When the Girl Rescues the Prince

When the Girl Rescues the Prince: Norse Fairy Tale “East of the Sun, West of the Moon”

In the second century AD, the Roman writer Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis interrupted the winding plot of his novel, Metamorphoses, or Asinus Aureus (a title used to distinguish the work from its predecessor, Ovid’s Metamorphoses) to tell the long story of Cupid and Psyche—long enough to fill a good 1/5 of the final, novel-length work. The story tells of a beautiful maiden forced to marry a monster—only to lose him when she tries to discover his real identity.

If this sounds familiar, it should: the story later served as one inspiration for the well-known “Beauty and the Beast,” where a beautiful girl must fall in love with and agree to marry a beast in order to break him from an enchantment. It also helped inspire the rather less well-known Norse “East of the Sun and West of the Moon,” where the beautiful girl marries a beast—and must go on a quest to save him.

I like this story much more.

“East of the Sun, West of the Moon” was collected and published in 1845 by Norwegian folklorists Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe, and later collected by Andrew Lang in his The Blue Fairy Book (1889). Their tale beings with a white bear deciding to knock on the door of a poor but large peasant family. So poor that when the bear asks for the youngest daughter, promising to give the family a fortune in return, the maiden climbs up on the back of the polar bear, and heads north.

I must admit that when I first read this story, I missed all of the questionable bits, because I could only focus on one bit: she was getting to ride on a polar bear! Talk about awesome. And something easy enough for Small Me, who rarely even got to ride ponies, to get excited about.

In the far north, the peasant girl and the bear enter an ice cave, finding a castle within. I must admit, I’ve never quite looked at such ice caves the same way again: who knows what they might be hiding, underneath that snow. During the day, the girl explores the palace, and only has to ring a bell for anything she might want.

And every night, a man comes to her in her bed—a man she never sees, always in the darkness.

Eventually, all of this gets lonely, and the girl wants to return home—thinking of her brothers and sisters, not to mention her parents. The bear allows her to leave—as long as she doesn’t talk to her mother en tête-à-tête. That, too, is a twist in the tale. In most versions, mothers are rarely mentioned: the dangers more usually come from the sisters, evil, jealous, concerned, or all three.

In this version, the mother is very definitely on the concern side, convinced that her daughter’s husband is, in fact, a troll, if not Satan himself or at least a sex offender. A possibility that should have occurred to you when he showed up to your house as a talking polar bear, but let us move on. She tells her daughter to light a candle and look at her husband in the dark. Her daughter, having not studied enough classical literature to know what happened to her predecessor Psyche after she does just that, lights the candle, finding a handsome prince.

Who immediately tells her, awakening when three drops of hot wax from the candle fall upon his shirt, that if she had just waited a little longer, they would have been happy, but since she didn’t, he now must marry someone else—and go and live east of the sun and west of the moon.

This seems, to put it mildly, a bit harsh on everyone concerned. Including the someone else, very definitely getting a husband on the rebound, with a still very interested first wife. After all, to repeat, this version, unlike others, features a concerned mother, not evil sisters trying to stir up trouble. Nonetheless, the prince vanishes, leaving the girl, like Psyche, abandoned in the world, her magical palace vanished.

Like Psyche, the girl decides to search for help. This being an explicitly post-Christian version—she does not exactly turn to goddesses for assistance. But she does find three elderly women, who give her magical items, and direct her to the winds of the cardinal directions. The North Wind is able to take her east of the sun and west of the moon. Deliberate or not, it’s a lovely callback to the Cupid and Psyche tale, where Zephyr, the West Wind, first took Psyche to Cupid.

Unlike Psyche, the girl does not have to complete three tasks. She does, however, trade her three magical gifts to the ugly false bride with the long nose, giving her three chances to spend the night with her husband. He, naturally, sleeps through most of this, but on the third night he finally figures out that just maybe his false wife is giving him a few sleeping potions, skips his nightly drink, and tells his first wife that she can save him if she’s willing to do some laundry.

No. Really.

That’s what he says: he has a shirt stained with three drops of candle-wax, and he will insist that he can only marry a woman who can remove the stains.

Trolls, as it happens, are not particularly gifted at laundry—to be fair, this is all way before modern spot removers and washing machines. The girl, however, comes from a poor peasant family who presumably couldn’t afford to replace clothes all that often and therefore grew skilled at handwashing. Also, she has magic on her side. One dip, and the trolls are destroyed.

It’s a remarkably prosaic ending to a story of talking bears, talking winds, and talking… um, trolls. But I suppose it is at least easier than having to descend to the world of the dead, as Psyche does in one of her tasks, or needing to wear out three or seven pairs of iron shoes, as many of the girls in this tale are told they must do before regaining their husbands. In some ways, it’s reassuring to know that a prince can be saved by such common means.

In other ways, of course, the tale remains disturbing: the way that, after having to sacrifice herself for her family, the girl is then blamed by the prince for following her mother’s instructions—and forced to wander the wide world for years, hunting down her husband, and then forced to give up the magical golden items she’s gained on the journey just for a chance to speak to him. (The story does hurriedly tell us that she and the prince do end up with some gold in the end.)

But I can see why the tale so appealed to me as a child, and continues to appeal to me now: the chance to ride a talking bear, the hidden palace beneath the snow, the chance to ride the North Wind to a place that cannot possibly exist, but does, where a prince is trapped by a troll. A prince who needs to be saved by a girl—who, indeed, can only be saved by a girl, and doing something that even not very magical me could do.

