The Enchanted Pig facts for kids
Quick facts for kids The Enchanted Pig |
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The giant pig appears in the court to marry the princess. Illustration by Henry Justice Ford for Andrew Lang's The Red Fairy Book (1890).
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| Folk tale | |
| Name | The Enchanted Pig |
| Also known as | Porcul cel fermecat |
| Data | |
| Aarne–Thompson grouping |
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| Region | Romania |
| Published in |
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The Enchanted Pig (Porcul cel fermecat) is a Romanian fairy tale, collected in Rumanische Märchen and also by Petre Ispirescu in Legende sau basmele românilor. Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book.
Synopsis
A king goes to war and tells his daughters they may go anywhere in the castle except one room. One day, they disobey and find a book open in it. It says that the oldest shall marry a prince from the east, the second a prince from the west, and the youngest a pig from the north. The youngest is horror-struck, but her sisters manage to convince her that it is impossible.
The king returns and discovers, from the youngest's unhappiness, what they had done. He resolves to face it as best they can. A prince from the east marries the oldest, and a prince from the west the second, and the youngest becomes distressed. A pig comes to woo her, and when the king would have refused his consent, the city fills with pigs. The king tells his daughter that he is certain there is something strange about this pig, and that he believes magic has been at work. If she were to marry the pig, it might be broken.
She marries the pig and goes off with him. At his home, he becomes a man every night, and is so kind that he wins her heart. She asks a witch what happened to her husband. The witch tells her to tie a thread to his foot to free him. When the young wife does so, her husband wakes and tells her that the spell would have fallen from him in three days, but now he must remain in this shape, and she will not find him without wearing out three pairs of iron shoes and blunting a steel staff.
She sets out as soon as she gets herself three pairs of iron shoes and a steel staff. She wanders far, until she comes to the house of the Moon. The Moon's mother lets her in, and while she is there, she gives birth to a son. The Moon's mother tells her that the Moon could not tell her where to find her husband, but she can go on, to the Sun. She also gives her a chicken and tells her to keep every one of the bones. The princess thanks her, throws away one pair of shoes, which was worn out, and puts on another.
She finally wends her way to the Sun's house, and the Sun's mother lets her in. She hides her, because the Sun is always ill-tempered when he returns. He is, but his mother soothes him, and asked about her husband. He cannot tell her, so his mother sends her on, to the Wind. Also, she gives her a chicken and tells her to keep care of the bones. Here, she throws out the second pair of shoes.
At the Wind's house, his mother discovers that her husband lives in a wood no axe could cut through. She sends her to it, with a chicken and instructions to keep every bone. The princess goes on, although her third pair of shoes wears through, on the Milky Way. She finds the castle where her husband lives, and the bones stick together to form her a ladder to let her in. She is one bone short, and cuts off her little finger to complete the ladder. Her husband returns, and the spell on him is broken.
He reveals that he is a prince, who had killed a dragon, and the dragon's mother, a witch, had turned him to that shape and then advised her to tie the string to keep him in it. They set out to his father's kingdom, and then return to her father's kingdom.
Translations
The tale was also translated and published in the compilation The Foundling Prince & Other Tales (1917).
Variants
In a Romani tale from Püspökladány, Az elátkozott királyfi, aki sündisznó volt ("The Enchanted Prince Who was a Hedgehog"), a queen, who did not know how she became pregnant, gives birth to a hedgehog named Rudolf. The hedgehog boy works as his father's shepherd, "better than ten shepherds". One day, he pleads his father to ask for the hand of the daughter of a foreign king. He marries the eldest daughter and, inside the carriage, jumps into his wife's lap, prickling her skin. She is hurt and feels insulted. This incident also occurs with the middle daughter. He marries the third one, Ludinca, who does not seem to be bothered by his action. Later on, she tells his mother, the queen, she is pregnant. The princess reveals her husband is a handsome prince. His mother suggests she burns the skin in the stove, which she does. The prince smells the skin burning and laments that they could not wait three more nights. He also curses his wife not to give birth until he has embraed her three times, and vanishes. Ludinca, still pregnant, goes searching for him. She reaches the hut of an old lady, who summons her sons, the Star, the Moon and the Sun, to help the maiden. The Sun tells her of a castle just accross the Danube where the Tündér (fairy) princess lives. The old lady gives her a golden duck for her to use to bribe the fairy princess for three nights with her husband.
Romania
In a tale collected by folklorist Josef Haltrich (de) from the Transylvanian Saxons, with the title Das Borstenkind (A serteruhás gyermek or "The Child in the Pighair Clothes"), a three-year-old prince is eating some of the apples his mother, the queen, has been peeling. Angered, she curses her son to become a wild boar. He transforms into one and escapes with other swines to the pigpen. Some time later, he reaches the cottage of a poor swineherd and his wife, who wished for child, even if it was a pig. As answer to their prayers, the porcine prince appears. They live like a family for 17 years. One day, another king decrees that her daughter should marry after her suitor accomplishes three tasks. The wild boar boy does so and marries her, much to her disgust. One night, the princess awakes and sees a beautiful prince, the boarskin at his side. He tells her his story and wants her to keep quiet about, lest he does not break the enchantment. She reveals the prince's condition to her mother, the second queen, who suggests her daughter takes the boarskin and burns it in the stove. Seeing he was betrayed by his wife - having been so close to breaking the curse - , he says to the princess he will vanish from her eyes and that he will be at the end of te world, from where no soul can save him. The distraught princess, then, decides to travel to the end of the world to save her husband: with the help of the Wind's winged steed, reaches the Sun and the Morning Star, who point her to the end of the world, where her husband is to be married to the prncess of that place.
Lithuania
In an Lithuanian variant, The Hedgehog and his Bride, a hedgehog is adopted by a poor old couple. The animal insists he will marry the king's daughter, but first he must perform some tasks for him. He is successful and marries the princess. At night, the woman sees her husband is a handsome man, after he takes off his animal skin. One day, a servant unknowingly burns the hedgehog's enchanted skin and the prince tells his wife she must go on a quest for him, since he was so close to breaking the curse, had the servant not burnt the animal skin. The princess then goes on a quest to save him. Near the end of the tale, both she and her husband agree to be turned into frogs by some witches in order to prove their loyalty towards each other. At last, they are transformed back into humans.
Opera
An opera partly based on the tale, The Enchanted Pig, by the composer Jonathan Dove, was premiered in 2006.
