The Padisah's Youngest Daughter and Her Donkey-Skull Husband

The Padisah's Youngest Daughter and Her Donkey-Skull Husband is a Turkish fairy tale published by researcher Barbara K. Walker. It tells the story about a princess who marries a youth who wears a disguise of a donkey's skull, loses him due to her breaking his trust, and goes after him at his mother's home, where she is forced to perform hard tasks for her.

The tale belongs to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, wherein a human princess marries a supernatural husband, loses him, and goes on a quest to find him. It is also distantly related to the Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche , in that the heroine is forced to perform difficult tasks for a witch or her mother-in-law.

Sources

Researcher Barbara K. Walker published in 1993 a tale archived at the Uysal–Walker Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative with the title The Padisah's Youngest Daughter and Her Donkey-Skull Husband, first collected in 1970 from teller Niyâzi Çam, from Bursa Province. ^{[1] [2]}

Summary

The padishah assembles everyone in the palace courtyard for his three daughters to toss their apples to choose their husbands. The third daughter tosses hers and it lands near a donkey skull. She marries the donkey skull and, inside the nuptial chambers, her husband reveals he is a handsome youth, but asks her never to spill the secret, lest he disappears and she has to quest for him. Life goes on for both, and the princess visits the public bath for women. There, she is mocked for marrying a donkey skull.

One day, fed up with the mockery, reveals to the other women the true nature of her husband, who knocks on the door to the bathhouse to reprimand his wife. He tells her she may never find him again, even if she walks with an iron cane wears a pair of iron shoes, and vanishes. She decides to seek him out and wears a pair of iron shoes. She reaches Pearl Mountain, the Gold Fountain, and the Diamond Fountain, where her husband lives in a mansion. They reunite, but he warns her that his mother is a giant that may devour her, so he changes her into a broom to hide her from his mother. The next day, he asks his mother not to hurt a padishah's daughter if she comes by; his mother agrees and he changes the broom back into his human wife.

The giantess forces the human princess to sweep or not sweep her house, to fill 40 cauldrons with her tears, climb the mountain, enter another mansion, and get her a closed box. The husband advises the princess to drink from a fountain of bitter liquid and compliment it, to eat a sour pear from a tree and compliment it, close an open door and shut an open one, and change the food of two animals for the correct ones (meat for a lion, grass for a horse), get the box and escape. She does all that and climbs down the mountain, but curiosity gets the better of her and she opens the box; "wild music" starts to leak from the box, until her husband appears to close it again. The princess delivers the box to the giantess mother.

That night, the couple decide to escape from the mansion, while his family follows them. First, they transform into a minaret and a mosque, then a sheep and a flock of sheep, and lastly a poplar tree (the princess) and a snake atop the tree (the prince). His mother comes to the tree; the snake asks her for a kiss and spits venom into her mouth. The princess and her husband return to her kingdom. ^{[3] [4]}

Analysis

Tale type

In the Typen türkischer Volksmärchen ("Turkish Folktale Catalogue"), by Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav, both scholars listed the variants with the horse husband under one type: TTV 98, "Der Pferdemann" ("The Horse Man"), which corresponded in the international classification to tale type AaTh 425. ^{[5] [a]} In a later book, Boratav stated that the Catalogue registered 25 variants, but six more had been collected since its publication. ^[6]

In his monograph about Cupid and Psyche, Jan-Öjvind Swahn  [ sv ] acknowledged that Turkish type 98 was subtype 425A of his analysis, that is, "Cupid and Psyche", being the "oldest" and containing the episode of the witch's tasks. ^[7] In the international index, however, Swahn's typing is indexed as type ATU 425B, "The Son of the Witch". ^{[8] [9]}

Motifs

The supernatural husband

In most of the variants collected, the supernatural husband is a horse, followed by a man with a donkey's head and a camel. In other tales, he may be a snake, a frog, or even Turkish hero Kaloghlan . ^[10]

The heroine's tasks

Another motif that appears in the tale type is that the heroine must travel to another witch's house and fetch from there a box or casket she must not open. ^{[11] [12]} German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther remarked that these motives ("the quest for the casket" and the visit to the second witch) are "the essential feature" of the subtype. ^[13]