No wonder I sought out the other variants of this tale: “The Singing, Springing Skylark,” collected by the Grimms, where the girl marries a lion, not a polar bear, and must follow a trail of blood, and get help from the sun, the moon, and the winds, and trade her magical dress for a chance to speak with the prince; “The Enchanted Pig,” a Romanian tale collected by Andrew Lang, where the girl marries a pig, not a bear, and must wear out three pairs of iron shoes and an iron staff, and rescue her prince with a ladder formed from chicken bones; “The Black Bull of Norroway,” a Scottish variant where the girl almost marries a bull, and can only flee from a valley of glass after iron shoes are nailed to her feet; “The Feather of Finist the Falcon,” a Russian variant where the girl must also wear out iron shoes in order to find her falcon—and her love.

These are brutal tales, yes, but ones that allowed the girls to have adventures, to do the rescuing, and to speak with animals and stars and winds and the sun and the moon. Among my very favorite fairy tales.

Mari Ness lives in central Florida.

Mirjam Gille - Neue Braut

Mirjam Gille - Die adoleszenten Jungfrauen in den Märchen der Brüder Grimm


Man muss immer tun, was man nicht lassen kann.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADEL
Neue Braut 

In meist zweiteiligen Märchen mit einer Suchwanderung wendet sich der Mann durch von außen zugeführte Magie oder schlichtes Vergessen einer anderen Frau zu. Die rechte Braut versucht, ihn wieder an sich zu binden, und ihn aus den Fängen der neuen Braut zu befreien. Die neuen Bräute stehen in keiner verwandtschaftlichen Beziehung zu der weiblichen Hauptfigur. Bis auf KHM 56 (Der liebste Roland), sind die wahren Bräute Königstöchter von Geburt bzw. durch Heirat.
In KHM 67, KHM 88 und KHM 186 ist die Neue Braut eine royale Infantin. Das Bild dieser Frauen ist sehr divergent. Während die Königstöchter aus KHM 67 und KHM 186 ohne ihr Zutun in die Position der Heiratsaspirantin geraten, und weiterhin keine aktive Rolle in den Erzählungen einnehmen, ist die Neue Braut aus KHM 88, aktiv daran beteiligt, die Qualen der wahren Braut zu erhöhen. Aus dem erlittenen Gestaltverlust befreit, entführt sie den Prinzen, bezaubert ihn, und betrügt die wahre Braut, indem sie ihrem Mann Schlafmittel verabreicht. Sie dominiert den Prinzen, der sich ihr hingibt, und in dieser Situation eine passive Rolle einnimmt. In KHM 88 und KHM 186 geht das Märchen nicht auf das Schicksal der neuen Braut ein. In KHM 67 wird sie zurück in ihr Reich geschickt. Die Funktion der neuen Braut ist immer die der Konkurrentin. Neben ihr erscheint die Heldin strahlender und frommer. Sie kann nie zur Gewinnerin des Märchens werden. Ist sie im Interesse des Handlungsfortgangs unwichtig, wird über ihre Person geschwiegen, egal, ob sie absichtsvoll oder ohne Verschulden in diese Situation gelangt ist.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

STANDLOS
Neue Braut 

KHM 56, KHM 113, KHM 127, KHM 193 und KHM 198 geben keine Auskunft über den Stand der neuen Heiratsaspirantin. Das Motiv der erkauften Nächte findet sich in KHM 113, KHM 127 und KHM 198 wieder. Die neuen Bräute wollen die Hochzeit erst vollziehen, nachdem sie ein bestimmtes Kleid von der wahren Braut erworben haben. Dabei betrügen alle die Besitzerin, indem sie dem Bräutigam einen Schlaftrunk zuführen. Dafür werden sie unterschiedlich bestraft: Sie bekommt die Kleider als Entschädigung für die geplatzte Hochzeit (KHM 193), muss weg (KHM 113), ihr wird der Kopf abgeschlagen (KHM 198), oder sie wird nackt denunziert (KHM 127). Der Kleiderwunsch unterstreicht die Freude an materiellen Gütern.
Die Neue Braut in KHM 56 wird nur kurz beschrieben: Roland gerät in ihre „Fallstricke“. Ihr weiteres Schicksal bleibt unerwähnt.
Eine Ausnahme in der Inszenierung der neuen Frau findet sich in KHM 198: Die Jungfrau wird zur aktiven Konkurrentin der Jungfrau Maleen. Die Ereignisse des letzten Märchenteils sind wesentlich von ihr abhängig.
Während die neuen Bräute adeliger Herkunft nicht sprechen, artikulieren drei der fünf standlosen neuen Bräute ihre Anliegen in wörtlicher Rede. Keine der neuen Frauen wird als schön beschrieben, in KHM 198 zeichnet sich Maleens Konkurrentin durch „große [...] Häßlichkeit“ aus.
Das Verhältnis des Bräutigams zur neuen Braut wird sehr distanziert und kühl beschrieben. Eine solche Beziehung steht konträr zur oft leidenschaftlichen Beziehung von rechter Braut und Partner. Die Zuwendung des Mannes zu einer neuen Partnerin verdeutlicht, wie austauschbar die Frauen für den Helden sind. Mitleid der Erzähler für die Neue Braut bleibt in allen Märchen aus. Es lässt sich feststellen, dass zwischen den Ständen kein signifikanter Unterschied in der Beschreibung der neuen Braut stattfindet, da gleiche Motive in beiden Gruppen auftauchen. Auch lässt sich ein Gleichgewicht der Aktivität erkennen.
Alle Bräutigame akzeptieren die neuen Bräute vorbehaltlos, und widersprechen keiner Beziehung. Die Funktion der neuen Braut muss als sehr frauenfeindlich bezeichnet werden, da sie unschuldig und oft ohne Kenntnis der vorherigen Partnerschaft eine Bindung mit dem Mann eingeht und ungeachtet ihrer Zuneigung am Märchenende verschwindet, ohne erzählerische Spuren zu hinterlassen.

