"The Golden Bird" ( German : Der goldene Vogel ) is a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm (KHM 57) about the pursuit of a golden bird by a gardener's three sons.
116-728: It is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as type ATU 550, "Bird, Horse and Princess", a folktale type that involves a supernatural helper (animal as helper). Other tales of this type include " The Bird 'Grip' ", " The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener ", " Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf ", " How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon ", and " The Nunda, Eater of People ". A similar version of
232-505: A geasa to always wear a veil outdoors lest she marries the first man she sets eyes on, sees the bull and notices it is a king's son. They marry, and the speckled bull, under a geas , chooses to be a bull by day and man by night. The bull regains human form and rescues his mother. In Types of the Irish Folktale (1963), by the same author, he listed a variant titled Uisce an Óir, Crann an Cheoil agus Éan na Scéalaíochta . As
348-497: 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
464-436: A Galician tale titled O Páxaro de Ouro , wherein the king owns an orchard where there is a tree with red Portuguese apples that are stolen by the titular golden bird. He is helped by a fox and completes the quest by obtaining a golden horse and a princess with golden hair. The "Istituto centrale per i beni sonori ed audiovisivi" ("Central Institute of Sound and Audiovisual Heritage") promoted research and registration throughout
580-495: A Polish variant by Oskar Kolberg , O królewiczu i jego przyjacielu, kruku ("About the prince and his friend, the Raven"), a raven, sent by a mysterious hermit, helps a prince in his quest for a golden bird. The hero continues his quest for a golden-haired princess, then for a golden-maned horse. In a Hungarian variant translated by Michel Klimo as L'Oiseau de Feu , the hero is a poor farmer's youngest son, named Ladislas. His helper
696-408: A beggar's cloak, the bird, the horse, and the princess all recognize him as the man who won them, and become cheerful again. His older brothers get punished for their bad deeds, and he marries the princess. Finally, the third son cuts off the fox's head and feet at the creature's request. The fox is revealed to be a man, the brother of the princess who had been enchanted by a witch after being lost for
812-459: A bird said to possess magical powers and a radiant brilliance, in many fairy tales. The Slavic Firebird can also be known by the name Ohnivak Zhar Bird or Bird Zhar ; Glowing Bird , or The Bird of Light . Sometimes, the king or the hero's father send the hero on his quest for the bird to cure him of his illness or blindness, instead of finding out who has been destroying his garden and/or stealing his precious golden apples . Under this lens,
928-472: A bird that knows many things, and may reveal the origin of the parentage. At the end of their quest, young Julishka fetches the bird, of a "rusty old" appearance, and brings it home. With the bird's feathers, she and her brothers restore their mother to perfect health and disenchant the bird to human form. Julishka marries the now human bird. In a Sorbian/Wendish ( Lausitz ) variant, Der Sternprinz ("The Star Prince"), three discharged soldier brothers gather at
1044-419: A donna di sette bellezze"; English: "The she-donkey that rides like the wind, the bird that sings and plays music, and the maiden of seven beauties"), collected by Genevieve Massignon. In Italian variant L'acqua di l'occhi e la bella di setti veli ("The water for the eyes and the beauty with seven veils"), the prince is sent on a quest for "l'acqua di l'occhi", the beauty with seven veils, the talking horse and
1160-798: 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
1276-527: A girl named Sun, and a boy named Moon. At least one variant from Cyprus has been published, from the "Folklore Archive of the Cyprus Research Centre". In a Lovari Romani variant, the king meets the third sister during a dance at the village, who promised to give birth to a golden boy. They marry. Whenever a child is born to her (two golden boys and a golden girl, in three consecutive births), they are replaced for an animal and cast into
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#17327978286871392-551: A golden horse. In the final part of the quest, the prince is tasked with kidnapping a fairy princess from her witch mother. With his faithful fox companion, which transforms into a replica of the fairy maiden to trick her mother, the prince obtains the fairy maiden. In a tale collected by Andrew Lang and attributed to the Brothers Grimm, The Golden Mermaid , the king's golden apples are stolen by some creature or thief, so he sends his sons to find it. The youngest son, however,
1508-405: A great many years. The tale type is characterized by a chain of quests, one after the other, that the hero must fulfill before he takes the prizes to his father. In many variants, the first object is the bird that steals the golden apples from the king's garden; in others, it is a magical fruit or a magical plant, which sets up the next parts of the quest: the horse and the princess. The helper of
