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111-859: The tale is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom , wherein a heroine marries a husband in animal form who reveals he is man underneath. In this case, the heroine marries a husband in animal shape that becomes human, while another girl marries a real animal and dies. Variants of the narrative are located in India and Southeast Asia , with few registered in the Brazilian and Arab/Middle Eastern folktale catalogues. According to Praphulladatta Goswami, there are at least three published versions of Champavati . A man has two wives, one older (the man's favourite - Laagee ) and one young ( Aelaagee ), and one daughter by each wife. The younger wife's daughter

222-422: A feminist reading, which "applauds" the will of the main heroine, in contrast to passive heroines like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty . Leavy, as well as scholar Wendy Doniger , also stated that the "Animal Bridegroom" is the male counterpart of the " Swan Maiden " - both types referring to a marriage between a human person and a mythical being. Richard MacGillivray Dawkins suggested that its endurance as

333-497: A tale type as follows: The Aarne–Thompson Tale Type Index divides tales into sections with an AT number for each entry. The names given are typical, but usage varies; the same tale type number may be referred to by its central motif or by one of the variant folktales of that type, which can also vary, especially when used in different countries and cultures. The name does not have to be strictly literal for every folktale. For example, The Cat as Helper (545B) also includes tales where

444-460: A Princess to Its Castle") and AaTh 433C under a new type: ATU 433B, " King Lindworm ". Professor Stuart Blackburn stated that some Southeast Asian variants contain the motif of the fruit tree owned by the snake, whose fruits either the sisters or their mother want. More specifically, it is found in central Arunachal Pradesh, and among the Kucong and Nusu people of Yunnan. Type 433C also contains

555-595: A bride of her choice. It happens as he predicts, but his ring protects Champavati. She seeks her husband after 6 years and finds him in his mother's house. Her mother-in-law gives her a letter to take to another demoness, with an order to kill Champavati. Her husband intercepts Champavati, takes the letter and kills his own mother to protect his human wife. Praphulladatta Goswami collected an homonymous tale from an informant named Srimati Jnanadasundari Barua, in North Lakhimpur. In this tale, also titled Champavati ,

666-404: A bundle with a rope, sand, wood and grain. She takes the bundle with her and its contents become food for her to eat. According to scholar Kunja Behari Dash  [ or ] , in a Orissan tale titled Princess and Python , a princess is forced by her stepmother to marry a python. Luckily, the python reveals himself to be a handsome prince. Jealous of her stepdaughter's successful marriage,

777-485: A contrast between the heroine's seeking greater intimacy and knowledge of her husband, and her existent attachments to her family - which causes the separation episode. A line of scholarship (e.g., Charles Fillingham Coxwell  [ de ] , Boria Sax , James Frazer , Viera Gašparíková  [ uk ] ) associates human-animal marriages to ancient totem ancestry . Another line of scholarship describes these tales as an initiatory journey for both parties:

888-798: A fox helps the hero. Closely related folktales are often grouped within a type. For example, tale types 400–424 all feature brides or wives as the primary protagonist, for instance The Quest for a Lost Bride (400) or the Animal Bride (402). Subtypes within a tale type are designated by the addition of a letter to the AT number, for instance: tale 510, Persecuted Heroine (renamed in Uther's revision as Cinderella and Peau d'Âne ["Cinderella and Donkey Skin"]), has subtypes 510A, Cinderella , and 510B, Catskin (renamed in Uther's revision as Peau d'Asne [also "Donkey Skin"]). (See other examples of tale types in

999-430: A handsome prince opens Devi's door, and explains he was the python, cursed into that form by a jungle-god until a princess married him. Relieved with this development, queen Shobha takes her daughter and son-in-law to introduce him to the king. Queen Rupa, however, envying the other queen's success, orders her own daughter Tara to do the same actions her half-sister did: graze the cows in the jungle and agree to marriage with

1110-492: A human woman marrying or being betrothed to an animal. The animal is revealed to be a human prince in disguise or under a curse . Most of these tales are grouped in the international system of Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index under type ATU 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband". Some subtypes exist in the international classification as independent stories, but they sometimes don't adhere to a fixed typing. As consequence of

1221-484: A hut and to expel the older queen there. The older Maharani's daughter grows up in poverty. Years later, the girl goes to the jungle to gather firewood for fuel and hears a voice proposing to her. She pays no heed to the voice, but talks to her mother about it. The Maharani convinces her daughter to accept the voice's proposal the next morning. She goes to the jungle and consents to be the voice's bride, who answers he will come in five days' time to marry her. She consults with

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1332-416: A man has two wives, the elder his favourite, and a daughter by each wife, the younger one's named Champavati. One day, Champavati is sent to the rice fields to drive the quails away from the paddy. She sings a song, saying that she will give fried rice to the quails, when a voice replies to her song that they will marry Champavati. The girl comments about it to her mother and father, and is convinced to reply to

1443-421: A mate selection wherein the human maiden is forced to marry an animal bridegroom as per the insistence of her family or due to her fate. In another work, Zipes writes that, in these tales, the supernatural husband (in animal form) goes through a process of civilizing himself, whereas to the human spouse it represents an initiatory journey. Researcher Barbara Fass Leavy cited that these tales are interpreted under

