The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales (Penguin Classics)

by Franz Xaver von Schonwerth

  THE KING’S BODYGUARD

  In this story, a young man is the fairest of them all, and he courts the daughter of a nobleman. That the two become intimate before marrying is unusual in edited collections of fairy tales. Like Jack or Thumbling, the young man wins over the wife of the monster, and she serves as mediator, acquiring for him not only the three feathers of a dragon or three hairs from the devil’s head but also the answers to the mysterious questions. Why is she so magnanimous? Perhaps her role is that of a maternal facilitator, who takes the obstacles placed by the young woman’s father out of his path. The king’s bodyguard is not as benevolent. His revenge on the nobleman feels gratuitous—why smash the dishes of a man who is down on his luck? Perhaps we have here an example of preposterous violence, an episode that can be told with vigorous expressions and lively gestures.

  THE SCORNED PRINCESS

  Of the three soldiers in this tale, one is unnamed, a second is a miller’s son, and the third is Fortunatus, named after the hero of a chapbook that was first printed in Augsburg, Germany, in 1509 and circulated in Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A native of Cyprus, Fortunatus receives from the goddess of Fortune a purse that replenishes itself as soon as it is emptied. In the chapbook, Fortunatus steals a hat that enables him to travel anywhere he desires. He returns from Cairo to Cyprus, where he settles down and leaves the magical objects to his sons Ampedo and Andelosia, who fall on hard times because they are jealous of each other.

  The tale begins with what appear to be small acts of kindness, but ends in an almost unimaginably brutal fashion. What initially appears to be a playful fairy-tale flirtation turns deadly, with a hero who lives happily ever after by getting even and exacting revenge.

  THE TALKING BIRD, THE SINGING TREE, AND THE SPARKLING STREAM

  The enchanted bird, tree, and stream—the forces of nature in shorthand form—reunite orphans with their parents in a popular tale that can be found the world over. Most folklore collections are short on curious men, but in this tale one of the brothers suffers the fate of Lot’s wife, who is turned into a pillar (of salt) when she looks back at the city of Sodom, despite the warnings of angels. In some versions of the story, it is the water of life that the son brings back to heal his father. Nature proves to be a powerful healer, undoing the evil of the king’s mother and her confidante—double forms of trouble—and dark retribution is paired with the light of redemption.

  THE WEASEL

  Weasels, as small, active predators, make unlikely candidates for fairy-tale heroes, particularly since they pose a threat to those who depend on eggs from a hen, as does the heroine of this tale. But there has never been much logic in fairy tales about animal grooms, and the beasts range from small-toothed dogs and snotty-faced goats to the more traditional bear and frog. The princess’s act of compassion, her protective instincts in the face of bullies torturing an animal, singles her out as a champion worthy of marriage.

  Although this story gives us purely pagan magic, with flames bursting from eggs that turn into castles and princes metamorphosed into weasels, there is a Christian inflection that manifests itself through the consecrated Easter egg, a talisman that rights wrongs and restores the weasel to his human state.

  THE KNIGHT’S SASH

  Wicked stepmothers who persecute their daughters are part of a teeming population of disruptive, scheming, evil women in fairy tales. Tales in which mothers persecute their sons are rare in the Western canon, but they are not as unusual as we once thought. “The Faithless Mother” (ATU 590) can be found in variant forms in Estonian lore, in British collections, and in tales recorded in Puerto Rico, Algeria, Sudan, and Croatia, among other places.

  Animals, along with those outside the kinship unit, become the natural partners and allies of the hero, while his own family members, whom he seeks to protect and help, turn into adversaries. The most ferocious of all beasts takes immediately to Hans, serving not only as a donor but also as a guide and the most loyal of companions. If tales like Cinderella give us a good (dead) biological mother and an evil stepmother, this tale type also sets up two rival mothers: the good maternal lion who provides a gift in the form of healing milk and an evil biological mother who seeks to undo her son’s strength and serves to mediate the giant’s own hostility to his stepson. The giant, like many fairy-tale fathers, seems less murderously hostile than the boy’s mother, who is determined to rid herself of a son who has shown her nothing but love and devotion.