The heroes' Magic Flight

According to Christine Goldberg, some variants of the type show as a closing episode "The Magic Flight" sequence, a combination that appears "sporadically in Europe", but "traditionally in Turkey". ^[14] As their final transformation to deceive the ogress mother, the princess becomes a tree and her supernatural husband becomes a snake coiled around it. ^[15] Although this episode is more characteristic of tale type ATU 313, "The Magic Flight", some variants of type ATU 425B also show it as a closing episode. ^[16] German literary critic Walter Puchner argues that the motif attached itself to type 425B, as a Wandermotiv ("Wandering motif"). ^[17]

Variants

Turkey

Shah Bender

Turkologist Ignác Kúnos published a tale titled Шаһ Бäндäр (Turkish: Şah Bender; ^[18] English: "Shah Bender"), in the 8th volume of Vasily Radlov's Proben der volkslitteratur der türkischen stämme. ^[19] In this tale, translated by Johannes Østrup as Shah Bender, three princesses cast their lot with apples, in a contest to find their husbands. The youngest throws hers and it lands near a donkey. They marry and the donkey reveals he is a prince named Shah Bender, and warns his wife that she must not share their secret. The next day, he takes part in his father-in-law's tournament as a mysterious knight and defeats his opponents. Out of pride, the princess tells her family the knight is her husband. He vanishes. She seeks him out and finds an ogress, who gives her a walnut and sends her on her way. The event happens twice more, and she gains a lemon and a pomegranate. One day, the princess reaches a kingdom with three castles, a servant comes out of each of them and she bribes them with the fruits to spend a night at the castle. She also cleans a bloodied shirt. Her mother-in-law begins to mistreat her: she forces the girl to sweep the floor on penalty of death, and to fill a kettle with her tears. Finally, Shah Bender's mother betroths him to another girl and forces the princess to bear ten candles tied to her fingers. Shah Bender notices her fingers are burning, but she answers it is her heart that is. Shah Bender tosses the candles on the false bride, rescues his princess and both escape in a transformation sequence. The third and final form they shapeshift into is a cypress (the princess) and a seven-headed monster (Shah Bender). ^[20]

Donkey Prince

In a Turkish Anatolian tale collected by Necati Demir with the title Eşek Prens ("Donkey Prince"), a man finds a donkey in a field that asks to be taken by him. The man takes the donkey home and he turns into a youth who asks the man to court the padishah's daughter on his behalf. Afraid, the man returns home only at night and tells the donkey youth he cannot do it. The donkey then orders the man to go the next day, lest he kills him. Thus, the man goes to the padishah's palace to court the princess, but the padishah demands a suitor's task first: to build a palace more beautiful than the padishah's. The man reports to the donkey youth about the padishah's task. The donkey youth takes out two hairs he rubs against each other to summon a djinn, whom he commands to build the palace. The following day, the padishah sees the newly built palace and marries his daughter to the donkey in a 40-day and 40-night ceremony. The princess meets the youth under the donkey skin and falls in love with him. Later, the padishah extends the festivities and arranges riding competitions. The donkey youth tells the princess he will compete under a disguise, but she is to tell no one about him, lest he disappears and she will only be able to find him by wearing down a pair of iron sandals and bending an iron cane. The donkey youth competes in the riding tournament in black garments and on a black horse on the first day, in red vestments and on a red horse in the second day, and in white clothes and on a white horse on the third day. The audience celebrates the mysterious contestant when the princess announces he is her husband. The rider then vanishes. The princess mourns for her loss, when she remembers his advice and dons iron sandals and iron garments in search of him. She passes by a copper house, where a maidservant has not seen the princess's husband, and directs her to the next location over. The princess then reaches a silver house, and again has no clue about her husband. Finally, she reaches a golden house and asks the maidservant drawing water about the youth. The maidservant points to a nearby tree where a youth is resting under. The princess then realizes her iron sandals are worn out and the iron cane is crooked. The donkey youth reunites with his wife but warns that his elder sister lives nearby and may want to devour her, so he turns her into an apple and pockets it. He enters the house, when his elder sister senses a human smell on him. The donkey youth shows the apple to his sister, saying it is his wife, and makes her promise not to devour her. The princess then regains human form.