1554-430: A myth and a folktale was due to the story "reflect[ing] ... much of the relations of man and wife." To Donald Ward , type 425 is, on the one hand, an erotic story, the union between divine male sexuality and mortal female virginity, but, on the other hand, also a tale of "love, devotion, and willingness to sacrifice". Similarly, Wendy Doniger sees, in this cycle of tales, a contrast or a "tension" between "the human and

1665-511: A night with him. Only on the third night the heroine manages to talk to her husband and he recognizes her. In this regard, Sautman noted that the heroine may be given three nuts (alternatively, almonds and chestnuts) that contain the objects she will use to bribe the false bride. Furthermore, according to Anna Angelopoulos  [ fr ] and Aigle Broskou, editors of the Greek Folktale Catalogue, alternate gifts for

1776-538: A pandit, who assures her that the fixed date is most auspicious for a wedding. The elder Maharani and her daughter invite the king, the younger Maharani and other to see the mysterious bridegroom. At midnight, two palki -bearers bring the bridegroom: a huge python. The python marries the Maharani's daughter and they enter the hut for their wedding night. The elder Maharani stays outside and hears her daughter complaining about her body aching. The Maharani thinks her daughter

1887-511: A python for her to marry, so he goes to the jungle, captures a python and gives it to his daughter. That night, the python - an animal, in fact - coils around the girl and begins to eat her. The next morning, the father notices his daughter's death and shoos away the python. The tale was also translated into Russian as "Сын из тыквы" ("Son in a Pumpkin") and classified by its compilers as tale type AaTh 433C. Portuguese scholars Isabel Cárdigos and Paulo Jorge Correia locate 12 Brazilian variants in

1998-421: A snake appears in place of the gourd. The couple prepare seven beds, so large is the snake, and arrange an assistant (a wife) for the snake. They contact seven sisters who live in the village and one by one, they enter the snake's hut. Frightened at the large snake, they refuse to marry it, for fear for their lives. Only the youngest and seventh sister decides to marry it: she enters the hut, but complains that there

2109-424: A story with her. She then listens to a story told by the stranger and recognizes it is about where she can find her husband. Greek scholars Anna Angelopoulou and Aigle Broskou remark that the breaking of the taboo by the wife in this tale type involves revealing the husband's identity during a party or a tournament. They also state that the motif of building an inn to help locate the missing spouse also happens in

2220-460: A subtype of type AaTh 433, "The Prince as Serpent". In this tale type, a girl marries a snake who gives her jewels and ornaments and becomes human after the burning of his snakeskin; another girl tries to imitate with a real snake, with disastrous and fatal results. However, in his own revision of the folk type index, published in 2004, German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther subsumed types AaTh 433 ("The Prince as Serpent"), AaTh 433A ("A Serpent Carries

2331-468: A tale collected by Sunity Devi , Maharani of Coochbehar , with the title The Snake Prince , a Maharajah is married to two Maharanis, an older one who is kind and gentle, and a younger one, of a striking appearance and who the Maharajah loves dearly. The younger Maharani becomes jealous of the older one, which worsens after the latter gives birth to a girl. The younger Maharani orders her husband to build

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2442-557: A tree, but a snake appears and offers them the fruits, since the tree is his, in exchange for marrying the animal. One of the girls marries the snake, eventually burns its skin and turns him to a human youth. As for her sister, jealous of her success, she finds another snake to marry (or her brother-in-law) and dies of a snakebite. Author Dewan Sing Rongmuthu collected a tale from a Garo teller named Dingban Marak Raksam, in Garo Hills . In this tale, titled Jereno, The Orphan (although

2553-430: A weaver is married to two wives, each with a daughter. The elder wife and her daughter, named Shookhu, are idle, while the younger wife and her daughter, named Dukhu, work hard to maintain the house. After the weaver dies, the elder wife takes charge of the house and finances. Dukhu and her mother work by spinning cotton thread and selling coarse clothes at the bazaar. One day, while Dukhu is putting some cotton to dry out in

2664-433: Is a god underneath the snakeskin and urges her to burn the snakeskin, while he is away. Champavati heeds the beggar woman's words and does as she said, turning her husband into human definitively. The same beggar woman returns another day and suggests Champavati to eat from her husband's plate. She decides to follow the suggestion and eats from his plate; she sees some villages inside his mouth and asks her husband to show her

2775-407: Is being eaten by the snake, but the hut doors open and there she is, safe and sound. The girl explains that the python was decorating her body with heavy jewelry, that is why her body was aching. She also reveals that the python is no python, but a handsome youth who will return the next night to live with her. The younger Maharani, fuming at the older one's luck, orders her servants to find a python in

2886-467: Is dead. Their grief and rage are so great that they conspire to kill the Aelaagee (the younger wife) and Champavati, but the python devours both before they can do any harm to both women. The python then grabs his wife Champavati and her mother and takes them to a palace in the forest. They begin to live together. After her mother dies, Champavati is visited by a beggar woman who tells the girl her husband

2997-400: Is more typical of Northern European tales. In other stories (from Europe, mostly), her helpers may be three old crones, or her husband's relatives. In some tales, before the separation from her supernatural husband, the wife's children are taken from her and hidden elsewhere. Scholarship locates this motif across Celtic and Germanic speaking areas. Another recurring motif of this type is