-----------------------------------------------------

Konsequenterweise wird die Neue Braut dazu eingesetzt, das Ansehen der Heldin zu erhöhen. In den Märchen mit Neuer Braut betrügt der Held seine Partnerin, und wird für seinen Seitensprung nicht bestraft.



-------------------------------------------------

MARI NESS: SYMPATHY FOR THE FALSE BRIDES

Anyway. From here, the story abruptly changes directions, as a starving Maleen and her maid leave their country in search of food and shelter. Eventually they end up in the land of Maleen’s still incredibly useless prince, where, after considerable begging, they manage to obtain jobs in the kitchen. Why exactly Maleen doesn’t go to her prince and ask directly for help is a good question, though, to be fair, as noted, the story has already gone to some lengths to focus on just how useless the guy is.
Also, to be fair, the prince has since become engaged to someone else.
This shifts the tale into something else: a false bride story. That is, a tale where the struggling girl or princess finally reaches her prince, only to find him married off, or about to be married off, to a dreadful woman—in some cases, a troll. In most stories, this forces the girl to trade what few belongings she has left to the false bride in the hopes of just getting a conversation with the guy. On her side, the false bride is usually so desperate to get the prince to notice and love her that she agrees to all sorts of wildly inappropriate things just to get the magical dress, or the lovely ring, or whatever magical item might finally—finally—get the prince to fall in love. That is, a magically hellish love triangle, and one that almost inevitably ends poorly for the false bride, who is sometimes evil (or a troll), and sometimes not. Ugly, or pregnant, or just wrong, but not necessarily evil.
The idea, of course, is that the lovely girl must free the prince from the wrong marriage because, gasp, fairy tales forbid that a handsome, charming prince, useless or not, end up married to a—gasp—ugly woman (or troll). There’s something to be said for that, especially in tales like “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” (a story that I promise we’ll get to eventually) where the prince is under an enchantment: I rather like the idea of girls doing the rescuing and getting all of the adventures. At the same time, having to rescue their princes from the monstrous women who ensnared them… well. Hmm. And at times, I can’t help but have some sympathy for the false brides.
As in this case. This particular bride isn’t just ugly, but deeply ashamed of her looks, to the point where she’s terrified of heading to her own wedding, since people will see her. Her solution? Getting a kitchen maid—Maleen—to stand in her place at the wedding. Why a kitchen maid? Well, partly to heighten the dramatic irony of just happening to choose the girl who just happens to be her prince’s first choice of bride, but also presumably because any marriage with that great of a gulf in social rank could be easily invalidated, and also because, also presumably, the ugly bride assumes that no one will look at the girl and go, wait, didn’t I see you in the kitchens? A bit snobbish, sure, but also, at least a few people there presumably see all other people as just colorful blurs thanks to a lack of access to prescription lenses.
I’m presuming a lot here, but to be fair, so is the tale. Maleen, however, refuses to presume anything, noting that it’s not exactly her place to pretend to be a king’s bride. The false bride solves this by threatening to kill Maleen, so, off everyone goes, with Maleen singing a little song about nettles to a nettle bush, presumably to cheer everyone up, or at least herself up. She also chats to a little footbridge and to the church door. The prince is understandably a little surprised about this—my understanding (gathered entirely from television coverage of the weddings of real-life European royalty to be all fairy tale and proper about it) is that singing to nettles and chatting with inanimate objects is not part of Royal Wedding Traditions. He’s also a little astonished that his father has somehow found a new bride who looks and sounds almost exactly like his old and apparently dead bride, like “astonished” is probably not the world you should be going for here, Prince Useless, as I’m now going to call you. “Creepy” is the right term.
Anyway, it’s all a bit brutal for Maleen, what with the singing to nettles and having to pretend to be the other woman who is marrying her true love, plus, the prince giving her some jewelry during the ceremony. She hastily removes her fancy clothes, allowing the false bride to join the prince, and I can’t help but think that maybe—just maybe—her prince’s failure to remember that she’s the sort of person who will sing to nettles and be kinda passive-aggressive about how she once needed to eat him in part because he couldn’t break through a wall that she could with a bread knife had something to do with her decision here.
Unfortunately, since Prince Useless wants to know why, exactly, his bride was more interested in talking with nettles, bridges and doors than, say, him, this also puts the false bride in an uncomfortable situation, since as she says—quite understandably—”I don’t talk to nettle plants.” This leads to a comedy of errors with the false bride (heavily veiled) continually jumping up and running out of the room to find out what, exactly, was said to the various objects.
Eveeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnnnntttuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuaaalllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyy, even Prince Useless figures out that something is slightly off here—and pulls the veil from the false bride’s face. She explains that she was terrified that people would make fun of her. The prince’s compassionate response to this? To ask her to bring the kitchen maid who took her place to him. Instead, the false bride orders the servants to cut off the kitchen maid’s head. It’s a real threat—the servants are on the edge of obeying until Maleen screams, finally stirring Prince Useless to do something. He comes out, kisses Maid Maleen, and orders the false bride to be executed.
And, well, I can’t help wondering several things about this. Starting with the political implications: yes, given that it’s taken his father a full seven years to find another bride, I have to assume that many, many others agreed with me that Prince Useless was not much of a catch—but at the same time, I think it’s fair to say that in this case, the false bride is probably at least of aristocratic origins, and may have some annoyed family members. And continuing with the personal implications: ok, yes, the false bride did threaten Maleen’s life…
...but otherwise, what, exactly, is she guilty of? In the other false bride tales, the false bride is often guilty of putting the court under some sort of deception. In this one, however, she is initially guilty only of getting engaged to Prince Useless—something that the story explicitly states was the work of his father, not her—and of being so ugly that she’s terrified of being seen in public. Especially since it can be argued that Maleen went to work more or less willingly in the palace kitchens (more or less, since as a princess apparently not trained to do much and shut up in a tower for seven years, her job skills seem limited, and she has few other options). As a kitchenmaid, she is, as the story makes clear, the employee of the false bride. Sure, “pretend to be me at my wedding” is just a touch outside the usual duties of a servant, and “I’ll kill you if you don’t” is more than a trifle overdone—but, still, the false bride is not wrong to expect a servant to more or less obey her—and to expect that the servant will not chatter to nettles, bridges and doors along the way. Is ordering another woman to take her place at a wedding really the best way to handle her insecurities? I’d go with no. But at the same time, this is a false bride that I can’t help but feel a bit of sympathy for, a false bride trapped by her own insecurities and standards of beauty almost as much as Maleen was back in her tower. Just, without a bread knife.
And given that the false bride does end up executed, maybe she was right to feel so insecure. Just a thought.