  THE GIRL AND THE COW

  Instead of a miller with three sons, we have a miller with three daughters, each of whom is adventurous about seeking out the mysteries behind a wandering cow. The youngest of the three sisters is also the most modest, preferring to look at the beautiful clothes and objects in the castle, rather than making off with them. Unlike the myth of Zeus and Europa, in which a girl is abducted by a bull, this story features a benevolent cow who serves as something of a matchmaker.

  THE CALL OF THE SHEPHERD’S HORN

  This tale is unusual in taking up a theme found in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, reuniting a king and queen who were separated by a false denunciation. The king’s betrayal of the shepherd repeats the errors of his youth, and somehow he has the good fortune to recover his wife and celebrate his daughter’s marriage. The exact lineage of the shepherd is not entirely clear in the story, but the mysterious elevation to an aristocratic rank quickly solves the problem of his social status.

  THE MARK OF THE DOG, PIG, AND CAT

  The anthropologist Ruth Benedict once pointed out that Zuni culture, which has only the rarest instances of child abandonment, is filled with stories about the evils of the practice. One can only hope that the same is true for the many tales in Schönwerth’s collection about mischievous mothers-in-law, evil women who substitute animals for newborns in a plot to divide their sons from their wives. The tale type appears in collections ranging from The Thousand and One Nights to Straparola’s seventeenth-century Italian collection, The Facetious Nights.

  THE THREE-LEGGED GOATS

  Much in this tale remains cryptic, from the three-legged goats to the seven candlesticks and the woman in black. Instead of three sons, we have three young men who enter a castle and are tested. What distinguishes this tale from the many variations on the theme of disenchanting a princess is the moral at the end, with a princess who asks her father’s advice about whether to stay with her husband or remarry. Her choice of metaphor—the husband as a broom—makes her even more unlikable than before, when she showed disdain for her husband’s social standing. Class distinctions often disappear at the end of fairy tales, but the Schönwerth collection reveals that they are crucial to resolve in explicit terms before there can be a happily-ever-after ending.

  THE TRAVELING ANIMALS

  Using their wits and physical strength, the six nomadic animals in this story create a comfortable retirement home for themselves, a place where they are no longer required to wear themselves out by earning a living for their masters. Humans are represented as torturers and thieves: They exploit the capabilities and strengths of animals, and they also try to do each other in. The animals, by contrast, form an alliance—pragmatic, to be sure, but effective in ensuring that they find a safe house.

  THE SNAKE’S TREASURE

  Extreme disappointment is enacted in this tale, with a shepherd who loses his chance at a fortune, along with a snake still desperately seeking disenchantment. Resolution, revelation, and salvation—the classic features of fairy-tale endings—are all missing. The aged shepherd succumbs to fear and greed, and the snake must wait for her liberation. The tale turns on the notion of an innocent child trumping a culpable old man as an agent of deliverance.

  THE SNAKE SISTER

  With its epic sweep and maelstrom of dark deeds, the story of the girl pushed into a lake by her stepmother and transformed into a snake can seem baggy and hard to follow at t
imes. Yet the trajectories of the two children meet and resolve themselves into a neat happily-ever-after. Stories belonging to the “Black and the White Bride” tale type do not ordinarily include the journey of the true bride’s brother. Like many other characters, he is required to chop the person he loves into bits in order to bring about her transformation in a mysterious allegory about the healing power and renewing energy of destructive actions. Redemption is born from pain and suffering.

  “FOLLOW ME, JODEL!”

  A tale initially about sibling rivalry shades into a story about the production of beauty from what appears disgusting and repulsive. The reluctant bridegroom becomes the recipient of wealth and happiness through the intervention of a toad, who is the bearer of beauty notwithstanding her appearance. Note that the son overcomes his sense of repulsion and treats the toad with compassion, remaining obedient to its commands, unlike the princess in the Grimms’ “Frog King,” who hurls the frog against the wall when it wants to sleep in her bed.