3108-494: Is named Champavati. One day, she goes to the rice fields and sings a song to shoo away the birds, but a voice answers her his desire to marry her. After she tells her mother about the event, Champavati's father agrees to marry her to whoever appears to them; so a snake comes to take the girl as his bride. The snake and Champavati spend the night together, and the next morning she appears to her family decorated with jewels and golden ornaments. Her father and her step-mother, jealous of

3219-457: Is not enough space for her, so the snake spares one of the seven beds for her. This goes on for the next seven nights: on each night, the girl complains about lack of space to sleep, and the snake retreats from one bed on each night, until, after seven days, it comes to the veranda. The girl's mother-in-law teaches the girl to prepare food for her snake husband: "lower a little paddy from the corn store, and having winnowed, boil it". The girl prepares

3330-517: Is only the third wife that burns the animal skin and disenchants him. This narrative may appear in the following tale types: According to Karen Bamford, more than 1,500 variants of the tale have been collected from Europe, Asia, Africa and North America (in the latter, derived from European traditions). Israeli professor Dov Noy reported 580 variants across six European countries: Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Germany, France and Italy. According to Jan-Öjvind Swahn  [ sv ] 's monograph,

3441-690: Is the "Asian" version of the snake-husband story, and variants of the narrative (girl marries snake and is fortunate; jealous girl marries another snake and dies) are reported in India (in Nagaland and Assam), Southeast Asia , China , and among Tibeto-Burman speakers in central Arunachal Pradesh and the extended eastern Himalayas (e.g., the Apatani, Nyishi people , Tagin people , Garo people and Lisu people ). Taiwanese scholarship also locates variants of subtype 433C in Cambodia and Indonesia . In

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3552-588: Is the more active part and initiates the action, unlike the heroines of the other subtypes. In folktales classified as tale type ATU 425A, "The Animal as Bridegroom", the maiden breaks a taboo or burns the husband's animal skin and, to atone, she must wear down a numbered pair of metal shoes. On her way to her husband, she asks for the help of the Sun, the Moon and the Wind, a sequence that researcher Annamaria Zesi suggests

3663-400: Is to go to another witch's house (identified as a female relative of the first one), and fetch from there a box, a casket, a bag, a sack of something that her husband warns not to open, but she does. Richard MacGillivray Dawkins also noted that, in some tales, the mother-in-law, to further humiliate the heroine, betrothes her son to another bride and sends her on errands to get materials for

3774-480: The pansala , the snake husband takes off his python jacket, places it on the clothes-line and goes to the pansala as a prince. The human wife sees the prince, goes back home and burns the python jacket in the hearth. Some time later, the now human snake prince goes with his wife to visit his parents-in-law. His six sisters-in-law admire him and claim he is their co-husband, but the human wife reproaches her sisters. The eldest daughter, then, asks her father to find

3885-599: The Eastern Mediterranean , an area that encapsulates Southern Italy , Sicily , Greece and Turkey. In regards to the type of "buying three nights" (Swahn's type B), Swahn suggested that this sequence was an "innovation" on the main type ( Cupid and Psyche ), and "belongs to France", because it either developed among the Bretons or in France proper under influence of Breton motifs. From there it diffused to

3996-468: The motif J2415.7 , "A snake for the real daughter. Stepdaughter, married to a snake, appears decorated with jewels. Stepmother desires a snake be procured for her daughter. She is swallowed instead". Although P. Goswami recognized some similarities of the tale with the Cinderella cycle (e.g., stepsisters, stepmother's persecution of heroine), the end of the tale links it to "the class of ' Beauty and

4107-406: The motifs by which they are classified. Furthermore, Propp contended that using a "macro-level" analysis means that the stories that share motifs might not be classified together, while stories with wide divergences may be grouped under one tale type because the index must select some features as salient. He also observed that although the distinction between animal tales and tales of the fantastic

4218-507: The online resource links at the end of this article.) As an example, the entry for 510A in the ATU index (with cross-references to motifs in Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk Literature in square brackets, and variants in parentheses) reads: 510A Cinderella . (Cenerentola, Cendrillon, Aschenputtel.) A young woman is mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters [S31, L55] and has to live in

4329-524: The "three nights" and "the artificial husband", Swahn believed that it must have developed in Italy, since tales with the artificial husband seem restricted to Turkey, Italy and Greece. An opposite view is held by Greek folklorist Georgios A. Megas, to whom the two motifs have been merged in Greek tradition. Greek folklorist Georgios A. Megas  [ el ] argued for a transmission of type 425D from

4440-504: The 14th-century Byzantine romance of Libistros and Rodamni (or Livistros and Rhodamné ). In this tale type, the heroine is pregnant when her husband disappears and goes on a quest for him. She arrives at a castle, whose owner, a queen, lets her stay in. The heroine gives birth to her child. One night, someone comes in and sings a lullaby to the baby. The heroine recognizes this person as her husband, and his song contains instructions on how to save him (either from his animal curse or from

4551-583: The Assamese tale Champavati . Anthropologist Verrier Elwin collected a tale from the Sherdukpen people , in Rupa , Kameng . In this tale, an old woman lives with her two daughters, the elder beautiful and somewhat skilled in weaving, and the younger more skilled, since she weaves more beautiful patterns. The former weaves only plain clothes. One night she goes to bathe in the river. A large snake appears in