THE SAGA OF GEIRLAUG AND GRETHARI

An Icelandic saga about the endurance of true love and female power. Which may have inspired Andersen's Snow Queen, but certainly has inspired some of my own works, including the finale of my Ringstetten Saga's second arc... replacing the foreign bride with a pistol duel against the male lead's brother-in-law, but still we find the Ringstetten heir quenching his thirst in an emotion-erasing spring and his conscience caught at the eleventh hour by the fiancée he left behind, now doing menial labour (Katia as a "German" barmaid at the local inn) and not having given up hope of their reunion...
See this as your intro to Icelandic sagas --this being an easy-to-understand one without any of the Westeros-style clan feuds and genealogy. Also starring a resourceful shero, and featuring folk motifs (wicked stepmother, Lethe, menial shero, conscience-catching show à la Hamlet...) that anyone may recognise at least from once before.
The Mastermaid cycle, which has parallels in Tristan and Isolde of Arthurian lore, as well as Sigurd the Dragonslayer and his valkyrie Brynhild, exists in countless versions throughout the North, from Iceland into Eastern Europe, for there are also Slavic versions, the so-called Czudo Yudo tales (in which the czarevich's oblivion comes from being kissed by a younger sibling, and their father the czar is the one stricken with the fatal thirst, which causes frog-humanoid lake kelpie Czudo Yudo to grab a hold of his beard -this was centuries before Peter the Great- until the czar gives the frogman his eldest son and heir in exchange; the master maid is Czudo Yudo's human foster child Varvara Krasa).
Also, this is my own retelling. So I omitted the whole stepmother arc and added some more plothole removal and motivations for Aslaug, the rival bride... just to concentrate on what is essential in this tale.

THE SAGA OF GEIRLAUG AND GRETHARI

'Let us go back to your father's kingdom,' she said to Grethari Gretharisson, when they had both resumed their proper shapes, and were sitting on a high cliff above the sea. The magical girl's wicked stepmother, ruthless and sorcerous as most stepmothers were in those days, had been defeated by Geirlaug's own more powerful magic, and she and her foster brother could at least breathe in peace.

'How clever you are ! I never should have thought of that !' answered Grethari, who, in truth, was not clever at all. But Geirlaug took a small box of white powder from her dress, and sprinkled some over him and some over herself, and, quicker than lightning, they found themselves in the palace grounds, in the royal gardens from which Grethari had been carried off in his cradle by the stepmother's pet dragon so many years before.

'Now take up the linen band with your name in golden letters and bind it about your forehead,' said Geirlaug, 'and go boldly up to the castle. And, remember, however great may be your thirst, you must drink nothing till you have first spoken to your father. If you do, ill will befall us both.'

'Why should I be thirsty?' replied Grethari, staring at her in astonishment. 'It will not take me five minutes to reach the castle gate.' Geirlaug held her peace, but her eyes had in them a sad look. 'Good-bye,' she said at last, and she turned and kissed him.

Grethari had spoken truly when he declared that he could easily get to the castle in five minutes. At least, no one would have dreamed that it could possibly take any longer. Yet, to his surprise, the door which stood so widely open that he could see the colour of the hangings within never appeared to grow any nearer, while each moment the sun burned more hotly, and his tongue was parched with thirst.

'I don't understand! What can be the matter with me -- and why haven't I reached the castle long ago?' he murmured to himself, as his knees began to knock under him with fatigue, and his head to swim. For a few more paces he staggered on blindly, when, suddenly, the sound of rushing water smote upon his ears; and in a little wood that bordered the path he beheld a stream falling over a rock. At this sight his promise to Geirlaug was forgotten. Fighting his way through the brambles that tore his clothes, he cast himself down beside the fountain, and seizing the golden cup that hung from a tree, he drank a deep draught.

