in Hacon Grizzlebeard we begin by being angry at the princess's
pride; we are glad at the retribution which overtakes her, but we are
gradually melted at her sufferings and hardships when she gives up
all for the Beggar and follows him; we burst into tears with her when
she exclaims 'Oh! the Beggar, and the babe, and the cabin!'--and we
rejoice with her when the Prince says 'Here is the Beggar, and there
is the babe, and so let the cabin burn away.'

Nor is it unprofitable here to remark how the professions fare when
they appear in these tales. The Church cannot be said to be treated
with respect, for 'Father Lawrence' is ludicrously deceived and
scurvily treated by the Master-Thief, No. xxxv; nor does the priest
come off any better in Goosey Grizzel, No. xxxiii, where he is thrown
by the Farmer into the wet moss. Indeed, it seems as if the popular
mind were determined to revenge itself when left to itself, for the
superstition of Rome on the one hand, and the severity of strict
Lutheranism on the other. It has little to say of either of them, but
when it does speak, its accents are not those of reverence and love.
The Law, too, as represented by those awful personages the Constable,
the Attorney, and the Sheriff in 'The Mastermaid', No. xi, is held up
to ridicule, and treated with anything but tenderness. But there is
one profession for which a good word is said, a single word, but
enough to show the feeling of the people. In the 'Twelve Wild Ducks'
No. viii, the king is 'as soft and kind' to Snow-white and Rosy-red
'as a doctor'--a doctor, alas! not of laws, but of medicine; and thus
this profession, so often despised, but in reality the noblest, has
homage paid to it in that single sentence, which neither the Church
with all its dignity, nor the Law with all its cunning, have been
able to extort from the popular mind. Yet even this profession has a
hard word uttered against it in 'Katie Woodencloak', No. l, where the