Despite her vow, the donkey youth's elder sister decides to send the princess to her younger sister to be devoured, and orders her to go there and fetch a ladle. The princess barely walks on the road, when her husband intercepts her, warns this task is a trap, and advises her how to proceed: close an open door and open a closed one, exchange the fodder between two animals (meat for a dog, grass for a horse), reach his sister's house and, while she is busy in another room, steal the ladle and rush back. The princess follows his instructions to the letter, fetches the ladle and runs back. The younger sister commands the animals and the door to stop the princess, but they stay their hand. Next, the donkey youth's sisters conspire to send the princess to their middle sister so that she can devour the human, and order the princess to get from there a sieve. Her husband intercepts her again and recognizes his sisters are trying to devour his wife, so he suggests they should escape. He changes shape into a big bird, takes and princess and flies up in the air. His sisters realize the couple have fled and go after them in a cloud of smoke. On the road, the couple notice they are being chased, and the prince, in bird form, lands and changes himself into a pool and the princess into water to trick his younger sister. Later, his elder sister pursues the couple himself, so the donkey prince turns the princess into a rose and himself into a snake coiled around her. His elder sister recognizes the pair and threatens to kill them, when the prince thinks of a plan: still in snake form, he asks his sister for a goodbye kiss. When the elder sister approaches the snake to give it a kiss, the donkey prince, in snake form, bites her to death. He then takes the princess with him back to her kingdom and they live happily together. ^[21]

Turkish Cyprus

The Padishah and his Daughters

In a Turkish Cypriot tale titled Padişah ve Kızları ("The Padishah and his Daughters"), a padishah convenes with his daughters and tells them to shoot arrows at random to choose their husbands in a crowd of people. The youngest's hits the son of the vizier's eldest son, the middle one's the head of the vizier's middle son, but the youngest's hits the head of a donkey. The padishah insists she retrials, and, thrice again, the youngest's arrow hits the donkey. The princess resigns to her fate, and marries the donkey. The animal, however, begins to talk and tells the princess he is a "Green Angel" ("yeşil melek", in the original), and she must not reveal the secret, lest she has to walk in gold shoes and search for him in the Golden Mountain, the Silver Mountain and the Cevahir Mountain until she finds him again. Time passes, the donkey comes out of the skin, becomes a human youth and brings flowers to the youngest princess. On the wedding of the eldest princess, the donkey husband, in human form, appears as a mysterious guest and brings flowers to the youngest princess, then leaves. The same thing happens on the middle princess's wedding. The girl is mocked by her sisters, but eventually reveals the donkey is a green angel. On hearing this, the youth disappears. Remembering the green angel's words, the princess asks her father for a pair of shoes made of gold and begins her journey. She passes by a stream near the Golden Mountain, where a maidservant is fetching water with a golden jug. Unable to find the green angel there, the princess walks to the Silver Mountain, where a maidservant is fetching water in a silver jug, and again the Green Angel is not there. Finally, the princess reaches the Cevahir Mountain, where she notices the soles of her shoes are worn out, meaning green angel is near. The tale then explains Green Angel is the son of a dev (giantess) woman, and she lives in Cevahir mountain. The princess reunites with Green Angel. Some days later, the dev mother orders the princess to sweep half of the house and not sweep the other half. After she leaves, Green Angel takes a broom and sweeps part of the house and not the other. The dev mother suspects the girl had Green Angel's help. Next, the princess is ordered to fill jars with her tears - the princess cries a bit, but can only fill less than half of the jar. Green Angel fills the jar with water and sprinkles some salt. Thirdly, the dev woman orders the princess to pay a visit to her sister and fetch from there a box. Green Angel intercepts the princess and advises her how to proceed: go through an open door, exchange the fodder between two animals (bones for a dog, straw for a donkey), drink three handfuls of water from a stream, eat an apple from a tree, give a scarf to a woman cleaning an oven with her breasts, enter his aunt's house and steal the box from the table, while the creature is distracted sharpening her teeth; take the both and return without opening it. The princess follows the instructions to the letter and gets the box, then makes her way back, Green Angel's aunt commanding the animals and the landmarks to stop her, to no avail. The dev mother receives the box and prepares her son's wedding, by placing candles on the princess's hands and lighting them up, so that she and her sister can devour the human girl after the candles melt. Green Angel asks the princess for a kiss twice, so that she can be saved, but the princess would rather die by his female relatives' hands. The third time, Green Angel asks his bride to hold the candles in the princess's place, and both escape, while the false bride suffers the candles melting and being devoured by the dev sisters. Green Angel's dev family realizes they devoured the wrong person, and the dev mother chases after them. To fool his mother, Green Angel turns the princess into an orchard and himself into a gardener. The dev mother can only meets the gardener and utters a curse for the princess not to give birth. The second time, Green Angel's dev aunt goes after them, and he turns the princess into a tree and himself into a seven-headed dragon ("ejderha", in the original). His dev aunt threatens the transformed pair, but the dragon attacks his aunt and she flees. The princess and Green Angel return home and marry, and, in time, she cannot give birth, so he sends for his dev mother to help in his wife's delivery, breaking her own curse on her daughter-in-law. ^[22]