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4662-585: The Beast '." In his 1961 revision of the tale type index, American folklorist Stith Thompson indicated 5 variants of the type, found only in India. Praphulladata Goswami also located "variants" among the Garos and the Angami Nagas. Hence, Thompson and Warren Roberts's work Types of Indic Oral Tales links this tale type "exclusively" to South Asia . In addition, according to professor Stuart Blackburn, this

4773-887: The East to the West by the Crusaders , since the main feature of the subtype, the inn as means to locate the missing husband, already appears in Greek medieval literature. Fellow scholars Anna Angelopoulou and Aigle Broskou remark that tale type 425D is popular in both Greece and Turkey, and from the latter spread to Egypt, Iran and Tunisia. Megas also suggested that, since it appears in combination with other subtypes of type 425 and with type ATU 433B, tale type 425E did not originate in Greece, and possibly migrated from Italy to Greece and from there to Turkey. According to him, this would explain its presence in these three Mediterranean countries, and how

4884-513: The Horse's Head"), and in Iranian type AaTh 425B, Der Tierbräutigam: Die böse Zauberin ("The Animal Bridegroom: The Evil Sorceress"). A related tale type is type AaTh 428, "The Wolf", considered by scholars as a fragmentary version of the tale of Cupid and Psyche , lacking the initial part about the animal husband and corresponding to the part of the witch's tasks. Accordingly, Uther revised

4995-602: The Portuguese Folktale Catalogue: the heroine marries a snake that becomes a human prince, her sister marries a snake and dies. Folklore scholar Hasan M. El-Shamy registers two variants of type AaTh 433C in the Middle East and Northern Africa, which he located in Egypt . Animal as Bridegroom In folkloristics, "The Animal as Bridegroom" refers to a group of folk and fairy tales about

5106-560: The animal son court a princess, but her father demands a brideprice for her. In some versions, the father surrenders his daughter as his ransom. In others, it is the mother who delivers or promises her daughter(s) to the monster, and it is also by the mother's insistence that the heroine breaks the taboo on her husband: the human heroine must not see him at night, or she must not reveal his true nature to her relatives. The theme invites all sorts of scholarly and literary interpretations. Scholar Jack Zipes describes these tale types as

5217-464: The ashes as a servant. When the sisters and the stepmother go to a ball (church), they give Cinderella an impossible task (e.g. sorting peas from ashes), which she accomplishes with the help of birds [B450]. She obtains beautiful clothing from a supernatural being [D1050.1, N815] or a tree that grows on the grave of her deceased mother [D815.1, D842.1, E323.2] and goes unknown to the ball. A prince falls in love with her [N711.6, N711.4], but she has to leave

5328-408: The ball early [C761.3]. The same thing happens on the next evening, but on the third evening, she loses one of her shoes [R221, F823.2]. The prince will marry only the woman whom the shoe fits [H36.1]. The stepsisters cut pieces off their feet in order to make them fit into the shoe [K1911.3.3.1], but a bird calls attention to this deceit. Cinderella, who had first been hidden from the prince, tries on

5439-513: The cave and sees Jereng emerging from the python skin. She also falls in love with him, and is told that, if she wants to marry him, she is to hide out someplace else and, when her parents find her, she is to say she wants to marry a python. It happens thus: she hides in a granary, but is eventually found out, and explains she wishes to marry a python she found in a cave. Despite her parents' protests, she stays true to her decision and moves out to another house to wait for her husband. Some servants enter

5550-502: The clever daughter-in-law (and variants); The travelling girl and her helpful siblings ; and Woman's magical horse , as named by researcher Veronica Muskheli of the University of Washington. In regards to the typological classification, some folklorists and tale comparativists have acknowledged singular tale types that, due to their own characteristics, would merit their own type. Although such tales often have not been listed in

5661-499: The correct form is Jereng ), an orphan named Jereng (also spelled Jerang) goes to the forest to fetch wild fruits from a tree, when two tigermen named Matchadus spot him up the tree. The Matchadus capture Jereng and bring him home to be devoured. The next day, the tigermen notice that they are "dark-skinned" while the boy is fair-skinned. Jereng dupes the Matchadus into bathing in boiling water, essentially killing themselves. He tricks

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5772-417: The drops of blood on the husband's clothes that the heroine washes. Professor Francesca Sautman located this motif in some French variants from Brittany . Thomas Frederick Crane also noted that, at the end of her journey, she finds her husband at the mercy of a second wife . She bribes this person with items she acquired on the way (given by the personifications of the elements, or from her helpers) to spend

5883-505: The elder sister, wanting to have the same fortune of her cadette, repeats her actions (hiding in a certain spot and declaring her wishes to marry a python), and moves out to her own marital house. The servants find her a real live python and marry them off. At midnight, however, the girl utters a cry, and, the next morning, the servants find the python devoured the girl. Back to Jereng and his wife, their children become kings and queens, chieftains and warriors. P. Goswami also compared Jereng to

5994-401: The elder wife goes to check on her daughter and, finding only a bloated serpent, lets out an anguished cry. Back to Champavati, she lives her days in happiness in the forest, but wishes her husband was not a serpent. One day, a beggar woman pays her a visit and explains the serpent is a god in disguise who takes off his snakeskin at night and goes out, so she can pretend to be asleep and burn it

6105-487: The elder wife orders her husband to find another serpent husband to her own daughter, hoping the girl can experience the same fate as her half-sister. After Champavati leaves with her husband, a serpent is brought and married to the girl, then it is locked in the same room with her. The serpent begins to swallow the girl piece by piece (feet, waist, breast and neck) and the girl complains about it, but her mother dismisses it as her son-in-law decorating her body. The next morning,

