The Sleeping Prince (fairy tale)

The Sleeping Prince is a Greek fairy tale collected by Georgios A. Megas in Folktales of Greece.[1]

It is Aarne-Thompson 425G: False Bride takes the heroine's place as she tries to stay awake; recognition when heroine tells her story.[2] This is also found as part of Nourie Hadig, and a literary variant forms part of the frame story of the Pentamerone.

The tale type was also closely related to AaTh 437, "The Supplanted Bride" ("The Needle Prince"). However, the last major revision of the International Folktale Classification Index, written in 2004 by German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther, reclassified the tale type as ATU 894, "The Ogre Schoolmaster and the Stone of Pity".[3][4]

Synopsis

A king had only his daughter, his wife having died, and had to go to war. The princess promised to stay with her nurse while he was gone. One day, an eagle came by and said she would have a dead man for a husband; it came again the next day. She told her nurse, and her nurse told her to tell the eagle to take her to him. The third day, it came, and she asked; it brought her to a palace, where a prince slept like the dead, and a paper said that whoever had pity on him must watch for three months, three weeks, three days, three hours, and three half-hours without sleeping, and then, when he sneezed, she must bless him and identify herself as the one who watched. He and the whole castle would wake, and he would marry the woman.

She watched three months, three weeks, and three days. Then she heard someone offering to hire maids. She hired one for company. The maid persuaded her to sleep, the prince sneezed, and the maid claimed him. She told him to let the princess sleep and when she woke, set to tend the geese. (The fairy tale starts to refer to the prince as the king.)

The king had to go to war. He asked the queen what she wanted, and she asked for a golden crown. He asked the goose-girl, and she asked for the millstone of patiences, the hangman's rope, and the butcher's knife, and if he did not bring them, his ship would go neither backward nor forward. He forgot them, and his ship would not move; an old man asked him if he had promised anything, so he bought them. He gave his wife the crown and the other things to the goose-girl. That evening, he went down to her room. She told her story to the things and asked them what she should do. The butcher's knife said to stab herself; the rope, to hang herself; the millstone, to have patience. She asked for the rope again and went to hang herself. The king broke in and saved her. He declared she was his wife and he would hang the other on the rope. She told him only to send her away. They went to her father for his blessing.

Analysis

Richard MacGillivray Dawkins described that the "essence" of the tale type involves the heroine being destined to marry "a dead man", which is not dead at all. The prince, in fact, is under a magical sleep in a room in a castle somewhere. The heroine finds him and stays by his side on a long vigil.[5]

Variants

Israeli professor Dov Noy (de) reported that the tale type 894 was "very popular in Oriental literature", with variants found in India, Iran, Egypt and regionally in Europe (southern and eastern).[6] As for type 437, Richard Dorson stated that it appears "sporadically in Europe", but it is "better known in India".[7]

Europe

Scholar Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana stated that "in European tradition" type AaTh 894 is found in association with the story of "The Sleeping Prince".[8]

Italy

A Sicilian variant was collected by Laura Gonzenbach with the title Der böse Schulmeister und die wandernde Königstochter ("The Evil Schoolmaster and the Wandering Princess").[9]

Greek

According to scholars Anna Angélopoulos and Marianthi Kaplanoglou, the tale type AaTh 425G, now included in the general subtype ATU 425A after 2004, is the "most widely disseminated subtype in Greece, with 118 versions".[10][11]

Turkey

According to Dov Noy, the Turkish Folktale Catalogue by Wolfram Eberhard and Peter Boratav registered 38 variants in the country.[12]

Iran

German scholar Ulrich Marzolph (fa) reported 22 variants of tale type 894, Der Geduldstein, across Iranian sources.[13]

In a Persian tale collected by Emily Lorimer and David Lockhart Robertson Lorimer, from Kermani, The Story of the Marten-Stone, a king's daughter finds a castle with a sleeping prince inside, his body covered with needles. She begins a long and strenuous vigil, picking each needle for the next 40 days and 40 nights. After her slave girl replaces her as the prince's saviour, she asks for a marten-stone to pour out her woes.[14]

India

In a tale from New Goa, collected in the Konkani language, The King of Pins, a princess gives alms to a beggar lady. In return, the lady prays that the maiden will marry the "King of Pins". Her interest piqued, the princess asks around the location of this prince. When she reaches her destination, she enters a fabulous palace and enter a room. Inside, there is a prince in a coma-like state, his body prickled by pins from head to toe. The princess then begins to take out the pins. Unfortunately, she falls asleep, and a "wicked black woman" appears to finish her job. When all pins are taken out of his body, he awakens and sees the black woman instead of princess, thinking her to be his saviour.[15]