Green Angel (Lefkosa)

In a Turkish Cypriot tale titled Yeşil Melek ("Green Angel"), in a certain village, a king says it is time his three daughters married, so he takes them up a hill to throw balls at the rooftops, and wherever they fall the girls are to marry the son that lives in that house. The first time, the eldest princess casts the ball and it falls on the rooftop of a king. They celebrate a wedding for forty days and forty nights, then it is the middle one's turn: she casts her ball to the vizier's house and marries the vizier's son. The third time, the youngest princess casts her ball and it lands near a donkey's head. The princess retrials her ball throwing, and it also lands near the donkey's head. The princess resigns to her fate, and marries the donkey's head in a ceremony. At night, the donkey's head turns into a youth handsome as the fourteenth moon, and asks the princess to keep his secret, lest she loses him. Some time later, there is an announcement of a tournament in the village, and every knight will compete. The donkey's head tells the princess he will take part in the competition. During the competition, a handsome and mysterious knight is admired for his prowess, and the youngest princess is mocked for her choice of husband. After some of their mockery, she tells the knight is her husband, the donkey's head, is his husband, and he vanishes. The princess then asks her father to prepare some provisions for the road and begins her journey: she passes by the white mountain and the blue mountain, until she reaches the green mountain, where a maidservant says she is bringing water for Green Angel. The princess asks to be taken to him, but the maidservant warns her his mother is a man-eating creature. Still, the princess reunites with her husband, the Green Angel, who introduces her to his mother as his wife. The creature then orders the princess to fill a vase with her tears - Green Angel fills the vase with water and sprinkles some salt. His mother suspects her son helped the princess. Next, she orders the princess to sweep and not sweep the house - Green Angel takes the broom and teaches the princess how to do it. The third time, the princess is forced to eat some bread that the dog and the cat can eat, and it does not diminish. For this, Green Angel tells his human wife the task is impossible and both escape from his mother's house. On the road, the pair meet an old man and ask him to help them hide, but the old man insists they plant some vegetables first. The dev mother is approaching them, when Green Angel asks the princess to slap him: he turns into a serpent, and the girl into a red "gabag". The dev mother nears the pair and declares she wants to eat the princess first, but Green Angel asks his mother to be eaten first: she opens her mouth and he, in snake form, bites her tongue. Green Angel is released from his curse, and returns with the princess to her kingdom, where they celebrate a new marriage. ^[23]