1624-576: A jug of the water, and how to rescue her brothers from petrification. According to Daniel J. Crowley, British sources point to 92 variants of the tale type. However, he specified that most variants were found in the Irish Folklore Archives, plus some "scattered Scottish and English references". Scottish folklorist John Francis Campbell mentioned the existence of "a Gaelic version" of the French tale Princesse Belle-Étoile , itself
1740-521: A literary variant of type ATU 707. He also remarked that "[the] French story agree[d] with Gaelic stories", since they shared common elements: the wonder children, the three treasures, etc. Scholarship points to the existence of many variants in Irish folklore . In fact, the tale type shows "wide distribution" in Ireland . However, according to researcher Maxim Fomin, this diffusion is perhaps attributed to
1856-563: A literary version a tale written by Lorenzo Selva, in his Metamorfosi : an illegitimate son of a king searches for the Pistis , a plant with healing powers. Later, he is forced to seek the maiden Agape, a foreign princess from a distant land, and a winged horse to finish the quest. An almost immediate predecessor to the Grimms' tale was published in 1787, in an anonymous compilation of fairy tales. In this story, Der treue Fuchs ("The loyal fox"),
1972-841: A long literary history of the tale type: an ancient version is attested in The Arabian Nights . A story titled Sagan af Artus Fagra is reported to contain a tale of three brothers, Carolo, Vilhiamo and Arturo of the Fagra clan, sons of the King of the Angles, who depart to India on a quest for the Phoenix bird to heal their father. It was published in an Icelandic manuscript of the 14th century. Swedish folktale collectors George Stephens and Gunnar Olof Hyltén-Cavallius listed Danish tale Kong Edvard och Prints Artus , collected in 1816, as
2088-517: A parallel to the Irish tale An Triúr Páiste Agus A Dtrí Réalta , published in Béaloideas , J. G McKay commented that the motif of the replacement of the newborns for animals occurs "in innumerable Scottish tales.". Researcher Sheila Douglas collected from teller John Stewart, from Perthshire , two variants: The Speaking Bird of Paradise and Cats, Dogs, and Blocks . In both of them, a king and
2204-473: A parrot with green and gold feathers in the royal gardens. Brazilian folklorist Luís da Câmara Cascudo suggested that the tale type migrated to Portugal brought by the Arabs . Portuguese folklorist Teófilo Braga published a Portuguese tale from Airão - Minho with the title As cunhadas do rei ("The King's sisters-in-law"): the king, his cook and his butler walk through the streets in disguise to listen to
2320-512: A princess enchanted by her godmother. In a surprise appearance by said godmother, she prophesises her goddaughter shall marry the hero of the tale (the youngest prince), after a war with another country. Another motif that appears in these variants (specially in Middle East and Turkey) is suckling an ogress's breastmilk by the hero. In an Icelandic variant collected by Jón Árnason and translated in his book Icelandic Legends (1866), with
2436-413: A princess from another kingdom. In a French tale from Poitou , Le merle blanc ("The White Blackbird "), an old king sends his sons to find the titular white blackbird so he can be young again. When the youngest prince begins his quest, he finds a friendly fox, which informs him about the lengthy chain of quests he must make: to get the bird, he must take the "belle fille" first; to get her, he must find
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#17327978286872552-411: A printed edition of The Arabian Nights . One version was published in journal Béaloideas with the title An Triúr Páiste Agus A Dtrí Réalta : a king wants to marry a girl who can jump the highest; the youngest of three sisters fulfills the task and becomes queen. When she gives birth to three royal children, their aunts replace them with animals (a young pig, a cat and a crow). The queen is cast into
2668-473: A queen have three children (two boys and a girl), in three consecutive pregnancies, who are taken from them by the housekeeper and abandoned in the woods. Years later, a helpful kind woman tells them about their royal heritage, and advises them to seek the Speaking Bird of Paradise, which will help them reveal the truth to their parents. In a Welsh -Romani variant, Ī Tārnī Čikalī ("The Little Slut"),
2784-584: A quest for it. This tale lacks the princess and the horse, however. The horse of the variants of the tale is sometimes referenced along with the bird, attached to a special trait, such as in Flemish versions Van de Gouden Vogel, het Gouden Peerde en de Prinses , and Van de wonderschoone Prinses, het zilveren Paardeken en de gouden Vogel , and in French-Flanders version Van Vogel Venus, Peerdeken-Muishaar en Glooremonde . The horse, in many variants of
2900-419: A quest for wondrous items. Richard MacGillivray Dawkins stated that "as a rule there are three quests" and the third item is "almost always ... a magical speaking bird". In other variants, according to scholar Hasan El-Shamy , the quest objects include "the dancing plant, the singing object and the truth-speaking bird". Russian folklorist Lev Barag [ ru ] also noted two different formats to
