| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: called Grisly-beard.' So the king got the nickname of Grisly-beard.
But the old king was very angry when he saw how his daughter behaved,
and how she ill-treated all his guests; and he vowed that, willing or
unwilling, she should marry the first man, be he prince or beggar,
that came to the door.
Two days after there came by a travelling fiddler, who began to play
under the window and beg alms; and when the king heard him, he said,
'Let him come in.' So they brought in a dirty-looking fellow; and when
he had sung before the king and the princess, he begged a boon. Then
the king said, 'You have sung so well, that I will give you my
daughter for your wife.' The princess begged and prayed; but the king
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: Archedemus was overjoyed to do something to gratify Crito, and so it
came about that not only Crito abode in peace, but his friends
likewise. If any of those people with whom Archedemus was not on the
best of terms were disposed to throw it in his teeth that he accepted
his patron's benefits and paid in flatteries, he had a ready retort:
"Answer me this question--which is the more scandalous, to accept
kindnesses from honest folk and to repay them, with the result that I
make such people my friends but quarrel with knaves, or to make
enemies of honourable gentlemen[7] by attempts to do them wrong, with
the off-chance indeed of winning the friendship of some scamps in
return for my co-operation, but the certainty of losing in the tone of
The Memorabilia |