Caucasus Region

Rutul people

In a variant collected from the Rutul people, in Dagestan, with the Russian title "Как ослик Ризван превратился в юношу" ("How donkey Rizvan becomes a youth"), a couple have no son, so his wife prays to God for a son, and she gives birth to a donkey. One day, the donkey son wants to marry the princess, and his human mother convinces the king to accept the proposal. However, the padishah orders his prospective son-in-law to perform a few tasks first, which he does and marries the princess. On the wedding night, the donkey son reveals his true form to his human wife: he is a human named Rizvan beneath the animal skin. The widow convinces the princess to hid her husband's donkey skin out of his reach, so that the old woman can burn it. She follows through the instructions and her husband loses her donkey skin. He becomes a bird and tells his wife that, if she ever wants to see him again, she must look for him in a distant kingdom. The princess searches for him for years, until she reaches a fountain, where a slave woman is carrying water to Rizvan. The princess begs for some water to drink, and drops her wedding ring inside the jug. When the slave woman takes the water jug to Rizvan, he recognizes his wife's ring and brings her in. Together at last, they decide to escape from the castle in a Magic Flight sequence, with a creature named azhdaha hot in pursuit. On the road, Rizvan and his wife ride on horses and, noticing their pursuers, throw behind objects to deter them: first, he throws a saddle-bag full of water that creates a sea between them, causing the azhdaha to drown; next, he throws some salt behind them to create a mountain of salt to deter his younger sister. ^[24]

Armenia

In a 1979 article, researcher Suzanna A. Gullakian  [ hy ] noted that the supernatural husband appears as a donkey in at least two Armenian tales, related to tale type AT 425. ^[25]

Scholars Isidor Levin and Uku Masing published an Armenian tale titled Herr Amir (Turkish: Bay Amir). ^[26] In this tale, a lonely old couple complain that they have no one to care for them in their old age. However, the old man opens the door to their house and finds a young donkey ("Eselsjunges") in front of their balcony. The little donkey invites himself in and explains to the couple he is actually a youth underneath the donkeyskin. He proves his story by taking off the skin and becoming a human youth, then becoming a donkey again. One day, he asks his adoptive mother to ask for the hand of the king's daughter in marriage. The king consents to their marriage, but orders the suitor to build a house that overshadows the king's palace, then to extend a carpet between the palace and the house, with blooming trees alongside it, so that they can make shade for the princess, and lastly for the suitor to appear with an army of one hundred knights in one hundred horses of a white colour. The donkey-child advises his human mother to go to the garden and, in name of Herr Amir (the donkey's name), ask for each task to be done. Eventually, the king's daughter marries the little donkey. One day, she asks him what she can do about the skin; Herr Amir answers that she may burn the donkeyskin to make him human, but then he will have vanished and she will not see him again, unless she walks with steel shoes and with a steel cane. One day, the king's other daughters visit her sister and comment that their husbands are better than hers, the donkey. Angry at their mockery, the princess takes the donkeyskin and burns it, then her husband appears to her sisters in human shape. At midnight, Herr Amir gives her one last kiss, then vanishes. The princess asks her father for steel shoes and a steel cane and begins her quest. Meanwhile, Herr Amir goes back to his true parents, and begins to yearn for love for his human wife so much that he burns with fever. His sisters then go to a nearby spring to fetch water to cool him down. The princess then, after a long journey, notices that her steel shoes are worn out, and hopes that her husband is somewhere nearby. She then sees two women fetching water in jars, and asks them the reason for it. The women explain that the water is for Herr Amir, who is burning with fever. The princess asks for a drink and drops her ring in a jar. The women bring the jugs to their brother and Herr Amir, noticing his wife's ring, asks his sisters to bring in the girl at the fountain. Herr Amir finds his wife, and she lives with him under his parents' roof, until, one day, his mother asks him about the woman that he brought home. Herr Amir dismisses her concerns, and plans with his wife their escape. On the road, as the pair is being pursued by his family, they turn into a mill (the princess) and a miller (Herr Amir) to deceive his father, then into a garden (her) and a gardener (him), and finally into a rose tree (her) and a snake coiled around its trunk (him) to trick his father and mother. Herr Amir's father ceases his pursuit and lets the pair be, then goes back home. Herr Amir and the princess return to her kingdom, celebrate a new wedding and become king and queen. ^[27]