6216-500: The end of the third day, Devi agrees to the proposal and asks the owner of the voice to come to her house the next morning. It happens thus, and a python appears at queen Shobha's door to marry Devi. A servant reports the incident to the other queen, Rupa, who comes to her co-queen's abode to insist her step-daughter goes through with the marriage with the python. Devi marries the python and both retire to their chambers, and Shobha prays no harm befalls her daughter. The next morning, however,

6327-667: The extensive body of sexual and 'obscene' material", and that – as of 1995 – "topics like homosexuality are still largely excluded from the type and motif indexes." In an essay, Alan Dundes also criticized Thompson's handling of the folkloric subject material, which he considered to be "excessive prudery" and a form of censorship. The ATU folktype index has been criticized for its apparent geographic concentration on Europe and North Africa, or over-representation of Eurasia and North America. The catalogue appears to ignore or under-represent other regions. Central Asian examples include: Yuri Berezkin  [ ru ] 's The captive Khan and

6438-474: The falcon groom appears at night to rock his child, he sings a lullaby on how to disenchant him: by having a patriarch and twelve monks say prayers until the morning. Bošković-Stulli also noted that the song about the falcon-bridegroom was "related" to unpublished Dalmatian variants where the enchanted husband sings the lullaby to his child (subtype 425E). Academic Thomas Frederick Crane noted another set of tales which he called "The Animal Children": sometimes,

6549-430: The first one that she hears in the jungle. Despite her redoing Devi's steps, no one talks to her in the jungle, so queen Rupa resorts to finding a python for her daughter. Tara and the python are married and brought to their room. The next morning, Rupa goes to check on her daughter, and find only the python with a swollen belly, the princess inside it. The cook comes with a large knife, kills the snake and releases Tara from

6660-425: The food a certain way that displeases the snake husband, who teaches her the correct way to do it. Some time later, there will be a bana (reading of Buddhist scripture) at the pansala of the village. The snake husband convinces his human wife to go. She tells him that other women are going with their husbands, so he suggests she goes with her in-laws, while he stays home. After the human wife and his parents go to

6771-401: The girl's good luck, arrange a marriage between his other daughter and a snake he captures in the jungle. When the snake is placed with the girl, she complains to her mother - who is listening behind the door - that parts of her body are tickling, which the mother takes to mean that her snake husband is decorating her with bridal garments and jewels. The next morning, they discover that the girl

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6882-497: The grasp of the fairies). Croatian folklorist Maja Bošković-Stulli reported that, in one version of the Serbo-Croatian epic song titled The Falcon Groom , a princess is locked up in a tower by her father, intending to avoid a prophecy. A prince in falcon form enters the tower and falls in love with her. She becomes pregnant, leaves the tower and goes to the falcon groom's mother's castle to give birth to their son. When

6993-418: The heroine crafts an artificial husband out of raw materials, who becomes a real man and a foreign queen falls in love with him. However, he noted that, among the tales he listed under this classification, some may also fall under type 425A, "Animal as Bridegroom". Folklorist Christine Goldberg named this narrative The Artificial Husband . She also took notice that the heroine, in the "Artificial Husband" tales,

7104-422: The heroine may be related to weaving (such as a loom or a spindle), or beautiful dresses representing the Sun, the Moon and stars, or the sea, the land and the skies. According to Hans-Jörg Uther , the main feature of tale type ATU 425A is "bribing the false bride for three nights with the husband". In fact, when he developed his revision of Aarne-Thompson's system, Uther remarked that an "essential" trait of

7215-458: The heroine's sisters asked their father for material possessions (e.g., dresses), whereas she asks for a simple token that will lead her to the enchanted prince. Uther remarks that this type contains the "presents for the daughters", lacking, however, a quest for the lost spouse. In this tale type, the husband disappears and the human wife builds an inn (alternatively, a hostel, bath house, or hospital) to receive strangers. Every guest must share

7326-458: The husband becomes an animal or wears an animal skin as part of his marriage initiation, while the human wife burns his animal skin and begins her own quest to find her husband as part of hers. Note: the following sections are based on the descriptions of the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index. Some information may differ in regional and national folktale indexes. Folklorist D. L. Ashliman associated this general type with stories wherein

7437-759: The index was translated into English, revised, and expanded by American folklorist Stith Thompson (1928, 1961 ), and later further revised and expanded by German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther (2004). The ATU index is an essential tool for folklorists, used along with the Thompson (1932) Motif-Index of Folk-Literature . Austrian consul Johann Georg von Hahn devised a preliminary analysis of some 40 tale "formulae" as introduction to his book of Greek and Albanian folktales , published in 1864. Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould , in 1866, translated von Hahn's list and extended it to 52 tale types, which he called "story radicals" . Folklorist J. Jacobs expanded

7548-410: The inhuman/animal suitor is born out of a hasty wish of their parents, or adopted by a human couple in their current beastly form. When the animal suitor grows up, he wishes for his parents to find a woman of marriageable age. In some variants, the animal groom is given a different bride or marries other women before the heroine, and he devours, hurts or kills these brides while still in animal form. It