3016-843: A reconstruction of the story in his European Folk and Fairy Tales . The original title is " Li Figghi di lu Cavuliciddaru ", for which Crane gives a literal translation of "The Herb-gatherer's Daughters." The story is the prototypical example of Aarne–Thompson–Uther tale-type 707, to which it gives its name. Alternate names for the tale type are The Three Golden Sons , The Three Golden Children , The Bird of Truth , Portuguese : Os meninos com uma estrelinha na testa , lit. 'The boys with little stars on their foreheads', Russian : Чудесные дети , romanized : Chudesnyye deti , lit. 'The Wonderful or Miraculous Children', or Hungarian : Az aranyhajú ikrek , lit. 'The Golden-Haired Twins'. According to folklorist Stith Thompson ,
3132-494: A river, but survives, and the king marries one of her sisters. The children are found and reared by a sow . When the foster mother is threatened to be killed on orders of the second queen, she gives the royal children three stars, a towel that grants unlimited food and a magical book that reveals the truth of their origin. Another variant has been recorded by Irish folklorist Sean O'Suilleabhain in Folktales of Ireland , under
3248-469: A son with a golden star on the forehead. The king learns of their dreams and is gifted the golden chain. He marries his daughter to the third charcoal burner and she gives birth to the boy with a golden star. However, the queen replaces her grandson with a puppy and throws the child in the river. In a Karelian tale, "Девять золотых сыновей" ("Nine Golden Sons"), the third sister promises to give birth to "three times three" children, their arms of gold up to
3364-506: A story related to Sagan of Artus Fagra . Dutch scholarship states that a Flemish medieval manuscript from the 11th century, Roman van Walewein [ nl ] , is an ancestor of the ATU 550 tale type. In that vein, folklorist Joseph Jacobs also suggested the romance of Walewein as predecessor to "The Golden Bird" tale, albeit in regards to an Irish variant of the type. Scholars Willem de Blécourt and Suzanne Magnanini indicate as
3480-404: A tavern to talk about their dreams. The first two dreamt of extraordinary objects: a large magical chain and an inexhaustible purse. The third soldier says he dreamt that if he marries the princess, they will have a son with a golden star on the forehead ("słoćanu gwězdu na cole"). The three men go to the king and the third marries the princess, who gives birth to the promised boy. However, the child
3596-406: A variant from Azores with the title The Listening King : a king likes to disguise himself and go through the streets at night to listen to his subjects' talk. He overhears the three sisters' talk, the youngest wanting to marry him. They do and she gives birth to twin boys with a gold star on the forehead. They are cast in the sea in a basket and found by a miller and his wife. Years later, they find
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3712-451: Is Princesse Belle-Étoile et Prince Chéri , by Mme. D'Aulnoy, where the heroine rescues her cousin, Prince Chéri, and marries him. Another French variant, collected by Henry Carnoy ( L'Arbre qui chante, l'Oiseau qui parle et l'Eau d'or , or "The tree that sings, the bird that speaks and the water of gold"), has the youngest daughter, the princess, marry an enchanted old man she meets in her journey and who gives her advice on how to obtain
3828-535: Is a "ours d'argent" (silver bear). They quest for the firebird (which has been taking his father's flowers), the silver-maned horse from the "roi de fer" ("Iron King") and the daughter of the Fairy Queen. The character of the Golden Bird has been noted to resemble the mythological phoenix bird. Indeed, in many variants the hero quests for the Phoenix bird. In other variants from the Middle East and Turkey
3944-452: Is a signal. But he disobeys, and the golden bird rouses the castle, resulting in his capture. The king of the castle agrees to spare him and give him the golden bird only if he can retrieve the golden horse. The fox advises him to use a dark gray leather saddle rather than a golden one which is a signal again, but he fails again by putting a golden saddle on a horse, resulting in his capture by a different castle. This castle's king sent him after
4060-399: Is cast into a sea in a barrel. The remaining son asks his mother to bake bread with her breastmilk to rescue his brothers. In a Karelian tale by Karelian teller Mariya Mikheyeva [ ru ] , titled "Starina Turkin sultanista" ( Russian : Сказка о турецком султане , romanized : Skazka o turetskom sultane , lit. 'The Tale of The Turkish Sultan'),
4176-450: Is known as "The Simpleton". Every year, a king's apple tree is robbed of one golden apple during the night. He sets his gardener's sons to watch, and though the first two fall asleep, the youngest stays awake and sees that the thief is a golden bird. He tries to shoot it, but only knocks a feather off. The feather is so valuable that the king decides he must have the bird. He sends his gardener's three sons, one after another, to capture
4292-653: Is known in Turkey as Die Schöne or Güzel ("The Beautiful"). The title refers to the maiden of supernatural beauty that is sought after by the male sibling. Such variants occur in Albania, as in the tales collected by J. G. Von Hahn in his Griechische und Albanische Märchen (Leipzig, 1864), in the village of Zagori in Epirus , and by Auguste Dozon in Contes Albanais (Paris, 1881). These stories substitute
4408-506: Is not transformed at the end of the tale. Another version, collected by François-Marie Luzel , is called Princess Marcassa and the Dreadaine Bird . There, the sick man is a king rather than a gardener, and the animal - a white fox in this variant - isn't the brother of the princess, but the soul of a poor old man whom the prince, after being robbed by his older brothers, buries with the last of his money. The prince, while stealing