  THE TOAD BRIDE

  Out of the least promising materials imaginable—flax, toads, and spindles—presto! A fairy tale emerges. Reading canonical fairy tales can leave us with the mistaken impression that only young women and crones spun flax in times past. In this tale, boys compete to produce the finest possible thread from flax, and the toad in this case is not a prince in disguise but a lovely princess.

  PRINCE DUNG BEETLE

  One morning, a young man wakes up and finds himself turned into a dung beetle—that might be the kind of anti–fairy tale that inspired Kafka’s story about Gregor Samsa. But in this case, the transformation is clearly motivated. Those who torture and inflict pain on animals will suffer like the creatures they’ve killed. Melding fairy-tale motifs with the cautionary tale that was making its way into the nursery, this story ends with the dissolution of the boundary dividing humans from animals—everyone sings and dances at the wedding, including the lowliest of animals.

  THE THREE SPINDLES

  Few of the Grimms’ fairy tales actually have fairies in them, but many of Schönwerth’s do, reflecting a fascination with woodland creatures and lore. This tale also reflects how stories were used to navigate problems that arose in everyday life. Heroines who run into trouble at home and are persecuted by evil stepmothers or proposed to by their fathers often find shelter in nature, using trees as places to sleep and finding accomplices in the creatures who inhabit forests.

  THE LITTLE FLAX FLOWER

  This tale pits what is described as a “beautiful” girl against an “ugly” and “nasty-looking” one. It gives us extreme polarization, in ways that ring false to contemporary readers. My translation substitutes pretty and plain for beautiful and ugly, making the contrast less stark yet preserving the narrative energy and pathos of Schönwerth’s tale. In a story like this one, we see a grim process of socialization at work. Singing while you work is frivolous—best to mind those seeds and weeds or you might end up like the pretty girl, the target of insults. Never mind the promotion of superstitions about a revenge-seeking goddess who demands sacrifices (however small). The fantasy of social mobility encapsulated in the story is somewhat preposterous, even for a fairy tale, for the arrival of the prince and his cult of fine fabrics is completely unmotivated by any events in the tale.

  WOODPECKER

  The hero of this tale, half-human and half–wood sprite, has trouble adjusting to the rules of civilization, and he is so immersed in nature that others worry about his state of mind. Taken in by an impresario of adoption, the boy finds it challenging to embrace a work ethic and prefers the woods to the woodpile. Once his mother appears to help him carry out tasks and to proclaim his ancestry, he seems liberated to embrace his father’s values. The tale’s playful combination of chores involving chopping wood and a name that suggests a bird that drills into wood reveals the self-conscious use of language, telling a story yet also engaging in associative language games.

  THE RED SILK RIBBON

  A classic formulation of a tale type that charts the encounter between mortals and creatures of the sea, this tale reminds us of the double face of nature, treacherous and grasping on the one hand, benevolent and generous on the other. The (unwitting) exchange of a child for material riches and prosperity is a theme frequently sounded in folktales, with tales such as “Beauty and the Beast” and “Rapunzel” reminding us of two extremes, in one case providing an exchange for untold wealth; in the other, the fulfillment of a frivolous wish. The human agents in the tale, faced with the seemingly uncompromising side of nature, learn how to settle disputes fairly and make their own bargains and exchanges, with Lucas dividing up the carcass for the animals fair and square, and the princess discovering the value of exchanging material possessions for something far more valuable, thus reversing the curse brought on by the fisherman’s bargain.

  TWELVE BRIDES

  The seductive power of mermaids is highlighted in this racy story about a young man who resembles Bluebeard in his lethal touch and serial marriages. Oddly he is rescued from the mermaids by the use of both magic and prayer, with one shrewd young bride who catches on that all those dead wives do not bode well. She consults a witch, who gives her good advice but also uses prayer to ward off evil spirits.

