The Two Caskets is a Scandinavian fairy tale included by Benjamin Thorpe in his Yule-Tide Stories: A Collection of Scandinavian and North German Popular Tales and Traditions. Andrew Lang included it in The Orange Fairy Book . [1]
It is Aarne-Thompson type 480, the kind and the unkind girls. Others of this type include Shita-kiri Suzume , Diamonds and Toads , Mother Hulda , Father Frost , The Three Little Men in the Wood , The Enchanted Wreath , The Old Witch , and The Three Heads in the Well . [2] Literary variants include The Three Fairies and Aurore and Aimée . [3]
A woman had a daughter and stepdaughter. One day, she set them to spin while sitting on the edge of a well, giving her daughter good flax and her stepdaughter coarse, unusable flax, and declared that whoever's thread broke first would be thrown in. When her stepdaughter's thread broke, she threw her in.
The girl fell to a wonderful land. She walked on and came to a tumble-down fence that is overgrown with vines. It pleaded with her not to hurt it because it did not have long to live and she carefully jumped over it where the vines were less. She found an oven full of bread loaves and it told her she could eat what she liked, but begged her not to hurt it. She ate a loaf, thanked it for such fine bread, and shut its door. She came to a cow with a bucket on its horns. It said she could milk it and drink, but asked her not to hurt it or spill its milk. She agreed. When a drop of milk was left, the cow told her to throw it over its hooves and hang the bucket back up.
She came to a house. An old woman asked her to comb her hair. When she did, the old woman showed her a farm where she could take service. She took good care of the cows, gave milk to the cats, sieved some corn, and gave some sieved corn to the birds.
One day, the old woman summoned her and told her to fill a sieve full of water and bring it back. The birds told her to use ashes to stop up the holes. Another day, she had to wash some black yarn until it became white and white yarn until it became black. The birds told her to face east to turn the black white and west to turn the white black. Then the old woman had her weave them into a robe as smooth as a king's by sunset, but the skeins tangled and broke every moment. The cats wove it on her behalf.
She wanted to leave and go home. The old woman sent her to an attic and told her to take whatever casket she liked. She considered many beautiful ones. The cats directed her to a black one, so she took it and went home. Her stepmother took her wages, but the box was filled with marvelous treasures.
Her stepmother put her own daughter on the edge of the well to spin with coarse stuff and threw her down the well when it broke. The daughter proceeded as her sister had, but was rude to the fence, the oven, and the cow and worked very poorly at the farm including the three tasks her stepsister had done. At the end of the year, she went on her way with a large red casket. When she opened it at home, fire burst out and burned her and her mother to death.
"Snow White" is a German fairy tale, first written down in the early 19th century. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection Grimms' Fairy Tales, numbered as Tale 53. The original German title was Sneewittchen; the modern spelling is Schneewittchen. The Grimms completed their final revision of the story in 1854, which can be found in the 1857 version of Grimms' Fairy Tales.
A stepmother, stepmum or stepmom is a female non-biological parent married to one's preexisting parent. Children from her spouse's previous unions are known as her stepchildren. A stepmother-in-law is a stepmother of one's spouse.
"Hansel and Gretel" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 as part of Grimms' Fairy Tales. It is also known as Little Step Brother and Little Step Sister.
"Frau Holle" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Children's and Household Tales in 1812. It is of Aarne-Thompson type 480.
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.
Diamonds and Toads or Toads and Diamonds is a French fairy tale by Charles Perrault, and titled by him "Les Fées" or "The Fairies". Andrew Lang included it in The Blue Fairy Book. It was illustrated by Laura Valentine in Aunt Louisa's nursery favourite.
The Three Heads in the Well is a fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in English Fairy Tales.
Father Frost is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki (1855–63). Andrew Lang included it, as "The Story of King Frost", in The Yellow Fairy Book (1894).
"The Three Little Men in the Wood" or "The Three Little Gnomes in the Forest" is a German fairy tale collected in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales. Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book (1890) as "The Three Dwarfs," and a version of the tale appears in A Book of Dwarfs (1964) by Ruth Manning-Sanders.
Bushy Bride is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe. It is Aarne-Thompson type 403. It is included in Andrew Lang's Red Fairy Book.
"The White Bride and the Black One" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 135. It is Aarne-Thompson type 403A. Other tales of this type include The Three Little Men in the Wood, Brother and Sister, Bushy Bride, and The Enchanted Wreath.
"The Hut in the Forest" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. Andrew Lang included it in The Pink Fairy Book (1897). It is Aarne-Thompson type 431.
The Enchanted Wreath is a Scandinavian fairy tale, collected in Benjamin Thorpe in his Yule-Tide Stories: A Collection of Scandinavian and North German Popular Tales and Traditions. Andrew Lang adapted a variant of it for The Orange Fairy Book. It is Aarne-Thompson type 403B, the black and the white bride, and includes an episode of type 480, the kind and the unkind girls.
The Old Witch is an English fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in his 1894 book, More English Fairy Tales. It is also included within A Book of Witches by Ruth Manning-Sanders and A Book of British Fairy Tales by Alan Garner.
Biancabella and the Snake is an Italian literary fairy tale written by Giovanni Francesco Straparola in The Facetious Nights of Straparola.
"The True Bride" or "The True Sweetheart" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales as tale 186.
Beauty and Pock Face is a Chinese fairy tale collected by Wolfram Eberhard in Chinese Fairy Tales and Folk Tales.
"The Three Fairies" is an Italian literary fairy tale written by Giambattista Basile in his 1634 work, the Pentamerone.
The Man and the Girl at the Underground Mansion is a Danish folktale collected by theologue Nikolaj Christensen in the 19th century, but published in the 20th century by Danish folklorist Laurits Bodker.
The Dragon-Prince and the Stepmother is a Turkish fairy tale collected by Turkologist Ignác Kúnos. The tale is part of the more general cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom, and is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as tale type ATU 433B, "King Lindworm", a type that deals with maidens disenchanting serpentine husbands. In the Turkish variants, however, the story continues with the adventures of the banished heroine, who meets a man at a graveyard, rescues and marries him, and eventually is found by her first husband, the snake prince whom she disenchanted before.
