brother to _Aschenpuettel_. The meaning of the word is 'one who
pokes about the ashes and blows up the fire'; one who does dirty work
in short; and in Norway, according to M. Moe, the term is almost
universally applied to the youngest son of the family. He is
Cinderella's brother in fact; and just as she had all the dirty work
put upon her by her sisters, he meets with the same fate from his
brothers. He is generally the youngest of three, whose names are
often Peter and Paul, as in No. xlii, and who despise, cry down, and
mock him. But he has in him that deep strength of character and
natural power upon which the good powers always smile. He is the man
whom Heaven helps, because he can help himself; and so, after his
brothers try and fail, he alone can watch in the barn, and tame the
steed, and ride up the glass hill, and gain the Princess and half the
kingdom. The Norse 'Boots' shares these qualities in common with the
'Pinkel' of the Swedes, and the _Dummling_ of the Germans, as
well as with our 'Jack the Giant Killer', but he starts lower than
these--he starts from the dust-bin and the coal-hole. There he sits
idle whilst all work; there he lies with that deep irony of conscious
power, which knows its time must one day come, and meantime can
afford to wait. When that time comes, he girds himself to the feat,
amidst the scoffs and scorn of his flesh and blood; but even then,
after he has done some great deed, he conceals it, returns to his
ashes, and again sits idly by the kitchen-fire, dirty, lazy, and
despised, until the time for final recognition comes, and then his
dirt and rags fall off--he stands out in all the majesty of his royal
robes, and is acknowledged once for all, a king. In this way does the
consciousness of a nation, and the mirror of its thought, reflect the
image and personification of a great moral truth, that modesty,
endurance, and ability will sooner or later reap their reward,
however much they maybe degraded, scoffed at, and despised by the