4524-511: Is replaced by a dog and thrown in the water, but he is saved by a fisherman. Years later, on a hunt, the Star Prince tries to shoot a white hind, but it says it is the enchanted Queen of Rosenthal. She alerts that his father and uncles are in the dungeon and his mother is to marry another person. She also warns that he must promise not reveal her name. He stops the wedding and releases his uncles. They celebrate their family reunion, during which
4640-492: Is the only one successful: he discovers the thief is a magic bird that belongs to an Emperor; steals a golden horse and obtains the titular golden mermaid as his wife. The tale is actually Romanian and was collected by Arthur and Albert Schott from the Banat region with the title Das goldene Meermädchen ("The Golden Sea-Maiden"). In a collection of Upper Silesian fairy tales by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (unpublished at
4756-816: The Star Prince reveals the Queen's name. She departs and he must go on a quest after her (tale type ATU 400, "The Quest for the Lost Wife"). Professor Maurits de Meyere listed three variants under the banner " L'oiseau qui parle, l'arbre qui chante et l'eau merveilleuse ", attested in Flanders fairy tale collections, in Belgium , all with contamination from other tale types (two with ATU 303, "The Twins or Blood Brothers", and one with tale type ATU 304, "The Dangerous Night-Watch"). A variant titled La fille du marchand
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4872-406: 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
4988-566: The mule whose every step can jump seven leagues . In the title of many variants, the Princess as the last object the hero's quest is referenced in the title. The tales usually reference a peculiar characteristic or special trait, such as in Corsican variant La jument qui marche comme le vent, l'oiseau qui chante et joue de la musique et la dame des sept beautés ( Corsican : "A jumenta chi biaghja quant'u ventu, l'agellu chi canta e chi sona,
5104-458: 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
5220-412: The "aceddu Bonvirdi" (a kind of bird). In Romanian variant Pasărea cîntă, domnii dorm , the emperor asks for the golden bird whose song makes men sleep. His son travels the lands for the fabled bird, and discovers its owner is the princess of the golden kingdom. In Hungarian variant A próbára tett királyfi ("The king's son put to the test"), the prince is helped by a fox in his quest a golden bird and
5336-626: The Caucasus, Egypt, Syria and Brazil. Russian comparative mythologist Yuri Berezkin ( ru ) pointed out that the tale type can be found "from Ireland and Maghreb, to India and Mongolia", in Africa and Siberia . There are also variants in Romance languages : a Spanish version called Los siete infantes , where there are seven children with stars on their foreheads, and a Portuguese one, As cunhadas do rei ( The King's sisters-in-law ). Both replace
5452-515: The Italian territory between the years 1968–1969 and 1972. In 1975 the Institute published a catalog edited by Alberto Maria Cirese [ it ] and Liliana Serafini reported 13 variants of type 550 across Italian sources, under the name La Ricerca dell'Uccello d'Oro . Author Wentworth Webster published two Basque tales: he summarized one wherein the youngest of three princes obtains
5568-473: The Plattdeutsche ( Low German ) variant collected by Wilhelm Wisser , Vagel Fenus , the protagonist searches for the bird Fenus because his father dreamt that it could restore his health, while in the tale De gollen Vagel , the tale begins with the usual vigil at the garden to protect the tree of golden apples. In a variant from Flensburg , Guldfuglen ("Goldbird"), the gardener's youngest son, with
5684-641: The Prince (King's son) investigates the mystery of the twins and questions the midwife who helped in the delivery of his children. Late 19th-century and early 20th-century scholars ( Joseph Jacobs , Teófilo Braga , Francis Hindes Groome) had noted that the story was widespread across Europe, the Middle East and India. Portuguese writer Braga noticed its prevalence in Italy, France, Germany, Spain and in Russian and Slavic sources, while Groome listed its incidence in
5800-404: The Speaking Bird told the king all that had happened. The king executed the aunts and their nurse and took his wife and children back to the palace. The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children". According to Folklore scholar Christine Goldberg, the form the tale type appears "throughout Europe" involves the heroes going on
5916-463: The Turkish sultan passes by the house of an old woman and her three daughters, and spies on their conversation, the third sister wants to marry the sultan and give birth to "three golden children". The sultan takes the youngest sister as his wife. When she is ready to give birth to each child (in three consecutive pregnancies), her elder sister comes as her midwife, and replaces the children for animals:
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#17327978286876032-566: The Water of Life and the Most beautiful Flower"), the tale begins with the motif of the birth of twin wonder-children, akin to " The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird ". Cast away from home, the twins grow up and take refuge in their (unbeknownst to them) father's house. Their aunt asks for the titular items, and the fox who helps the hero is his mother's reincarnation. In
