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(Continued from Vol. I, page 459)
In a fairy tale cited from Rittershaus (p. 141-2), Jonides and Hildur, after many persecutions, reach the castle of Jonides' parents from whom Jonides had once been stolen by a dragon. Hildur rubs an ointment on him which works so that Jonides cannot forget Hildur when he goes in the castle in order to be proclaimed the lawful king. Then comes along a bitch and licks the ointment off and Jonides forgets his bride completely and marries a maiden, who later turns out to be the sorceress whom Hildur had meant to annihilate. Then later it happens that he finds Hildur in a peasant village after he has lost his way. She anoints him with the same salve and then there returns to him the memory of his bride whom he marries.
The motive of forgetting in fairy tales has the same significance that we have learned from Freud's researches into the meaning of forgetting.14
Isol, for example, finds the beautiful boy Tistram on the shore and rescues him in order later to espouse him. In this way is indicated the association in youth of the love and play of children as is especially brought out in other similar tales and as has been expressed prominently in Jensen's “Gradiva” in his psychological works. Jensen's Norbert Hanolt flies from the enchanted territory of love into the regions of archeological science; for him this signifies about the same as the magic potion of oblivion does