Brother and Sister

ensix

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34.  You must let my Roe come too. I could not possibly forsake it: Bettelheim observes that "during most of the story the two do not part; they represent the animal and spiritual sides of our personality, which become separated but must be integrated for human happiness" (Bettelheim 1975, 146).
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35.  Her heart was filled with envy and hatred: The stepmother's animosity of reminiscent of the evil stepmother in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Although the children are no longer a burden, their mere existence, and a happy one at that, is enough reason for her to plot their deaths.
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36.  Her own daughter: Fairy tales are filled with mothers--both witches and regular mothers--trying to marry off their daughters in favorable circumstances. They include the mother in Cinderella and the troll-hag in East of the Sun and West of the Moon.
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37.  Hideous as night and had only one eye: Physical ugliness and deformity (although a politically incorrect term by today's standards) has long been considered a sign of internal ugliness, sometimes in fairy tales. Just as beauty represents inner goodness, physical ugliness is used to stereotype inner ugliness, especially in the literature of previous centuries.
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38.  Queen gave birth to a beautiful little boy: The Queen's ability to give birth to a son is important not only to her husband, but to her kingdom. A first born son would be the crown prince and possibly averts disaster for a kingdom that relies on progeny to avoid strife in the royal lineage.
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39.  Lady in waiting: A lady in waiting is "a lady appointed to attend to a queen or princess" (WordNet). A lady in waiting was usually from the upper classes in a higher level of honorable servitude.
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40.  The bath: Water in various forms often plays a part in the young sister's death. In other variants, she is drowned by being thrown into a lake or river with a millstone about her neck. In the versions in which she is killed, water is usually involved in her cause of death.
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enfour

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41.  Might be suffocated: Suffocation might occur from the fire's smoke under the bath. Suffocation is usually the cause of death by fire in enclosed rooms. However, this would not be a gentle death, essentially boiling the sister to death in her own bathwater.
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42.  A false Queen: False identities are common plot devices in literature and fairy tales. Another well-known tale with an imposter queen is The Goose Girl, also annotated on this site.
The false bride plot device "provides the dominant frame story of Basile's firecracker of a collection of fairy tales, Lo cunto de li cunti [also known as Il Pentamerone], in the seventeenth century. His group of female storytellers exchange many tales of substituted brides and false queens, and at the end actually unmask a similar wicked usurper prospering in their midst (Warner 1994, 127).
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43.  Midnight: Midnight marks the beginning of a new day and the end of power in the old day. Midnight also marks the beginning of the witching hour. Ghosts and other apparitions are thought to be most active in the night time.
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44.  The real Queen: Do not be confused here--the real Queen is dead, having been murdered by her stepmother and stepsister. Here she appears as a ghost, haunting the halls and drawn to her most precious baby and enchanted brother.
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45.  Nursed it for some time: Here we have a dead good mother trying to nurture her motherless child. The cycle of the tale is threatening to start again since this child is also cursed with a wicked stepmother. Since it is a baby, it is at greater risk than its own mother was. The natural mother is trying to show it love and protection in the only means left to her.
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46.  She did not forget the little Roe: The roe is just as important to the sister as her son, for she has essentially parented it, too. She is attempting to fulfill her responsibilities as a parent and sister to her family, even beyond the grave.
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47.  Sentries: A sentry is "a soldier placed on guard" (Webster's 1990).
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48.  Is my child well? Is my Roe well?/ I'll come back twice and then farewell: Note another pattern of three here. The ghostly queen only has three visits before she must assumably move onto another plain of existence. We know she must be rescued by the third night or she will disappear forever.
            
            

enfour

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49.  I am your dear wife!: Note that while wife has not apparently been as important a role to the sister as that of mother and sister, it is still important enough to bring her back from the dead. She recognizes and responds to this identity.
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50.  She was restored to life, and was as fresh and well and rosy as ever: Many translations often leave out the phrase "by the grace of God" in this sentence as was included in the Grimms' version and maintained by the more reliable translation offered by Jack Zipes (Zipes 1987, 46). Many translations imply that true love or her innate goodness restore the sister to life.
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51.  The daughter was led into the forest, where the wild beasts tore her to pieces: The daughter is exiled--cast out into the wild forest--for her treasonous behavior, but she is not burned at the stake for witchcraft like her mother.
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52.  Burnt at the stake: Burning occurs often in fairy tales. It is symbolic of purification (Matthews 1986). The witch being burnt can also represent evil destroying itself (Luthi 1976).
Gerhard Mueller, who has studied the criminological aspects of several tales, considers the death by fire to be suitable for the witch. In the Middle Ages, the charge of witchcraft was punished by fire. In other words, the witch's demise supports the due process of law in real life during the time of the tale (Mueller 1986).
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53.  He was restored to his natural shape: In folklore, witch's spells are often deactivated by the witch's demise. Unlike the sister in Six Swans, this sister did not have to endure a described test to achieve her brother's disenchantment.
In Afanasyev's Russian variant of the tale, the brother is never disenchanted. He continues to live as a kid with his sister and her husband happily ever after, however. It is the most unsatisfying ending of all the variants.
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