When he rose up the remembrance of Geirlaug and of his past life had vanished, and, instead, something stirred dimly within him at the vision of the white-haired man and woman who stood in the open door with outstretched hands.

'Grethari! Grethari! So you have come home at last,' cried they. 'To think you were just a baby when that hideous dragon swooped down on our picnic... what a comely stripling you have become,' the Queen was drying up her tears.

For three hours Geirlaug waited in the spot where Grethari had left her, and then she began to understand what had happened. Her heart was heavy, but she soon made up her mind what to do, and pushing her way out of the wood, she skirted the high wall that enclosed the royal park and gardens, till she reached a small woodland house where the forester lived with his wife and their two daughters.

'Do you want a maid to sweep, and to milk the cows?' asked she, when the forester's wife answered her knock.

'Yes, we do, very badly; and as you look strong and clean, we will take you for a servant if you like to come,' replied the young woman.

'But, first, what is your name ?'

'Laufertha,' said Geirlaug quickly, for she did not wish anyone to know who she was; and following her new mistress into the house, she begged to be taught her work without delay. And so clever was she, that, by-and-by, it began to be noised abroad that the strange girl who had come to live in the forester's house had not her equal in the whole kingdom for skill as well as beauty. Thus years slipped away, during which Geirlaug grew to be a woman. Now and then she caught glimpses of Grethari as he rode out to hunt in the forest, but when she saw him coming she hid herself behind the great trees, for her heart was still sore at his forgetfulness. One day, however, when she was gathering herbs, he came upon her suddenly, before she had time to escape, though as she had stained her face and hands brown (partly by the soil, partly by the sunburn), and covered her beautiful hair with a scarlet cap, he did not guess her to be his foster-sister.

'What is your name, pretty maiden?' asked he.

'Laufertha,' answered the girl, with a low curtsy.

'Ah ! it is you, then, of whom I have heard so much,' said he; 'you are too beautiful to spend your life serving the forester's daughters. Come with me to the palace, and my mother the queen will make you one of her ladies in waiting.'

'Truly, that would be a great fortune,' replied the maiden. 'And, if you really mean it, I will go with you. But how shall I know that you are not jesting ?'

'Give me something to do for you, and I will do it, whatever it is,' cried the young man eagerly. And she cast down her eyes, and answered:

'Go to the stable, and bind the calf that is there so that it shall not break loose in the night and wander away, for the forester and his wife and daughters have treated me well, and I would not leave them with aught of my work still undone.'

So Grethari set out for the stable where the calf stood, and wound the rope about its horns. But when he had made it fast to the wall, he found that a coil of the rope had twisted itself round his wrist, and, pull as he might, he could not get free. All night he wriggled and struggled till he was half dead with fatigue. But when the sun rose the rope suddenly fell away from him, and, very angry with the maiden, he dragged himself back to the palace. 'She is a witch,' he muttered crossly to himself, 'and I will have no more to do with her.' And be flung himself on his bed and slept all day.

Not long after this adventure the king and queen sent their beloved son on an embassy to a neighbouring country to seek a bride from amongst the seven princesses. The most beautiful of all was, of course, the one chosen, Aslaug, the fourth and middle child; and the young pair took ship without delay for the kingdom of the prince's parents. The wind was fair and the vessel so swift, that in less time than could have been expected the harbour nearest the castle was reached. A splendid carriage had been left in readiness close to the beach, but no horses were to be found, for every one bad been carried off to take part in a great military review which the king was to hold that day in honour of his son's marriage.

'I can't stay here all day,' said Aslaug crossly, when Grethari told her of the plight they were in. 'I am perfectly worn out as it is, and you will have to find something to draw the carriage, if it is only a donkey. If you don't, I will sail back straight to my father.'

Poor Grethari was much troubled by the words of his fiancée. Not that he felt so very much in love with her, for during the voyage she had shown him several times how vain and bad tempered she was; but as a prince and a bridegroom, he could not, of course, bear to think that any slight had been put upon her. So he hastily bade his attendants to go in search of some draft beast, no matter which species, and bring it at once to the place at which they were waiting.

During the long pause the princess sat in the beautiful golden coach, her blue velvet mantle powdered with silver bees drawn closely round her, so that not even the tip of her nose could be seen and marred by the sunlight. At length a girl appeared driving a young ox in front of her, followed by one of the prince's messengers, who was talking eagerly.

'Will you lend me your ox, fair maiden ?' asked Grethari, jumping up and going to meet them. 'You shall fix your own price, and it shall be paid ungrudgingly, for never before was king's son in such a plight.'

'My price is seats for me and my two friends behind you and your bride at the wedding feast,' answered she. And to this Grethari joyfully consented.

Six horses would not have drawn the coach at the speed of this one ox. Trees and fields flew by so fast that the bride became quite giddy, and expected, besides, that they would be upset every moment. But, in spite of her fears, nothing happened, and they drew up in safety at the door of the palace, to the great surprise of the king and queen. The marriage preparations were hurried on, and by the end of the week everything was ready. It was, perhaps, fortunate that the princess bride was too busy with her clothes and her jewels during this period to pay much heed to Grethari, so that by the time the wedding day came round he had almost forgotten how cross and rude and fussy she had been on the journey.

