited acquaintance with this subiect might enable him to do it justice; I mean my friend, Mr. Francis Douce, of the british museum, whose usual kindness will I hope pardon my mentioning his name, while on a subject

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Brüder Grimm: Kinder- und Haus-Märchen Band 3 (1856). Göttingen 1850, Seite 280. Digitale Volltext-Ausgabe bei Wikisource, URL: https://de.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Seite:Kinder_und_Hausm%C3%A4rchen_(Grimm)_1856_III_280.jpg&oldid=- (Version vom 1.8.2018)