7659-508: The international classification system and subsumed previous type AaTh 428, "The Wolf" under the new type ATU 425B, "Son of the Witch". Zipes summarized the tale thus: the third or youngest daughter asks her father (a merchant or king) for a gift (bird or flower). The only place he can find such a trifle is the garden of the beast or monster, who demands the merchant/king's daughter in return. Richard MacGillivray Dawkins, in turn, remarked that

7770-560: The international folktale system, they can exist in regional or national classification systems. A quantitative study published by folklorist S. Graça da Silva and anthropologist J.J. Tehrani in 2016, tried to evaluate the time of emergence for the "Tales of Magic" (ATU 300–ATU 749), based on a phylogenetic model. They found four of them to belong to the Proto-Indo-European stratum of magic tales. Ten more magic tales were found to be current throughout

7881-440: The jungle so she can marry it to her own daughter. The younger Maharani locks her own daughter into the chambers with the python. Her daughter screams to be let out and that her body is aching, but the Maharani thinks the python is simply decorating her daughter's body. The next day, she finds that the python devoured her daughter, and the Maharajah expels her from the kingdom. Back to the older Maharani, she talks her daughter to burn

7992-413: The largest chest and the cow, the horse and the tree humiliate her. Shookhu's mother is frightened at the sight, but expects a better outcome with the large chest her daughter brought. That night, Shookhu cries out to her mother that her body is aching all over, but her mother dismisses her complaints, thinking it is another bridegroom that emerged from the chest that is decorating her body. The next morning,

8103-472: The list to 70 tale types and published it as "Appendix C" in Burne & Gomme 's Handbook of Folk-Lore . Before the edition of Antti Aarne 's first folktale classification, Astrid Lunding translated Svend Grundtvig 's system of folktale classification. This catalogue consisted of 134 types, mostly based on Danish folktale compilations in comparison to international collections available at

8214-746: The main tale type ( Cupid and Psyche ) is "commonest in Scandinavia and eastern Mediterranean", but also appears in Europe, Asia Minor , Persia, India , Indonesia and in Africa ("among the Berbers and Hausa " ). Megas complements Swahn's analysis and locates type A across the Mediterranean, and even in China. Swahn hypothesized that the original tale of Cupid and Psyche might have developed in

8325-560: The marital status (represented by the trials and ordeals they suffer in these tales). In her book Off With Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood , in the chapter about animal husbands and the human women who marry them, scholar Maria Tatar concludes that the heroine of these tales is part of a complex set of actions and emotions. For instance, Tatar interprets the episode of Psyche's betrayal of Cupid identity (and, by extension, all other heroines and their animal husbands) as

8436-406: The mother enters Shookhu's room and sees only a pile of bones and a cast-off snakeskin beside it. In an Indian tale titled The Python , a king has two wives, queen Shobha, the elder and kind one, and queen Rupa, the younger and wicked one. He also has two daughters, one from each wife: Devi and Tara. The younger queen convinces the king to relocate the elder and her daughter to a small house outside

8547-409: The motif of the box of musical instruments in Greek, Turkish and South Italian variants. In that regard, Swahn divided this motif in areas: in variants from Norway, Spain, Greece and Persia, the box contains something dangerous; in variants from Mediterranean tradition, the box contains instruments; in "Danish and Romance tradition", playing men leap out of the box (which he supposed was a variation on

8658-446: The motif of the heroine holding a torch to her husband's second marriage to the false bride - a trap set by the witch or her daughter with the intent to kill the heroine. However, she is saved when her husband takes the torch and drops it into the false bride's hands. Jan-Öjvind Swahn named this The Torch Motif and located it in tales from Scandinavia, Greece, India, Turkey, and Romance-speaking areas. This type may be conflated with

8769-540: The motif of the instruments); in Scandinavia, it contains flying jewels. According to Christine Goldberg and Walter Puchner , some variants of this type show as a closing episode " The Magic Flight " sequence, a combination that appears "sporadically in Europe", but "traditionally in Turkey". This episode also appears in the Bulgarian type 425B, "Момъкът с конската глава" or "Der Junge mit Pferdekopf" ("The Youth With

8880-451: The mysterious voice. She does and discovers the voice's owner: a serpent. Wanting to see her stepdaughter killed, her father's first wife says she must honor the promise, and locks the girl in her room with the snake. The girl cries aloud she is feeling something on her body, and the stepmother thinks the girl is being devoured. However, Champavati exits the room with a smile and decorated with jewels on her body. Jealous of Champavati's luck,

8991-474: The next time he takes it off. Following the beggar woman's suggestion, Champavati does as instructed, takes the snakeskin and tosses it in the fire. The human snake husband rushes in and writhes in pain, feeling a burning sensation. Champavati quickly rubs oil and water on his body, then fans it, and he becomes a handsome man permanently. The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as AaTh 433C, "The Serpent Husband and The Jealous Girl",

9102-401: The original index. He points out that Thompson's focus on oral tradition sometimes neglects older versions of stories, even when written records exist, that the distribution of stories is uneven (with Eastern and Southern European as well as many other regions' folktale types being under-represented), and that some included folktale types have dubious importance. Similarly, Thompson had noted that

9213-426: The palace. Now in a humble situation, Shobha asks Devi to take their cows to graze. Devi does as asked, taking the cows to the jungle in the morning and coming back at night. This goes on for some time, until one evening a voice proposes to her. Afraid of what to say, she returns home. The next day, she tells her mother about it, and Shobha tells her to accept the voice's proposal, since they have nothing else to lose. At