The oldest men and women in the town agreed that nothing so splendid had ever been seen as the bridal procession to the great ball, where the banquet was to be held, before the ceremony was celebrated in the palace. Princess Aslaug was in high good humour, feeling that all eyes were upon her, and bowed and smiled right and left. Taking the prince's hand, she sailed proudly down the room, where the guests were already assembled, to her place at the head of the table by the side of the bridegroom. As she did so, three strange ladies in shining dresses of blue, green, and red, glided in and seated themselves on a vacant bench immediately behind the young couple. The red lady was Geilaug, who had brought with her the forester's daughters, and in one hand she held a wand of birch bark, and in the other a closed basket.

Silently they sat as the feast proceeded; hardly anyone noticed their presence, or, if they did, supposed them to be attendants of their future queen. Suddenly, when the merriment was at its height, Geirlaug opened the basket, and out flew a bantam cockerel and hen. To the astonishment of everyone, the chickens circled about in front of the royal pair, the rooster plucking the feathers out of the tail of the hen, who tried in vain to escape from him.

'Will you treat me as badly as Grethari treated Geirlaug?' cried the hen at last. And Grethari heard, and started up wildly. In an instant all the past rushed back to him; the princess by his side was forgotten, and he only saw the face of the child with whom he had played long years ago.

'Where is Geirlaug?' he exclaimed, looking round the hall; and his eyes fell upon the strange lady. With a smile she held out a ring which he had given her on her twelfth birthday, when they were still children, without a thought of the future. 'You and none other shall be my wife,' he said, taking her hand, and leading her into the middle of the company.

It is not easy to describe the scene that followed. Of course, nobody understood what had occurred, and the king and queen imagined that their son had suddenly gone mad. As for the princess bride, her rage and fury were beyond belief. The guests left the hall as quickly as they could, so that the royal family might arrange their own affairs, and in the end it was settled that half the kingdom must be given to the despised Aslaug, instead of a husband. She sailed back at once to her country, where she was soon betrothed to a young noble of her parents' court, whom, in reality, she liked much better than Grethari. After all, she had had a reason to be that fussy throughout her betrothal! That evening Grethari was married to Geirlaug, and they lived happily till they died, and made all their people happy also.

LADY FEATHERFLIGHT: ON THE FORGOTTEN BRIDE

Remarks by William Wells Newell.

From a comparison of the English versions, it would appear that our tale, as narrated in England, formerly included the following incidents:

IV. Forgetfulness of the Bride.—The hero goes home in advance to arrange for the suitable entry of his bride. He violates her caution, receives a kiss, and is caused to fall into oblivion of the lady.  After a time, when the prince is about to wed another, his bride, disguised as a juggler, appears at the ceremony, and by magic enacts a drama, which has the effect of reviving the youth's memory.

The Tempest seems to be a literary recension of the folk-tale; it does not contain the final section of the European variants, that in which the hero is represented as forgetting his bride. It does not appear that the written narrative has had any influence on the European variants; the close correspondence has arisen from a common oral tradition. As the concluding part of our tale, relating to forgetfulness of the bride, is not found in Asiatic versions, it would seem likely that this last section was added in Europe; these variants, existing in all European countries, must have depended on the narration of a single story-teller, who constructed his tale by adding a new section to an Oriental story. The similarity of these versions would indicate that this narrator lived in a time comparatively recent; the probability is that he belonged to Central Europe, and to one of the most civilised nations.

SAMHAIN 2016: KARIN T. THREE NIGHTS TALE

"All right, let us begin! And, when our story has come to an end, we shall know so much more than we already know!"
THE SNOW QUEEN. H.C. ANDERSEN.


FRAGMENTS FROM 
"UNDERGROUND", 
BY KARIN TIDBECK

The mansion was furnished in the new, angular style; it felt cold and oppressive compared to the soft lines and pastel colors of home. Instead of windows, the walls were covered in curtain-framed paintings of geometric suns and stark landscapes. The butler took her through a series of smaller rooms seemingly designed for a lady: a library with overstuffed chairs, a music room with a piano, and a fully equipped sewing room. In every single room sat a gramophone. Finally she was shown into a dimly lit room with a huge mahogany bed.

Hedvig grabbed the butler’s arm. “Will he come for me?”

Up close, the butler’s skin looked smooth and hard, like Bakelite; his eyes glittered like glass. He gave off a vague chemical smell. Hedvig realized that his mouth and eyebrows were painted on. He gently pried her hand off his arm with jointed fingers, bowed again, and left.

Quiet footsteps approached; the mattress dipped as someone sat down on the edge of the bed.

“My name is Lord Ruben,” said a young baritone. “You may call me ‘my lord.’ ”

“The lord of what?” Hedvig said.

“The underground,” he replied. “This is my domain.”

“Will you rape me now?” Hedvig said into the darkness.

“Of course not,” Ruben said. “But I need your help. An evil countess put a curse on me so that I may never show my face to you. But if you will be faithful to me without ever seeing my face, then one day I will be free. If you break your promise, I will be in her power completely and forced to marry her.”

Lord Ruben’s breaths had evened out. 
In the faint yellow light, he was young and frail-looking: very pale, with dark eyebrows and hair, a long nose, and carefully carved lips, like a painting.
Ruben’s blind eyes filled with tears. “I am hers. She let me have the nights to myself, but only if no living being saw my face. It was going so well. I had a mansion. I had you, and a son. Now look at us. Look at what you did.” He pulled away and sobbed into his hands.
The air was very cold. Ruben lay in front of her, shaking, not at all the commanding man she had come to imagine.

Lord Ruben let out a long, trembling sigh. “Vega, my sister. She might at least take our son in until we find somewhere to stay.”

