Quest

The significance of the quest goes far beyond its function as a test of the hero. As David Leeming writes, "Life renewal is always the ultimate goal of the quest, and life renewal is both a spiritual and a physical process". In Three Hairs from the Devil's Beard, the quest is more crucial to the story. The quest is an extremely important motif in myth and traditional epics of many cultures. The quest has been a theme used by writers of literary epics, most notably by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in Inferno, the first book of The Divine Comedy. Earlier, Virgil wrote of the quest of Aeneas to found a new civilization in the Aeneid, which also involves a descent to the underworld. Tales such as The Dragon Slayer or The Water of Life are prime examples of folktales embodying the quest motif;