The 'Meerhäschen' is the cloud emerging from the water, which lays down around the head of the sun, underneath her plait [braid?] i.e. her shaft of light and by this escapes her 'Allblick' [old expression meaning 'seeing everything'; is there something like 'all-eye' in english?]

Fascinating .... Absolutely fascinating!

A few years ago a friend of mine lent me a book (now out of print) entitled O, Mother Sun! A New View of the Cosmic Feminine by Patricia Monaghan (1984) that puts forth the thesis (rather convincingly, I thought) that in the earliest religions, the Sun Deity was a female Goddess instead of a male God, and that the golden rays of the sun are the strands of Her hair (which is why so many fairy tale princesses are blonde), and/or that the rays of light from the sun are the threads the heroine is so often spinning (as in the Rumpelstielzchen story you mentioned). Wells are also important images associated with the sun because they are round (like the sun), and reflect the sun's image in the surface of their water, thereby bringing the sun's power to earth (and the fox and the prince jump into a well to change their forms).

Rather nice, I think, to find another author putting forth a similiar thesis.

This is actually the "second edition" of this collection; I did the first one a couple of years ago. I'm illustrating this editiion (which got me thinking about what a 'Meerhäschen' looks like -- even if I don't actually do a picture of one for the final draft).

Anyway, I picked #191 because of the queen's (in the original, her parents don't even make an appearance, and she's the one making all the rules, so I gave her an upgrade from "princess" ;-)) sun-like qualities -- up in her high tower (in the sky), the twelve windows that look out in all directions echo the twelve months of the year, and are like the rays of the sun.

And yes, when this thing is finished, I will put a copy up in the Mudcat Auction... probably a little before Christmas (that's when people start really wanting to tell stories).

I'll check out that story... And I'll come back here for the real translation when babel fish has a breakdown ;-)