They walked out of the culvert and into the wintry streets of Stockholm.

 Lady Vega lived in Old Town, on a street winding away from the German church.

Lord Ruben pushed Hedvig toward the front door. “You can’t let her see me. The countess will know. She’ll take me then, for sure.”

Hedvig climbed the stairs to Lady Vega’s apartment. The woman who opened the door was short and fine-featured, much like a female version of Ruben, with crinkles at the corners of her eyes. 

“I know that face,” she said. “That’s Ruben’s, isn’t it? Who are you?”

“I’m his wife, milady,” Hedvig said. “We need your help. Lord Ruben and I are out on the street.”

Vega squinted at her. “Since when is he a lord?”

Hedvig faltered.

“Where have you been living with him, exactly?” Vega asked.

“In his palace,” Hedvig said slowly. “Except it’s not there anymore, because I broke the spell. He’s waiting downstairs, but you can’t see him, because then the countess will—”

Vega uncrossed her arms. “This is absurd. Excuse me.” She ran downstairs.

Vega shouting at Ruben.

“You’re not even man enough to show your face,” Vega shouted, shaking his arm. “You send your wife! Or whatever she is. . . . What have you told her? She calls you Lord Ruben!”

“You don’t understand,” Lord Ruben said, ducking out of her reach.

An engine roared behind them.

The enormous car that came charging down the street was black and shiny, with darkened windows. It stopped with a screech of tortured brakes. The passenger door opened. A shadow curled around Ruben’s arms and legs and pulled him inside. The door slammed shut. The car took off again, leaving the stench of exhaust and burning rubber. The two women stared down the street after it.

“I thought he was free,” Vega said numbly.

Hedvig clutched her son, who had gone very quiet. “What just happened?”

“The countess took him back.”

“Who took him back? Who is the countess?”

“The Countess de la Montagne. She is very dangerous,” Vega replied. “He got involved with her when he was very young. I thought ‘out on the streets’ meant he was finally free.”

“All this, and you want to go save him,” Vega said. “You’re insane.”

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Hedvig replied. “Will you help me or not?”

Vega shook her head. “He had it coming. And I’m not going up against the countess. But if you’re so set on it, you could maybe talk to old Natalia.”

“Who is she?”

“She’s a dealer, of sorts. You’ll find her in Hornstull.”

Hedvig shifted her son on her hip.

“I’ll take the boy,” Vega said. “He deserves better. And stop calling my brother ‘lord.’ We’re middle-class.”

It was only half an hour’s walk from Old Town to Hornstull, on the western tip of the southern island. Old Natalia opened the door dressed in a turban and a silk robe. She was very thin and looked very old. The hallway beyond her smelled of cigar smoke and heavy perfume.

“What do you want?” Her voice was unexpectedly soft.

“Madam, I’m sorry to disturb you,” Hedvig said. “I’m looking to save my husband, and I’m told you might be able to help me.”

Natalia tilted her head. “Save him from what?”

“The Countess de la Montagne.”

The old woman let out a bright laugh. “Come in, you poor fool,” she said.

She made Hedvig tea and smoked a fat cigar while listening to Hedvig’s story about her capture and Ruben’s. When Hedvig was done talking, Natalia sat in silence for a long moment.

“You want to rescue him from the countess,” Natalia finally said.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Hedvig said. “But I can’t rest until I do.”

“You know that no one picks a fight with her, don’t you?”

“I know nothing about her,” Hedvig replied. “My only concern is to save him.”

“For some reason,” Natalia said, then sighed. “Well. You’re polite and you have guts, and for that I’ll help you.” She went over to a cabinet. “What skills do you have, then?”

Hedvig was quiet for a moment, then said, “I can make dresses.”

“Excellent,” Natalia said, and rummaged around in the cabinet.

She brought out a slender roll of fabric and a purse, then pushed a large suitcase toward Hedvig with her foot. Inside sat a portable sewing machine.

Natalia patted the roll. “This will give you all the fabric you need. The sewing machine will make you all the dresses you need. And the purse will give you whatever else you require. It’ll never run out.”

“That’s a very small roll of fabric,” Hedvig said.

Natalia grinned. “So it would appear,” she replied. “Don’t worry. Now. The countess is very fond of fashion and fine food, so make that for her.”

“And what do you want in exchange?” Hedvig said. “Nothing is for free. I have learned that much.”

“The satisfaction of seeing that bitch taken down is good enough for me,” said Natalia. “I tried in my time. It’s your turn now.”

Hedvig stood up.

Hedvig rented a little room at the back of an old lady’s apartment. She spent day and night sewing more of her dresses. The roll did in fact not run out but produced velvet and silks finer than she had ever seen. The sewing machine seemed to produce thread all by itself and made seams straight and fine, and it never pulled at the fabric. The dresses Hedvig made didn’t look like the pictures in the magazines, not at all, but she thought they had their own beauty. When she had made nine dresses, she went to find the countess.

The Countess de la Montagne lived in a lavish apartment that covered an entire floor of a building in the most expensive part of Östermalm. A butler opened the door, and Hedvig recoiled; it was the same butler who had served in the underground mansion. He looked at her, bowed, and left the door ajar. A while later he came back with his mistress in tow. She was tall and coolly blonde, with square features. She looked at Hedvig like a hawk looks at a mouse.

“I have a lovely set of gowns I’d like to sell you,” Hedvig said. “They’re like nothing you have ever seen.”

“You dragged me to the front door for this?” the countess said to the butler.