6148-763: The Western branch of the Indo-European languages, comprising the main European language families derived from PIE (i.e. Balto-Slavic , Germanic , Italic and Celtic ): International collections : The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird is a Sicilian fairy tale collected by Giuseppe Pitrè , and translated by Thomas Frederick Crane for his Italian Popular Tales . Joseph Jacobs included
6264-562: The abandoned children and gave them a deer to nurse them, a purse full of money, and a ring that changed color when misfortune befell one of them. When they were grown, they left for the city and took a house. Their aunts saw them and were terror-struck. They sent their nurse to visit the daughter and tell her that the house needed the Dancing Water to be perfect and her brothers should get it for her. The oldest son left and found three hermits in turn. The first two could not help him, but
6380-464: 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
6496-408: 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
6612-521: The bird is sometimes called Vogel Vinus or Vogel Venus . Scholarship suggests that the name is a corruption of the name Phönix by the narrators. The name also appears in the 19th century Hungarian tale A Vénus madara ("The Bird Venus"). In a variant published by illustrator Howard Pyle , The White Bird , the prince takes part in a chain of quests: for the Fruit of Happiness, the Sword of Brightness and
6728-620: The bird's name is Hezārān Nightingale . August Leskien explained that the Hazaran bird may appear in Albanian tales as Gisar , and both names derive from the Persian word hezâr ('a thousand'), although the name may be translated as "a thousand songs" or "a thousand voices". The Golden Bird of the Brothers Grimm tale can be seen as a counterpart to the Firebird of Slavic folklore ,
6844-512: The bird, impregnates the princess as she sleeps, and it's the child's insistence on finding his father which makes the princess follow him and reveal the truth. An Irish variant of the type, published in 1936 ( Le roi magicien sous la terre ), seems to contain the Celtic motif of "the journey to the Other World". Galician ethnographer Lois Carré Alvarellos [ gl ] published
6960-421: The brother is the hero who gathers the wonderful objects (a magical flower and a mirror) and their owner (Arab-Zandyq), whom he later marries. Arab-Zandyq replaces the bird and, as such, tells the whole truth during her wedding banquet. In an extended version from a Breton source, called L'Oiseau de Vérité , the youngest triplet, a king's son, listens to the helper (an old woman), who reveals herself to be
7076-438: The child is a changeling. She kills the boy and buries his body in the garden, from where a tree sprouts. Some time later, the prince's cattle grazed near the tree and a cow eats its fruit. The cow gives birth to a speckled calf that becomes a mighty bull. The queen's sister suspects the bull is the boy and feigns illness to have it killed. The bull escapes by flying to a distant kingdom in the east. The princess of this realm, under
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#17327978286877192-502: 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
7308-452: The edge of rivers. He finds that his older brothers, who have been carousing and living sinfully in the meantime, are to be hanged (on the gallows) and buys their liberty. They find out what he has done. When he sits on a river's edge, they push him in, take the bird, horse and princess and bring them to their father. However, all three grieve for the youngest son. The fox rescues the prince, and when he returns to his father's castle dressed in
7424-438: The elbow, the legs of silver up to the knees, a moon on the temples, a sun on the front and stars in their hair. The king overhears their conversation and takes the woman as his wife. On their way, they meet a woman named Syöjätär , who insists to be the future queen's midwife. She gives birth to triplets in three consecutive pregnancies, but Syöjätär replaces them for rats, crows and puppies. The queen saves one of her children and
7540-409: The elder, a boy, for a magpie; the second, another boy, for a crow, and the third, a girl, for a chick. Each time, the child is cast in the water in a box, but they are saved by a childless miller and his wife. The sultan orders his wife to be locked inside a stone structure in the churchyard, and to be fed only with water and bread. Years later, after the children grow up, a mysterious old woman comes to
7656-667: 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
7772-702: The fantastical elements with Christian imagery: the devil and the Virgin Mary . Portuguese writer, lawyer and teacher Álvaro Rodrigues de Azevedo [ pt ] published a versified variant from the Madeira Archipelago with the title Los Encantamentos da Grande Fada Maria . Portuguese folklorist Teófilo Braga cited the Madeiran tale as a variant of the Portuguese tales he collected. Folklore researcher Elsie Spicer Eells published
7888-469: The gardener's son set out because the doctors have prescribed the golden blackbird for their ill father. The two older brothers are lured into the inn without any warning, and the youngest meets the talking hare that aids him only after he passes it by. The horse is featured only as a purchase, and he did not have to perform two tasks to win the Porcelain Maiden, the princess figure. Also, the hare