Central Asia

Gabriele Keller argues that type TTV 98, "Pferdemann" (see above), is also "verbreitet" ("widespread") in Central Asia. ^[28]

Uzbekistan

Author Gabriele Keller collected an Uzbek variant titled Chötiktscha or Xo’tikcha (German: Eselkind; English: "Donkey-Child"). In this tale, the titular Chötiktscha is no normal animal: he falls in love with the padishah's daughter and asks his old lady owner to act as his Sovtschi and ask for her hand in marriage. Despite her reservations, the old lady goes to the padishah's palace doors and, after a few days, is invited in to discern the reason for her visit. After divulging her reasons, the padishah rebuffs the woman's proposal. Still, the old woman insists and the padishah agrees, but first her donkey must perform some tasks: to brings a herd of lambs, oxen, camels and horse, and to have cooking oil flow between their doors as if through a path. He does and marries the princess in a grand ceremony, and the princess goes to live with the donkey. One day, the princess's mother pays a visit to her daughter, and she tells that her husband is no donkey: he takes off the donkey skin at night and becomes a handsome youth, a Peri, and wears the donkey skin again in the morning. The princess's mother tells her that her father lives with shame for her choice of husband, and urges her daughter to burn the donkey skin. Her husband learns of this and forbids her from burning the donkey skin, for she will never see him again, until she has worn out a cane to the size of a needle, and shoes to be like a sieve. Despite his protests, the princess takes the donkey skin and burns it. The man laments the fact, becomes a pair of doves and flies away. The princess's mother tries to comfort her by saying she can have any other man, but the princess proclaims she needs no one else, and begins her quest dressed as a dervish. She then journeys far and wide to get him back. She reaches an oasis where she rests by the shade of a tree, and notices both the cane and the shoes are worn out. She then sees a child (a girl) carrying an "Oftoba" (a water jug) to fetch water. The princess asks the girl whom the water is for, and she says it is for her brother. The princess places her ring in the water jug, and the girl brings it to her brother. Her brother, the princess's husband, notices the ring and asks his sister to bring the dervish in. He recognizes the dervish as his wife. The story explains that the princess's mother-in-law is a Dev. The princess's husband hides her from his mother by turning her into a broom, but later introduces her as his wife, and makes his mother promise not to devour the princess. Some time later, the Dev-mother orders the princess to go to her Dev sister and bring back a pair of scissors. The princess's husband advises her: she is to pass by a broken bridge and compliment it, pass by a stream of blood named "Qonjiring" ("blood-stream") and compliment it, pass by a squeaking mosque named Ridscha and compliment it, pass by a fallen door and compliment it, trade the animals' fodder (plate for the dog, jug for the stork), meet his cousin "Olti-Emtschak" ("The Six-Breasted One") and give her tools (an armguard and a handguard) to help her clean the tandir oven; delouse his aunt in the clay terrace ("Supa"), tie her hair around the terrace, get the scissors and flee. The princess does as instructed, takes the scissors and runs back to her mother-in-law's house. The Dev-aunt commands her daughter, the animals, the door, the mosque, the stream and the bridge to stop her, but the princess escapes. The Dev-aunt pays a visit to her sister and they plan to eat the princess that same night. At last, Chötiktscha takes his wife, and some objects (a comb, a mirror and grains of salt), and both escape, the Dev-family in pursuit. Chötiktscha throws behind him the salt to create a mountain, the comb to create a thornbush and a mirror to create a river between them. The Dev-relatives ask how he crossed the river, the Chötiktscha suggests his mother and his aunt put some stones in their pockets and cross it. The Dev-relatives sink to the bottom of the lake. Chötiktscha and his human wife go back home and live happily ever after. ^[29] Keller classified the tale as type AaTh 425B, "Die Aufgaben der Hexe (Hexensohn)" ("The Witch's Tasks (Son of the Witch)"), and Turkish Type TTV (EB) 98, "Pferdemann" ("Horse as Husband"), with elements of type AaTh 480 (helping and complimenting inanimate things on the way to the second witch) and conclusion as type AaTh 313, "The Magic Flight". ^[30]