  THE HOWLING OF THE WIND

  The plaintive sounds of the wind are explained here as the lamentations of a mother and her seven sons. As in Hans Christian Andersen’s “Little Mermaid,” this sea creature is in search of a soul and just misses acquiring something that will remove her from her origins and settle her comfortably in the human world. As sirens and beauties that lure men to their death, mermaids not only bring danger to the mortal world but are also often driven to return to their origins.

  HANS DUDELDEE

  With the most prosaic name possible, Hans carries out a series of extraordinary feats. Grateful animals and a magic mirror enable him to disenchant a princess and restore all the castle’s inhabitants to their human form. The trio of brothers behaves as scripted for fairy tales, but the golden fish as grateful animal adds an eye-popping decorative touch to the tale.

  THE BELT AND THE NECKLACE

  The heroine of this tale undergoes a startling transformation but one for which she pays a high price. Her high-stakes wager with the nixies, or mermaids, is made without a thought about its consequences or about the deep divide between mortals and merfolk. Woods and water harbor creatures that can be both benevolent and compassionate, but also spiteful and wicked.

  DRUNK WITH LOVE

  By turns ecstatic and elegiac, this tale about a mermaid and her union with a mortal is a reminder of the doomed nature of those marriages. To be sure, there is redemption of a kind for the mermaid, who is given another three hundred years of youthful beauty, but there is also loss and despair, with a husband and six children left behind once she returns to the sea.

  ANNA MAYALA

  George Macdonald, the author of many Victorian novels and fairy tales, was once asked to define fairy tales. His reply: “Read Undine; that is a fairy tale . . . of all the fairy tales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful.” Stories about star-crossed lovers, in this story as in Undine, have a certain seductive appeal, particularly those that pair a mortal with a wood nymph or sea creature. Much as “Anna Mayala” is rooted in pagan beliefs about supernatural forces in the waters and woods, it also carries a distinctly Christian message about transgression and redemption. Veri, the daydreamer, lives in his imagination and succumbs to the forces of beauty in an underworld realm, only to return and discover that where there was beauty there was also monstrosity and horror.

  IN THE JAWS OF THE MERMAN

  Legend rather than fairy tale, this story reveals how beauty is linked with sorcery and seduction. The beauty of the girls turns out to be too good to be true, and they are turned upon by the villagers with unprecedented savagery sanctioned by the legal system.

 
THE KING’S RING

  In this variant of “The Enchanted Castle Disenchanted,” the three brothers show their piety by going on a pilgrimage with their mother. The princess herself is a model of virtue, compassion, and hospitality. Building the inn, beyond its goal of attracting her beloved with a sign inviting the poor to stay for free, reveals her generosity and true noble spirit. There is more than a hint of waywardness, however, in the birth of a child nine months after the two meet, even though the brother stays in the princess’s arms for a “short time.”

  THE THREE GOLDEN CROWNS

  The young beggars at the castle turn out to be the grooms of the missing princesses in this tale tracing a rise from rags to riches. Gnomes are both treacherous and beneficial, and the hero of the tale knows exactly how to exploit their powers. Not one to hold a grudge, he rewards his companions but not without insisting that they remain subservient to him. Much as this tale appears highly stylized and formulaic, it engages in some remarkable code switching, revealing that compassion and generosity are not always rewarded. The third in the trio is rewarded when he requires the gnomes to work for their supper, while the others are punished for sharing their food with them.

  NINE BAGS OF GOLD

  Who knew about the secret lives of children and how they manage to engineer happy endings for themselves, securing a fortune and leaving it to the grandparents to raise their child? This tale begins in a conventional manner, with two brothers and a conflict that arises between them. It then takes an abrupt turn, leading us into a world of mysterious transactions between the heroine and the elves that befriend her, teaching her reading, writing, and the domestic arts. The alliance enables the girl to practice magic in ways that secure for her a companionate marriage rather than an arranged marriage. In the end, all generational conflicts are resolved and the mills remain in the family. The magic of the household elves proves successful.