8004-551: The help of a fox, searches for the White Hart and the "White Maiden" ("hivde Jomfru"). Aarne%E2%80%93Thompson%E2%80%93Uther 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),
8120-470: The hero differs between versions: usually a fox or a wolf in most versions, but very rarely there is another type of animal, like a lion, a bear or a hare. In some variants, it is a grateful dead who helps the hero as return for a good deed of the protagonist. In a variant collected in Austria, by Ignaz and Joseph Zingerle ( Der Vogel Phönix, das Wasser des Lebens und die Wunderblume , or "The Phoenix Bird,
8236-565: The heroes, the golden apples, the avian thief) to Ossetian Nart sagas and the Greek myth of the Garden of the Hesperides . Scholarship acknowledges that the character of the "magic bird with glowing feathers" or with the golden plumage is known in the folklore of many peoples around the world, such as Russian “zhar-ptica”, Slovak “fire bird” and Armenian "Kush-Pari". It has been noted that
8352-472: The horse Pontifar and lady Amalia, a mysterious maiden who lives in a dark castle in a dark forest, guarded by wolves, lions and bears. When the hero is ready to take her on his journey back, she is seen at the castle's gates wearing a black dress. The story is a combination of types: ATU 506, "The Grateful Dead", since the fox helper is the spirit of a dead man; ATU 551, "The Water of Life", and ATU 550, "Bird, Horse and Princess". A mythological interpretation of
8468-759: 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
8584-560: 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
8700-483: The items. In the Armenian variant Théodore, le Danseur , the brother ventures on a quest for the belongings of the eponymous character and, at the conclusion of the tale, this fabled male dancer marries the sister. In the description of the tale type in the international index, the bird the children seek is the one to tell the king the sisters' deceit and to reunite the family. However, in some regional variants,
8816-417: The keeper of the royal wardrobe, she would dress the entire court in one piece of cloth, and have some left over. The youngest said that if she married the king, she would bear two sons with apples in their hands, and a daughter with a star on her forehead. The next morning, the king ordered the older two sisters to do as they said, and then married them to the butler and the keeper of the royal wardrobe, and
8932-469: The king and bears him twin boys with the golden stars, and the next year a little girl with a golden star on the front. They are replaced for animals and cast in the water, but are saved by a miller. Years later, their aunts send them for a parrot from a garden, for the tree that drips blood and the "water of a thousand springs". The Virgin Mary appears to instruct the sister on how to get a branch from tree and
9048-472: 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
9164-460: The miller's house, compliments the three siblings and bids them seek the bubbling spring, the ringing birch tree and the speaking bird. The elder brothers fail and become marble stones, but the girl, advised by an old man, gets the treasures. The old man reveals they are the sultan's children. The work of Latvian folklorist Peteris Šmidts, beginning with Latviešu pasakas un teikas ("Latvian folktales and fables") (1925–1937), records 33 variants of
9280-472: The name Bóndadæturnar ( The Story of the Farmer's Three Daughters , or its German translation, Die Bauerntöchter ), the quest focus on the search for the bird and omits the other two items. The end is very much the same, with the nameless sister rescuing her brothers Vilhjámr and Sigurdr and a prince from the petrification spell and later marrying him. Another variant where this happy ending occurs
9396-425: The name The Speckled Bull . In this variant, a prince marries the youngest of two sisters. Her elder sisters replaces the prince's children (two boys), lies that the princess gave birth to animals and casts the boys in a box into the sea, one year after the other. The second child is saved by a fisherman and grows strong. The queen's sister learns of the boy's survival and tries to convince his foster father's wife that
9512-575: The old man dies, he marries a girl and they build a house near a crossroads. Three times, passing hermits tell them the house is defective or lacks something. After much time passes, and three sons are born to them, the hermits compliment the building, but notice that their house will be even more beautiful if Warri has the Nightingale from the Mountain Valley. Frustrated with all the years, and now of an old age, his three sons promise to go on
9628-401: 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
9744-436: The priceless golden bird. The sons each meet a talking fox, who gives them advice for their quest: to choose an old and shabby inn over a rich and pleasant one. The first two sons ignore the advice and, in the pleasant inn, abandon their quest. The third son obeys the fox, so the fox advises him to take the bird in its wooden cage from the castle in which it lives, instead of putting it into the golden cage next to it, because this
