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It may be added that the branch, like other objects: magic wand, the stalk of life, pistols, syringes, rays of from ten to fifteen centimeters long, the raised finger, play a role of absolutely like significance in the sexual symbolism of the mentally diseased.
The German Cinderella.—In the German Cinderella, that we have denominated as the type of wish-fulfilling fairy tales analogous to the dream, we come across at the beginning a similar symbolic motive to that of the “Little Hazel Branch.”
Cinderella had a stepmother who neglected her in favor of her own two children in the usual way. The father once went to the fair and promised all three daughters to bring something back for them. The stepdaughters wished for beautiful clothes, pearls and precious stones but Cinderella begged him to break off for her the first branch that hit his hat on the way home (compare “Oda” and “The Little Hazel Branch”). This was a hazel branch. Cinderella took it to her mother's grave, planted it there and watered it with her tears. Instead of directly becoming a fairy prince like Oda's serpent or the bear in the “Little Hazel Branch,” the branch grows into a wish-tree from which the maiden receives everything, the most beautiful gold and silver clothes and little golden slippers in order to please the prince and with the help of which she finally makes the wish-prince her husband.