9324-472: The previous one. However, Uther argues that the distinction between both categories lies in "the quest for the casket" and the visit to the second witch. Catalan scholarship locates the distribution of the latter motif in variants from Latvia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, France, Italy, Turkey, and Serbia. As for the "quest for the casket", researcher Annamaria Zesi suggests that it occurs in Eastern Mediterranean variants. Similarly, Catalan scholarship located

9435-410: The python prince's snakeskin, so he can be human at all times. The python prince's wife burns his snakeskin in a fire. He complains about it at first, but he eventually accepts it, and explains that he was cursed as a python until he married a princess. In a Bengali tale published by Francis Bradley Bradley-Birt with the title Humility rewarded and Pride punished (alternatively, Sukhu and Dukhu ),

9546-480: The python's belly, still alive. In a tale from the Angami Nagas of Assam, a girl is going to work in the field, when a snake appears and blocks her path. The girl tells the snake to not bite her, and she agrees to marry it. The snake bites the girl in her bosom and ornaments spring on her, then on her leg and leggings appear. Another girl sees the scene and tries to repeat with a snake, agreeing to marry it, but

9657-545: The queen asks her husband to fetch a python for her own daughter. The second python, being a real animal, devours the girl during the night. Author Henry Parker collected a tale from the North central Province of Ceylon (modern day Sri Lanka ), titled The Ash-Pumpkin Fruit Prince . In this tale, in a village, a husband and a wife bring home an Ash-pumpkin and put it in a pot under seven earthen pots. Some time later,

9768-437: The remaining Matchadus into crossing a river in earthen jars to chase him and they promptly drown. After this adventure, he takes refuge in a cave, kills a python dwelling inside it and wraps its skin around himself to sleep, along with his jewels and money. Some time later, he spies on two sisters shooing away the birds from their father's jhum plantation, and he falls in love with the younger sister. The younger sister passes by

9879-513: The river bank if she needs anything, then departs with her husband. Meanwhile, the younger sister wants to experience the same luck as the elder, and goes to river to find a snake to marry. She finds a black snake hole and, hoping it will become a handsome youth, she is killed by the black snake. Time passes, and their mother, now older, calls for her elder daughter by the riverbank. Her daughter appears and takes her to her husband's river palace, where she meets her grandchildren. Her son-in-law gives her

9990-421: The same journey, hoping she will also be rewarded. That night, after Dukhu and her mother fall asleep, the small box opens up and a prince-like youth comes out of it. Shookhu's journey is unlike her step-sister's: she refuses to help the animals and the tree and mistreats the moon's mother. When she goes to the river to bathe, she dives three times and her body becomes covered with warts and boils. She goes home with

10101-568: The second half of the century. Another edition with further revisions by Thompson followed in 1961. According to American folklorist D.L. Ashliman , The AT-number system was updated and expanded in 2004 with the publication of The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography by German folklorist H.-J. Uther . Uther noted that many of the earlier descriptions were cursory and often imprecise, that many "irregular types" are in fact old and widespread, and that "emphasis on oral tradition " often obscured "older, written versions of

10212-406: The shoe and it fits her. The prince marries her. Combinations: This type is usually combined with episodes of one or more other types, esp. 327A, 403, 480, 510B, and also 408, 409, 431, 450, 511, 511A, 707, and 923. Remarks: Documented by Basile, Pentamerone (I,6) in the 17th century. The entry concludes, like others in the catalogue, with a long list of references to secondary literature on

10323-566: The snake bites her in the arm and she dies. The tale was republished by anthropologist John Henry Hutton , who also sourced it from the Angami Nagas. Goswami recognized it as a "parallel" to Champavati , but he suggested the Angami Naga tale was a borrowing. Professor Stuart Blackburn reported a tale from the Apatani people of Arunachal Pradesh with the title Bunyi-Bunye or Two Sisters . In this tale, two sisters go to pluck fruits from

10434-502: The snake lover wants to marry her so they can live in his watery home. The girl seems reluctant at first, but eventually her lover calms her fears. Her mother asks her about her weaving skills, and she confesses about the snake lover. The mother warns her of a possible danger, since he is a snake. At any rate, the snake lover's procession comes to take his bride, their appearing as snakes to the whole village, but normal humans to her. She says goodbye to her mother, but tells she can call her by

10545-451: The snake's cave and carry the python bridegroom (inside of which is Jereng, but they are not aware of the fact) to the younger sister's marital house. At midnight, the girl utters a loud cry, and the servants rush to investigate: they see the girl, alive and well, sitting beside a handsome youth, Jereng, and the house is filled with jewels, money and precious cloth. The girl's father is relieved and content with his daughter's fortune. Meanwhile,

10656-570: The subtype appears in combination with subtype 425D as the Turkish type TTV 93, and with type 433B as the Turkish type TTV 106. Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index ( ATU Index ) is a catalogue of folktale types used in folklore studies . The ATU index is the product of a series of revisions and expansions by an international group of scholars: Originally published in German by Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne (1910),

10767-399: The sun, a gust of wind blows it all over. The wind bids her to follow him. She goes and reaches a cowshed where a cow asks to be fed; further along, a plantain tree that asks to be relieved of it bushes; a horse that also asks to be fed. She fulfills their wishes and reaches the house of the moon's mother, who welcomes her and tells her to refresh herself at a nearby pool. Dukhu dips her head in