9860-470: The princess from the golden castle. The fox advises him not to let her say farewell to her parents, but he disobeys, and the princess's father orders him to remove a hill in eight days as the price of his life. The fox removes it for him, and then, as they set out, he advises the son how to keep all the things he has won since then. It then asks the son to shoot it and cut off its head. When the son refuses, it warns him against buying gallows' flesh and sitting on
9976-417: The protagonist is a Cinderella-like character who is humiliated by her sisters, but triumphs in the end. However, in the second part of the story, she gives birth to three children (a girl first, and two boys later) "girt with golden belts". They children are replaced for animals and taken to the forest. Their mother is accused of imaginary crimes and sentenced to be killed, but the old woman helper (who gave her
10092-600: The quest for the items for the search for a fairy named E Bukura e Dheut ("Beauty of the Land"), a woman of extraordinary beauty and magical powers. One such tale is present in Robert Elsie 's collection of Albanian folktales ( Albania's Folktales and Legends ): The Youth and the Maiden with Stars on their Foreheads and Crescents on their Breasts . Another version of the story is The Tale of Arab-Zandyq , in which
10208-474: The river. Their sister goes to the liver and wishes for their return to human form, as well as to get her mother back. The magical powers of the liver grant her wishes. German linguist Hans Stumme collected a Maltese variant he translated as Sonne und Mond ("Sun and Moon"), in Maltesische Märchen (1904). This tale begins with the ATU 707 (twins born with astronomical motifs/aspects), but
10324-568: 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
10440-406: 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
10556-412: The slippers) turns her into a sow, and tells her she may be killed and her liver taken by the hunters, by she will prevail in the end. The sow meets the children in the forest. The sow is killed, but, as the old woman prophecizes, her liver gained magical powers and her children use it to suit their needs. A neighbouring king wants the golden belts, but once they are taken from the boys, they become swans in
10672-408: The story continues under the ATU 706 tale-type ( The Maiden without hands ): mother has her hands chopped off and abandoned with her children in the forest. Bertha Ilg-Kössler [ es ] published another Maltese tale titled Sonne und Mond, das tanzende Wasser und der singende Vogel ("Sun and Moon, the dancing water and the singing bird"). In this version, the third sister gives birth to
10788-416: The story was previously collected in 1808 and published as Die weisse Taube ("The White Dove"), provided by Gretchen Wild and published along The Golden Bird in the first edition of the Brothers Grimm compilation. In the original tale, the youngest son of the king is known as Dümmling , a typical name for naïve or foolish characters in German fairy tales. In newer editions that restore the original tale, he
10904-458: The supernatural maiden whom the brother and the sister seek is responsible for revealing the truth of their birth to the king and to restore the queen to her rightful place. Very rarely, it is one of the children themselves that reveal the aunts' treachery to their father, as seen in the Armenian variants The Twins and Theodore, le Danseur . In a specific Persian version, from Kamani,
11020-469: The tale "is told in Middle East and in Europe", but its variants are present in traditions from the world over, including India, Indonesia and Central Africa, as well as North Africa, North, Central and South America. Swedish folktale collectors George Stephens and Gunnar Olof Hyltén-Cavallius suggested an Eastern origin for the story. Scholars Stith Thompson , Johannes Bolte and Jiří Polívka traced
11136-421: The tale is "one of the eight or ten best known plots in the world". The following is a summary of the tale as it was collected by Giuseppe Pitrè and translated by Thomas Frederick Crane. A king walking the streets heard three poor sisters talk. The oldest said that if she married the royal butler, she would give the entire court a drink out of one glass, with water left over. The second said that if she married
11252-575: 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
11368-506: The tale type suggests an approximation of the Golden Bird with a peacock, a bird with astral and solar symbolism in world cultures. Likewise, the hero of the tale also rides a golden horse and rescues a beautiful maiden, which can be equated to Venus (the Morning Star) - or, according to Lithuanian scholarship, its Baltic counterpart, Aušrinė . Historical linguist Václav Blažek argues for parallels of certain motifs (the night watch of
11484-612: The tale type: the first one, "legs of gold up the knee, arms of silver up to the elbow", and the second one, "the singing tree and the talking bird". In some regional variants, the children are sent for some magical objects, like a mirror, and for a woman of renowned beauty and great powers. This character becomes the male sibling's wife at the end of the story. For instance, in the Typen Turkischer Volksmärchen ("Types of Turkish Foltkales"), by folklorists Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav . Type 707
11600-497: 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