Hedvig quickly opened her suitcase and held up a green bias-cut gown of her own design. The countess’s mouth dropped slightly open.

“Do you have more like that?”

“Nine of them, my lady,” Hedvig replied.

“Give her the small drawing room,” she told the butler, then pointed at Hedvig. “I’ll view them this afternoon.”

The butler guided Hedvig through a warren of rooms that were eerily reminiscent of the underground mansion: angular lines, dark wood, windows covered by heavy drapes. Here and there, Bakelite footmen and maids were busy with some task or other. There was no sign of human life. The butler showed her into a small drawing room and left.

When the countess arrived, Hedvig had turned the little drawing room into a showroom, fabric and sewing machine ready for alterations. The countess handled each of the dresses where they hung, rubbing the soft fabrics between her fingers.

“I’ve never seen anything like them,” she said. “These aren’t like the Parisian fashions. These are bizarre, they’re too . . . Where did you learn to do this?”

“I designed them myself, my lady,” Hedvig replied.

“Brilliant,” the countess said. “I’ll try them all. Bring out the dressing screen.”

The dresses, which Hedvig feared might be too small, settled almost perfectly over the countess’s forms.

“I’ll take all of them,” the countess said. “And anything else you make. My butler will settle the bill.”

“I don’t want money,” Hedvig said. “All the money in the world couldn’t pay for them.”

The countess blinked. “Then what do you want?”

“I only want one thing,” Hedvig replied. “I’ve heard about a gentleman who lives here. Ruben. I would like to spend three nights with him.”

The countess’s eyes narrowed. “I see. And what do you want with him?”

Hedvig shrugged. “I don’t need money. I’ve heard of his beauty. I’d like to see it firsthand. You can have all of these dresses, if I can have three nights.”

“Very well,” the countess said. “If you want a blind junkie, then that’s what you’ll have. Come back tonight.”

The room was almost dark. Ruben lay on an enormous platform bed, fast asleep. He looked very small. A bottle of laudanum stood on the nightstand, together with an empty glass. Hedvig sat down on the side of the bed. The butler positioned himself by the door and closed his glass eyes.

“I came for you,” she said to Ruben. “I came to free you. After everything you did, I came for you.”

Hedvig lay down next to him and looked at him as he slept. He wasn’t the man who had held her captive now. He was a helpless little thing. She told him about everything she had gone through to come here. He made no sign that he had heard her.

She woke up when the butler touched her shoulder the next morning. When the countess arrived for the fitting, she replied to Hedvig’s complaint with a shrug.

“I told you, he’s a junkie. You asked to spend three nights with him. You didn’t say what state he should be in.”

The second night went by much like the first. Hedvig talked to Ruben where he lay; she told him about their son, her sorrow, her work to free him. Ruben didn’t move. Like the first night, she fell asleep, and woke up only when the butler gently roused her. She didn’t complain to the countess when she fitted the last two gowns for her.

On the third night, no one came to show Hedvig inside, so she found her own way to Ruben’s room. Just as she was about to open the door, the butler stepped outside, the laudanum bottle in his hand. He bowed and held the door open for Hedvig. She couldn’t interpret the gleam in his eyes.

Ruben sat on the edge of the bed, holding on to the frame. His clothes were rumpled, his face grayish and sweaty. He looked up with milky white eyes as Hedvig stepped inside.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me,” Hedvig replied.

“You,” he said. “You came.”

He held out a hand. Hedvig sat down next to him.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“I came to free you.”

“She’s planning to marry me,” Ruben said miserably. “I’ll be hers forever.”

“We’ll think of something,” Hedvig said.

The countess asked Hedvig for a wedding dress. She made it in black stiff velvet with a bell skirt; the sewing machine stitched embroidered vines and flowers in glass and metal through the bodice. On the day of the wedding, the countess called Hedvig into her boudoir for the final adjustments. She stood in front of her enormous mirror, resplendent in the bell skirt gown. Ruben sat on a chaise longue in a corner of the room, dapper and miserable in his tailcoat.

“I made a matching scarf, my lady,” Hedvig said.

The countess inspected the glass-beaded scarf and nodded. “Good.” She flung the ends around her neck and turned back to the mirror. She grinned to herself.

Hedvig caught the ends and pulled the scarf very tight.

It seemed an eternity before the countess stopped fighting. When the last twitch finally left her body, Hedvig’s shins were battered and her dress was torn, but she had held fast. As the countess dropped to the floor, Ruben gasped. His eyes were clear and very green, and focused on Hedvig.

“You saved me,” he said.

Hedvig let go of the scarf and gazed down at the countess’s purple face, then at Ruben where he sat on the divan. He looked like a little boy. He wasn’t the ravaged young man who had been the countess’s thrall. He was back to square one, just like her. She was done. She had a world of choices.

“I saved myself, I think,” Hedvig said. “Good-bye.”

“Where are you going?”

Hedvig was silent for a moment. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “But I’ll be free to choose.”

“Then take me with you,” Ruben said.

The plea made Hedvig laugh.

“What am I supposed to do?” Ruben asked plaintively.

“Do better.”

Hedvig left him next to the dead countess. She walked down to the harbor and followed the shore into Old Town, where Ruben’s sister waited with her son. A cool wind blew in from the sea. Ferries howled at one another across the water. Winter was giving way.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Why is it all right for him to keep her captive underground, but not for another woman to do the same to him? What started out as playing around with a folktale became a reckoning with my own social programming.