The Knights of the Fish facts for kids
Quick facts for kids The Knights of the Fish |
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The seven-headed dragon. Illustration from Europa's Fairy Book (1916).
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| Folk tale | |
| Name | The Knights of the Fish |
| Also known as | Los Caballeros del Pez; The King of the Fishes (Joseph Jacobs) |
| Data | |
| Aarne–Thompson grouping |
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| Region | Spain, Eurasia, Worldwide |
| Published in | Cuentos. Oraciones y Adivinas (1878), by Fernán Caballero The Brown Fairy Book, by Andrew Lang Europa's Fairy Book (1916), by Joseph Jacobs |
| Related | The Twins (Albanian tale); Perseus and Andromeda Princess and dragon |
The Knights of the Fish ("Los Caballeros del Pez" in Spanish) is a Spanish fairy tale collected by Fernán Caballero in the book Cuentos. Oraciones y Adivinas. It is included in three other books: The Brown Fairy Book, Golden Rod Fairy Book, and A Book of Enchantments and Curses.
Many fairy tales are sorted by kind using a special "index" called the Aarne-Thompson-Uther (ATU) Index. The Knights of the Fish is classified as both ATU 300 ("The Dragon-Slayer") and ATU 303 ("The Twins or Blood Brothers"). Most 303 tales begin with the father catching a talking fish three times. The third time the fish is caught, it asks to be eaten by the fisherman's wife and horses and that his remains be buried under a tree. Later, twins are born to his wife, two foals are born to the horses, and two new trees grow.
Contents
Synopsis
A poor, but hard-working cobbler was starving and had almost given up fishing for his meal when he caught a beautiful fish. The fish told him to cook it and then give two pieces to his wife and bury two pieces in his garden. Later, the wife had twin boys, and two shields grew on plants in the garden.
When the boys grew up, they decided to travel. They parted ways at a crossroads. One brother went to a city and found that everyone there was sad. A fierce dragon demanded that every year they offer a maiden to him. This year, the lot had fallen on the princess. The knight met the princess and came up with a plan to kill the dragon. The princess was to cover a mirror with her veil and hide behind it. When the dragon approached, she was to lift the veil. His plan worked. When the dragon saw itself, he thought it was another dragon and attacked the mirror. When the mirror broke, the dragon saw more dragons and was confused. The knight then killed the dragon and married the princess.
Later, the new prince went to a castle of black marble, even though he knew that those who went to it never returned. When he arrived, echoes warned him to go away, but he ignored them. A woman, who was a witch, answered the door and let him in because he was so handsome. When he refused to marry her, she showed him over the castle and killed him by dropping him through a trapdoor.
The prince's brother came to the city, and people mistook him for the prince. He told the princess that he would go to the black castle. When he arrived, the echoes told him what had happened to his brother. He found the witch, stabbed her with his sword, and revived his brother and all of the maidens who had been killed by the dragon. After they all left, the witch died and the castle collapsed.
Variants
The birth of the twins (triplets)
Sometimes in tales like this, triplets are born. Examples include French tales Les chevaliers de la belle étoile and Le rei des peiches.
In the Czech fairy tale The Twin Brothers, the enchanted fish is a princess who has been cursed. When a woman catches her as a fish, the princess says she will become a human again after her fish body has rotted.
Birth of lookalike people
In other variants, two similar-looking people are born from two different mothers who have both eaten the same magical item that makes them both pregnant. The children who are born have love and loyalty toward each other.
The names of the heroes
If the characters are named in the tale, both brothers may have similar water-related names like Wattuman und Wattusin, Wasserpaul and Wasserpeter, or Johann Wassersprung und Kaspar Wassersprung.
The adventures of the twins (triplets)
Usually, the twins or triplets are separated in the story. One defeats the dragon, and after he marries a princess, goes to a castle or tower in the distance where a witch lives. Later his twin (or younger triplet) defeats the witch and rescues the older brother.
Some versions have more than one "helping" animal. For instance, in "The Dragonslayer," the hero is helped by four different animals or by three powerful dogs. Sometimes stories have a troll that lives in the sea rather than a dragon as the antagonist.
Adaptations
The tale type was adapted into the story Los hermanos gemelos ("The Twin Brothers"), by Spanish writer Romualdo Nogués, with a moral at the end. A second adaptation was published in the Spanish newspaper El Imparcial, in 1923, titled El pez y los tres rosales ("The Fish and the Three Rosebushes").
See also
In Spanish: Los caballeros del pez para niños
