The Bear (fairy tale)

Last updated

The Bear is a fairy tale collected by Andrew Lang in The Grey Fairy Book . [1] It is Aarne-Thompson classification system type 510B, unnatural love. Others of this type include Cap O' Rushes, Catskin, Little Cat Skin, Allerleirauh, The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter, The She-Bear, Tattercoats, Mossycoat, The Princess That Wore A Rabbit-Skin Dress, and Donkeyskin, or the legend of Saint Dymphna. [2] [3]

Contents

Synopsis

A king loved his daughter so much that he kept her in her rooms for fear harm would come to her. She complained to her nurse; unbeknownst to her, the nurse was a witch. She told her to get a wheelbarrow and a bearskin from the king. The king gave them to her, the nurse enchanted them, and when the princess put on the skin, it disguised her, and when she got into the wheelbarrow, it took her wherever she wanted to go. She had it take her to a forest.

A prince hunted her, but when she called to him to call off his dogs, he was so astounded that he asked her to come home with him. She agreed and went in the wheelbarrow. His mother was surprised, and more when the bear began to do housework as well as any servant. One day, the prince had to go to a ball given by a neighbouring prince. The bear wanted to go, and he kicked it. When he left, she implored his mother for leave to just go and watch. With it, she went to her wheelbarrow and used the wand to turn her bearskin into a ballgown of moon-beams. At the ball, the prince fell in love with her, but she fled, so she would be back in time to hide herself. She was pleased when he told his mother of her, because she had fooled him, and laughed under the table. The second ball, she went in a gown of sunlight, and his attempts to follow her carriage did not succeed.

The third time, the prince succeeded in getting a ring on her finger. When he went home, he declared he would search for her. First, he wanted some soup, and for the bear to have nothing to do with it, because every time he mentioned his love, the bear muttered and laughed. The bear put the ring in the soup. The prince asked her to take off the skin, and she became a beautiful young woman. She told the prince and his mother how her father had kept her imprisoned, and the prince married her.

Commentary

This is an unusual variant of this tale as commonly, the heroine flees the threat of enforced marriage to her own father, as in Allerleirauh, The She-Bear, Donkeyskin, and The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter, [3] or the legend of Saint Dymphna. Other tales where the heroine has another motive include Catskin, where she flees being married off to the first man, Cap O' Rushes where her father interpreted her words to mean she did not love him, and The Child who came from an Egg, whose (apparent) father had been conquered by another army.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinderella</span> European folk tale

"Cinderella", or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants that are told throughout the world. The protagonist is a young girl living in forsaken circumstances who is suddenly blessed by remarkable fortune, with her ascension to the throne via marriage. The story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo sometime between 7 BC and AD 23, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt, is usually considered to be the earliest known variant of the Cinderella story.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Wonderful Birch</span>

The Wonderful Birch is a Finnish/Russian fairy tale. A variant on Cinderella, it is Aarne–Thompson folktale type 510A, the persecuted heroine. It makes use of shapeshifting motifs. Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book.

"Cap-o'-Rushes" is an English fairy tale published by Joseph Jacobs in English Fairy Tales.

Catskin is an English fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in More English Fairy Tales. Marian Roalfe Cox, in her study of Cinderella, identified as one of the basic types, the Unnatural Father, contrasting with Cinderella itself and Cap O' Rushes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allerleirauh</span> German fairy tale

"Allerleirauh" is a fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm. Since the second edition published in 1819, it has been recorded as Tale no. 65. Andrew Lang included it in The Green Fairy Book.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katie Woodencloak</span> Norwegian fairy tale

"Katie Woodencloak" or "Kari Woodengown" is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in Norske Folkeeventyr. Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book.

"Tattercoats" is an English fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in his More English Fairy Tales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donkeyskin</span> 1695 literary fairytale by Charles Perrault

"Donkeyskin" is a French literary fairytale written in verse by Charles Perrault. It was first published in 1695 in a small volume and republished in 1697 in Perrault's Histoires ou contes du temps passé. Andrew Lang included it, somewhat euphemized, in The Grey Fairy Book. It is classed among folktales of Aarne-Thompson type 510B, unnatural love.

The Child who came from an Egg or The Egg-Born Princess is an Estonian fairy tale, collected by Dr. Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald in Eestirahwa Ennemuistesed jutud.

"The King Who Wished to Marry His Daughter" is a Scottish fairy tale collected by John Francis Campbell in Popular Tales of the West Highlands, listing his informant as Ann Darroch from Islay.

"The She-bear" is an Italian literary fairy tale, written by Giambattista Basile in his 1634 work, the Pentamerone.

The Goat Girl is a Greek fairy tale, known in many variants, collected by Anna Angelopoulou, Johann Gottfried von Hahn, and Georgios Ioannou. It bears many similarities to the French Donkeyskin.

"Mossycoat" is a fairy tale published by Katherine M. Briggs and Ruth Tongue in Folktales of England. It appears in A Book of British Fairy Tales by Alan Garner. and Small-Tooth Dog by Kevin Crossley-Holland. The story known by folklorists was collected by researcher T. W. Thompson from teller Taimi Boswell, a Romani, at Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, January 9, 1915.

Little Catskin is an American fairy tale from Kentucky, collected by Marie Campbell in Tales from the Cloud Walking Country, listing her informant as Big Nelt.

"The Princess That Wore a Rabbit-skin Dress" is an American fairy tale from Kentucky, collected by Marie Campbell in Tales from the Cloud Walking Country, listing her informant as Uncle Tom Dixon.

Bearskin is a French literary fairy tale by Marie-Madeleine de Lubert. It was included in her revised edition, published in 1753, of Henriette-Julie de Murat's last novel, Les Lutins du château de Kernosy, which is why it is often attributed to Madame Henriette-Julie de Murat.

Emaré is a Middle English Breton lai, a form of mediaeval romance poem, told in 1035 lines. The author of Emaré is unknown and it exists in only one manuscript, Cotton Caligula A. ii, which contains ten metrical narratives. Emaré seems to date from the late fourteenth century, possibly written in the North East Midlands. The iambic pattern is rather rough.

Marian Roalfe Cox (1860–1916) was an English folklorist who pioneered studies in Morphology for the fairy tale Cinderella.

The Princess in the Suit of Leather is an Egyptian folktale. It may also be referred to as The Princess in the Leather Burqa. This story was originally published in translation in Inea Bushnaq's 1986 collection Arab Folktales. Author Angela Carter included it in The Old Wives’ Fairy Tale Book.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hachikazuki</span> Japanese folktale

Hachikazuki or Hachi Katsugi is a Japanese folktale of the Otogi-zōshi genre. It refers to a maiden of noble birth who wears a bowl on her head and marries a prince.

References

  1. ↑ Andrew Lang, The Grey Fairy Book, "The Bear" Archived 2013-08-02 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ↑ Heidi Anne Heiner, "Tales Similar to Donkeyskin Archived 2007-02-11 at the Wayback Machine "
  3. 1 2 Maria Tatar, p 213, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, ISBN   0-393-05163-3
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.