10878-400: The superhuman" (since the animal bridegroom may possess great powers), and between "the animal and the divine". James M. Taggart stated that these tales underlie a "metaphorical [...] gender division of labor in courtship and marriage": while men take the active role in courtship, and women assume a more passive role, the latter are slotted into a role with "more responsibility" in maintaining

10989-413: The surge in folktale collecting and the beginnings of folkloristics as a discipline in the 19th century, scholars and folktale collectors compared many versions of "The Animal as Bridegroom" to the tale of Cupid and Psyche. Folklore scholar Stith Thompson clarified that the animal bridegroom may have been born due to its parents' wishes, or alternates between human and animal shapes. Some tales have

11100-404: The tale type ATU 425A was the "wife's quest and gifts" and "nights bought". This category of tales involves the heroine performing difficult tasks for her husband's family (more specifically, her mother-in-law). In this type, the heroine reaches the house of a witch (sometimes, her mother-in-law; sometimes, another female relative of her husband), where she works as her servant. One of the tasks

11211-575: The tale type index might well be called The Types of the Folk-Tales of Europe, West Asia, and the Lands Settled by these Peoples . However, Dundes notes that in spite of the flaws of tale type indexes (e.g., typos, redundancies, censorship, etc.; Author Pete Jordi Wood claims that topics related to homosexuality have been excluded intentionally from the type index. Similarly, folklorist Joseph P. Goodwin states that Thompson omitted "much of

11322-497: The tale types". To remedy these shortcomings Uther developed the Aarne–Thompson–Uther (ATU) classification system and included more tales from eastern and southern Europe as well as "smaller narrative forms" in this expanded listing. He also put the emphasis of the collection more explicitly on international folktales, removing examples whose attestation was limited to one ethnic group. In The Folktale , Thompson defines

11433-534: The tale, and variants of it. In his essay "The motif-index and the tale type index: A critique", American folklorist Alan Dundes explains that the Aarne–Thompson indexes are some of the "most valuable tools in the professional folklorist's arsenal of aids for analysis". The tale type index was criticized by V. Propp of the Russian Formalist school of the 1920s for ignoring the functions of

11544-521: The time by other folklorists, such as the Brothers Grimm 's and Emmanuel Cosquin 's. Antti Aarne was a student of Julius Krohn and his son Kaarle Krohn . Aarne developed the historic-geographic method of comparative folkloristics , and developed the initial version of what became the Aarne–Thompson tale type index for classifying folktales , first published in 1910 as Verzeichnis der Märchentypen ("List of Fairy Tale Types"). The system

11655-491: The upcoming wedding. Jack Zipes emphasizes that the heroine must perform the tasks before she has a chance to free her husband. In some tales, the heroine is forced to carry torches to her husband's marriage cortège - a practice that Zipes and Ernst Tegethoff  [ de ] relate to an ancient Roman custom mentioned by Plautus in his work Casina . According to Donald Ward, Swedish scholar Jan-Öjvind Swahn stated that his type A, "the oldest" (see below), contains

11766-439: The water and becomes even more beautiful. She enters the moon's mother's house and is told to choose one of the boxes full of cotton, but chooses only a small box. On her return, the horse, the plantain tree and the cow gift her a winged colt, a baskets of gold mohurs and a necklace, and a calf that produces milk. Dukhu returns with the small box and Shookhu's mother, seeing the step-daughter's fortune, orders her own daughter to make

11877-481: The water and frightens the girl back to the margin, but it turns into a handsome youth and assures the girl he means no harm. They fall in love with each other and see each other every night by the riverbank. One day, the girl complains that she wishes she could improve her weaving skills and the snake lover gives her a solution: she can copy on the loom the scaly patterns of his body. Inspired by her snake lover's body patterns, she weaves beautiful pieces of cloth. One day,

11988-544: The whole of Europe and Asia Minor, appearing "particularly" in Ireland, Denmark and Norway. The type with the three nights, Swahn acknowledged, was the one to spread far and wide. Later scholarship corroborates Swahn's assessment: "Animal as Bridegroom" tales with the "buying three nights" episode are very popular in Germanic- , Celtic- , Slavic- and Romance-speaking areas. About a small cycle of stories that involves

12099-423: The world. He goes to the river and asks her if she wants him to show her the world in his mouth. She agrees. He goes to the middle of the river and opens up his mouth to show her the world. He tells her he will go away for six years, and gives her a ring to protect from any other demon that may want to devour her. He explains that his mother is a cannibal, and that he disobeyed his mother's wishes to see him married to

12210-434: Was based on identifying motifs and the repeated narrative ideas that can be seen as the building-blocks of traditional narrative; its scope was European. The American folklorist Stith Thompson revised Aarne's classification system in 1928, enlarging its scope, while also translating it from German into English. In doing so, he created the "AT number system" (also referred to as "AaTh system") which remained in use through

12321-562: Was basically correct – no one would classify " Tsarevitch Ivan, the Fire Bird and the Gray Wolf " as an animal tale, just because of the wolf – it did raise questions because animal tales often contained fantastic elements, and tales of the fantastic often contained animals; indeed a tale could shift categories if a peasant deceived a bear rather than a devil. In describing the motivation for his work, Uther presents several criticisms of

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