The tale begins with a death or a recently deceased victim who has an artificial limb, usually an arm, made of gold.
From Joseph Jacobs's Collection, English Fairy Tales: There was once a man who travelled the land all over in search of a wife.
At last he found a woman, young, fair, and rich, who possessed a right arm of solid gold.
They lived happily together, but, though he wished people to think otherwise, he was fonder of the golden arm than of all his wife's gifts besides.
The husband put on the blackest black, and pulled the longest face at the funeral; but for all that he got up in the middle of the night, dug up the body, and cut off the golden arm.
The following night he put the golden arm under his pillow, and was just falling asleep, when the ghost of his dead wife glided into the room.
“THOU HAST IT!”[2]With The Golden Arm being an orally told folktale, as it was passed down the story changed.
The different variations on the story involve usually these three things: The Limb- Sometimes the limb of the deceased is not an arm (America, England, Tuscany, and Friesland[3] ).
If I got it the right length precisely, I could spring the finishing ejaculation with effect enough to make some impressible girl deliver a startled little yelp and jump out of her seat—and that was what I was after.