India-born author Maive Stokes collected and published the Indian tale The Princess who Loved her Father like Salt. In the first part of the tale, three princesses are asked a question about how much they love their father - akin to King Lear's judgment or tale type ATU 923, "Love Like Salt". After the princess is banished by her father to the jungle, she finds a palace deep within the jungle. Inside lies a prince in a deep sleep, his body prickled by needles. She begins the task of carefully taking each needle, one by one, until one day she purchases a slave girl to keep her company.[16] Maive Stokes compared this tale to a Sicilian variant collected by folklorist Laura Gonzenbach, with the name Der böse Schulmeister und die wandernde Königstochter ("The Evil Schoolmaster and the Wandering Princess").[17]

In a Central Indian tale collected from a Bharia in Mandla and titled The Sister, a princess with seven brothers receives a prophecy by an astrologer: she will marry a corpse. She and her brothers later find a house in the jungle. Inside, there lies the body of a man with innumerable pins on it. The princess holds a vigil on the man, is replaced by a slave and buys a doll to be her confidant.[18]

See also

References
  1. Georgios A. Megas, Folktales of Greece, p 70, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1970
  2. Georgias A. Megas, Folktales of Greece, p 227, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1970
  3. Avard Jivanyan. Anthropomorphic Dolls as Otherworldly Helpers in the International Folk Tale. 8th International Toy Research Association World Conference, International Toy Research Association (ITRA), Jul 2018, Paris, France. ffhal-02114234f
  4. Correia, Paulo. "Notas e Recensões: Hans-Jörg Uther, The types of international folktales. A classification and bibliography, Helsinki, Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2004, 3 volumes: FFC 284 (619 pages) + FFC 285 (536 pages) + FFC (284 pages)". In: E.L.O n. 1314 2007. p. 325. ISSN 0873-0547
  5. Dawkins, Richard McGillivray. Modern Greek folktales. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1953. p. 175.
  6. Noy, Dov. Folktales of Israel. University of Chicago Press. 1963. p. 117.
  7. Dorson, Richard M. Folktales told around the world. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press. 1978. p. 238. ISBN 0-226-15874-8.
  8. Muhawi, Ibrahim, and Sharif Kanaana. Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1989. p. 365. ISBN 0-520-06292-2.
  9. Gonzenbach, Laura. Sicilianische Märchen. Leipzig: Engelmann. 1870. pp. 59-64.
  10. Angelopoulos, Anna and Kaplanoglou, Marianthi. "Greek Magic Tales: aspects of research in Folklore Studies and Anthropology". In: FF Network. 2013; Vol. 43. p. 15.
  11. Angélopoulos, Anna. "Le conte d'Eros et Psyché dans la littérature orale". In: Topique 2001/2 (no 75), pp. 155-169. https://doi.org/10.3917/top.075.0155
  12. Noy, Dov. Folktales of Israel. University of Chicago Press. 1963. p. 117.
  13. Marzolph, Ulrich. Typologie des persischen Volksmärchens. Beirut: Orient-Inst. der Deutschen Morgenländischen Ges.; Wiesbaden: Steiner [in Komm.], 1984. pp. 164-166.
  14. Lorimer, David Lockhart Robertson; Lorimer, Emily Overend. Persian tales. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd. 1919. pp. 19-24.
  15. Davidson, Sarah, and Eleanor Phelps. "Folk Tales from New Goa, India." The Journal of American Folklore 50, no. 195 (1937): 29-30. doi:10.2307/535980.
  16. Stokes, Maive. Indian fairy tales, collected and tr. by M. Stokes; with notes by Mary Stokes. London: Ellis and White. 1880. pp. 164-172.
  17. Stokes, Maive. Indian fairy tales, collected and tr. by M. Stokes; with notes by Mary Stokes. London: Ellis and White. 1880. pp. 287-288.
  18. Bhagvat, Durga. "Folk Tales of Central India". In: Asian Folklore Studies 31, no. 2 (1972): 71-73. Accessed August 30, 2021. doi:10.2307/1177489.

Further reading
  • "L'épingle qui endort". In: Cosquin, Emmanuel. Les Contes indiens et l'occident: petites monographies folkloriques à propos de contes Maures. Paris: Édouard Champion. 1922. pp. 95-190.
  • Dawkins, R. M. (1949). "The Story of Griselda". In: Folklore, 60:4, pp. 363-374. DOI: 10.1080/0015587X.1949.9717955
  • Katrinaki, Emmanouela. Le cannibalisme dans le conte merveilleux grec. Questions d’interprétation et de typologie. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica. 2008. ISBN 978-951-41-1025-2
  • Katrinaki, Emmanouela. "Le secret du maitre d'ecole. A propos du conte type ATU 894". In: Cahiers de litterature orale n. 57-58. 2005. pp. 139-164.
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