The Bird Lover

The Bird Lover, also known as The Prince as Bird,[1] is a type of narrative structure in folklore, no. 432 in the Aarne–Thompson classification system. In the typical version of story, a woman acquires a bird lover—a nobleman in the shape of a bird—who is wounded by means of a trap set by the woman's husband, such as a set of sharp points set up outside the woman's window. She follows the wounded bird's trail, cures him, and then marries him.[2]

In French scholarship, this type is often referred to as "l'oiseau bleu" or "the blue bird", so named for a story by Madame d'Aulnoy.[2]

Origins

Folklorist Jack Haney traced the origins of the tale type to France and Germany in the Middle Ages.[3]

An example of the motif is found in one of Marie de France's Lais, "Yonec", though the lai develops somewhat differently: instead of a happy ending, the lai ends in tragedy.[2][4] A "sophisticated rationalization" of the type is found in Chrétien de Troyes's Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, where Lancelot appears at Guinevere's heavily barred window and cuts his fingers bending the bars back.[1]

Variants

Some variants may begin akin to type ATU 425C, "Beauty and the Beast": the third daughter asks her father for a present, a memento that belongs to the Bird Prince that she will use to contact him.[5]

Distribution

Haney stated the tale type enjoyed "worldwide distribution".[6]

According to professor Pino Saavedra, the tale type is "especially popular" in Mediterranean countries, being found in Iberian Peninsula.[7][8] In the same vein, professor Christian Abry stated that the tale type is "frequent" (fréquent) in Italy.[9]

The ATU 432 folktype is also present in the folklore of Latin America, for instance, in Chile (The Parrot Prince).[10] Further variants are found in Canada and New Mexico.[11]

In the Typen türkischer Volksmärchen ("Turkish Folktale Catalogue"), by Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav, both scholars identified a cycle of stories they classified as TTV 102, "Die Traube I" ("The Grape - Version I"),[12] with 31 variants registered.[13] These tales are comparable to the international tale type ATU 432, "The Prince as Bird".[14]

See also

References
  1. Mandel, Jerome (1999). "'Polymorphous Sexualities' in Chrétien de Troyes and Sir Thomas Malory". In Piero Boitani (ed.). The Body and the Soul in Medieval Literature: The J.A.W. Bennett Memorial Lectures, Tenth Series, Perugia, 1998. Anna Torti. Boydell & Brewer. pp. 63–78. ISBN 9780859915458. Retrieved 15 November 2012.
  2. Boivin, Jeanne-Marie (1995). "Bisclavret et Muldumarec: La part de l'ombre dans les Lais". In Jean Dufournet (ed.). Amour et merveille: les Lais de Marie de France (in French). Paris: Champion. pp. 147–68.
  3. Haney, Jack V. The Complete Folktales of A. N. Afanas'ev. Volume II: Black Art and the Neo-Ancestral Impulse. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. 2015. pp. 536-556.
  4. Bacquin, Mari (2012). "Le motif de l'aigle d'or". In Olivier Delsaux (ed.). Original et originalité: Aspects historiques, philologiques et littéraires (in French). Hélène Haug. Presses univ. de Louvain. pp. 7–14. ISBN 9782875580221. Retrieved 15 November 2012.
  5. Muhawi, Ibrahim, and Sharif Kanaana. Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1989. p. 341. ISBN 0-520-06292-2.
  6. Haney, Jack V. The Complete Folktales of A. N. Afanas'ev. Volume II: Black Art and the Neo-Ancestral Impulse. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. 2015. pp. 536-556.
  7. Pino Saavedra, Yolando. Folktales of Chile. University of Chicago Press, 1967. p. 260.
  8. Stockings of Buttermilk: American Folktales. Edited by Neil Philip. New York: Clarion Press, 1999. p. 120. ISBN 9780395849804.
  9. Abry, Christian. “Sur les traces des sentiers des âmes dans les outre-monts: in memoriam Gaston Tuaillon”. In: Nouvelles du Centre d’Etudes Francoprovençales. Saint-Nicolas (Aoste, Italie), vol. 64, 2011. p. 62.
  10. Bierhorst, John. Latin American folktales: stories from Hispanic and Indian traditions. Pantheon. 2002. pp. 240-245, 352-353. ISBN 0-375-42066-5
  11. Pino Saavedra, Yolando. Folktales of Chile. University of Chicago Press, 1967. p. 260.
  12. Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî. Typen türkischer Volksmärchen. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1953. pp. 118-121.
  13. Dov Neuman (Noy). "Reviewed Work: Typen Tuerkischer Volksmaerchen by Wolfram Eberhard, Pertev Naili Boratav". In: Midwest Folklore 4, no. 4 (1954): 258. Accessed April 12, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4317494.
  14. Delarue, Paul. (1954). [Review of Typen türkischer Volksmärchen, (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Veröffentlichungen der orientalischen Kommission, Band V), by W. EBERHARD & P. N. BORATAV]. In: Arts et Traditions Populaires, 2(2), 177 (footnote nr. 3). http://www.jstor.org/stable/41002386

Bibliography
  • Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. pp. 102–103 and 181. ISBN 0-520-03537-2


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