11716-401: The tale veers close to ATU 551, "The Water of Life" (The Sons on a quest for a wonderful remedy for their father), also collected by the Brothers Grimm. In many variants, the reason for the quest is to bring the bird to decorate a newly built church, temple or mosque, as per the suggestion of a passing beggar or hermit that informed the king of its existence. In 20th century Dutch collections,
11832-534: 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
11948-494: The tale, is the means by which the hero escapes with the princess. In one Italian variant, the horse is described as irraggiungibile ("unreachable"). In the Hungarian variant A vak király ("The Blind King"), a king is going blind and his three sons quest for the only cure: the golden-feathered bird. The youngest prince, with the help of a fox, joins the quest for the golden bird, the horse with silver coat and golden mane, and
12064-443: The third told him how to retrieve the Dancing Water, and he brought it back to the house. On seeing it, the aunts sent their nurse to tell the girl that the house needed the Singing Apple as well, but the brother got it, as he had the Dancing Water. The third time , they sent him after the Speaking Bird, but as one of the conditions was that he not respond to the bird, and it told him that his aunts were trying to kill him and his mother
12180-416: The thoughts of the people. They pass by a veranda where three sisters are standing. The three women notice the men and the elder recognizes the cook, wanting to marry him to eat the best fricassees; the middle one sees the butler and wants to marry him to get to drink the best liquors; the youngest sister wants to marry the king and bear him three boys with a golden star on the front. The youngest sister marries
12296-521: 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
12412-609: The time, but in print only later by his descendant Karl von Eichendorff [ de ] containing the tale Der Vogel Venus ("The Bird Venus") or Das Märchen vom Vogel Venus, dem Pferd Pontifar und der schönen Amalia aus dem schwarzen Wald ("The Tale of the Bird Venus, the Horse Pontifar and the beautiful Amalia of the Dark Forest"), the king wants the bird Venus to regain his youth. The prince also quests for
12528-520: The titular White Bird. When the prince captures the White Bird, it transforms into a beautiful princess. In the Hungarian variant Az aranymadár ("The Golden Bird"), the king wants to own a fabled golden bird. A prince captures the bird and it reveals it is a princess cursed into the avian form by a witch. In an Ossetian tale titled "Соловей горной долины" ("The Nightingale from the Mountain Valley"), youth Warri/Wari lives with his old father. When
12644-526: The water of life to heal his father, a magic horse and a bird. In another, titled The White Blackbird , the third prince quests for a white blackbird to cure his blind father, the king, as well as a young lady from the king's house and a very beautiful horse. Folklorist Jeremiah Curtin noted that the Russian, Slavic and German variants are many, such as Die drei Gärtnerssöhne ("The gardener's three sons"); or Der Goldvogel, das Goldpferd und die Prinzeßin , by German theologue Johann Andreas Christian Löhr. In
12760-418: The water. The king banishes his wife and orders her to be walled up, her eyes to be put on her forehead and to be spat on by passersby. An elderly fisherman and his wife rescue the children and name them Ējfēlke (Midnight), Hajnalka (Dawn) - for the time of day when the boys were saved - and Julishka for the girl. They discover they are adopted and their foster parents suggest they climb a "cut-glass mountain" for
12876-642: The youngest son of King Romwald, Prince Nanell, shares his food with a fox and the animal helps him acquire the Phoenix bird, the "bunte Pferdchen" ("colored horse") and the beautiful Trako Maid. The publisher was later identified as Wilhelm Christoph Günther ( de ). A French version, collected by Paul Sébillot in Littérature orale de la Haute-Bretagne , is called Le Merle d'or (The Golden Blackbird ). Andrew Lang included that variant in The Green Fairy Book (1892). In The Golden Blackbird ,
12992-421: The youngest to himself. The queen became pregnant, and the king had to go to war, leaving behind news that he was to hear of the birth of his children. The queen gave birth to the children she had promised, but her sisters, jealous, put three puppies in their place, sent word to the king, and handed over the children to be abandoned. The king ordered that his wife be put in a treadwheel crane . Three fairies saw
13108-434: 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
13224-505: 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
13340-520: Was collected by Emile Dantinne from the Huy region ("Vallée du Hoyoux"), in Wallonia . In a variant from Surselva , Ils treis lufts or Die drei Köhler ("The Three Charcoal-Burners"), three men meet in a pub to talk about their dreams. The first dreamt that he found seven gold coins under his pillow, and it came true. The second, that he found a golden chain, which also came true. The third, that he had
13456-469: Was in the treadmill, it shocked him into speech, and he was turned to stone. The ring changed colors. His brother came after him, but suffered the same fate. Their sister came after them both, said nothing, and transformed her brother and many other statues back to life. They returned home, where the king saw them and thought that if he did not know his wife had given birth to three puppies, he would think these were his children. They invited him to dinner, and
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