See also

• The Donkey (fairy tale)
• The Donkey's Head
• Grünkappe
• The Horse-Devil and the Witch
• The Princess Who Could Not Keep a Secret

Notes

1. Some publications use the initials EB or EbBo to refer to their catalogue.

References

1. "805. The Padisah's Youngest Daughter and Her Donkey-Skull Husband". In: Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative (Texas Tech University). Date of Collection: 1970-07. Online: 2019-11-19. Access: 2021-11-15.
2. Walker, Barbara K. The Art of the Turkish Tale . Volume 2. Texas Tech University, 1993. p. xv (source). ISBN   9780896722286.
3. "805. The Padisah's Youngest Daughter and Her Donkey-Skull Husband". In: Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative (Texas Tech University). Date of Collection: 1970-07. Online: 2019-11-19. Access: 2021-11-15.
4. Walker, Barbara K. The Art of the Turkish Tale . Volume 2. Texas Tech University, 1993. pp. 193-202 (text). ISBN   9780896722286.
5. Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî (1953). Typen türkischer Volksmärchen (in German). Wiesbaden: Steiner. pp. 113–116 (tale type), 421 (table of correspondences). doi:10.25673/36433.
6. Boratav, Pertev Nailî. Türkische Volksmärchen . Akademie-Verlag, 1970. p. 348.
7. Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche . Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. p. 23.
8. Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Third Printing. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1973 [1961]. p. 142 (footnote nr. 1).
9. Uther, Hans-Jörg (2004). The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography, Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica. p. 251. ISBN   978-951-41-0963-8.
10. Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî. Typen türkischer Volksmärchen. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1953. pp. 113-114.
11. Fitzgerald, Robert P. (1963). "'The Wife's Lament' and 'The Search for the Lost Husband'". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 62 (4): 769–777. JSTOR   27727179.
12. Hoevels, Fritz Erik (1979). Märchen und Magie in den Metamorphosen des Apuleius von Madaura. Rodopi. p. 215. ISBN   978-90-6203-842-8.
13. Uther, Hans-Jörg (2004). The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography, Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica. p. 251. ISBN   978-951-41-0963-8.
14. Goldberg, Christine. (2000). "Gretel's Duck: The Escape from the Ogre in AaTh 327". In: Fabula 41: 47 (footnote nr. 20). 10.1515/fabl.2000.41.1-2.42.
15. Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî. Typen türkischer Volksmärchen. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1953. p. 113.
16. Uther, Hans-Jörg (2004). The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography, Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica. p. 250. ISBN   978-951-41-0955-3.
17. Puchner, Walter. "Magische Flucht (AaTh 313 sqq.)". In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Band 9: Magica-Literatur – Neẓāmi. Edited by Rudolf Wilhelm Brednich; Hermann Bausinger; Wolfgang Brückner; Helge Gerndt; Lutz Röhrich; Klaus Roth. De Gruyter, 2016 [1999]. pp. 13-14. ISBN   978-3-11-015453-5. https://www.degruyter.com/database/EMO/entry/emo.9.003/html
18. Ozan, Meral (2008). Die "tote" Seele: die Brautwerbung als narrativer Diskurs im Volksmärchen der deutschen und türkischen Erzählkultur (in German). Iudicium. p. 272. ISBN   9783891295519.
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28. Keller, Gabriele. Märchen aus Samarkand: Feldforschung an der Seidenstraße in Zentralasien; aus der mündlichen Überlieferung in Usbekistan . Druck und Werbestudio, 2004. p. 153. ISBN   9783000092282.
29. Keller, Gabriele. Märchen aus Samarkand: Feldforschung an der Seidenstraße in Zentralasien; aus der mündlichen Überlieferung in Usbekistan . Druck und Werbestudio, 2004. pp. 42, 43ff (Tale nr. 5). ISBN   9783000092282.
30. Keller, Gabriele. Märchen aus Samarkand: Feldforschung an der Seidenstraße in Zentralasien; aus der mündlichen Überlieferung in Usbekistan . Druck und Werbestudio, 2004. p. 156. ISBN   9783000092282.