''Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa'' or ''Anthousa the Fair with Golden Hair'' is a Greek

fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, household tale, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful bei ...

collected by Greek folklorist in ''Folktales of Greece''. Other variants were collected by Michalis Meraklis and Anna Angelopoulou.Soula Mitakidou and Anthony L. Manna, with Melpomeni Kanatsouli, ''Folktales from Greece: A Treasury of Delights'', p 9

Synopsis

An old woman tried for many years to make lentil soup, but every time she was out of one ingredient or another. Finally, she was able to make the soup, but when she put it in the stream to cool, Prince

Phoebus Apollo is one of the Olympian deities in ancient Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light, poetry, ...

brought his horse to drink; the pot startled the horse and it would not drink, so the prince kicked the pot over. She cursed him to crave Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa as much as she had the soup. He, consumed with longing, hunted for Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa for three months until he came to the tower with no entrance, where she lived. He saw an

ogre An ogre (feminine: ogress) is a legendary monster depicted as a large, hideous, man-like being that eats ordinary human beings, especially infants and children. Ogres frequently feature in mythology, folklore, and fiction throughout the world ...

ss (''drakaina'') approach and call Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa to throw down her hair; the ogress climbed it, ate and drank with Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa, and climbed back down again. The prince called to her, and Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa threw down her hair to him. They fell in love. Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa hid him from the ogress, who would have eaten him, and as soon as the ogress left the tower the next morning, they sealed up the mouths of everything in the tower, because all the objects there could speak, and fled. The ogress returned, her daughter did not answer, and the mortar, which the prince and Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa had forgotten, told her that they had fled. The ogress chased after them on a bear, but Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa threw down a comb, which became a swamp, and after the ogress passed through that, another comb, which became thorns, and finally a scarf, which became a sea. The ogress could not pass the sea, but she warned Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa that the prince would leave her in a tree while he went to fetch his mother to bring her to the castle, and when he kissed his mother, he would forget her and decide to marry another. When that happened, she should get two pieces of bread dough being prepared for the wedding, and make them into birds. It happened as she said, and Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa did as the ogress said. The birds flew to the castle and one questioned the other about what had happened between Prince Phoebus and Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa. He remembered her, went to the tree where he had left her, and brought her to the castle, where they married.

Analysis

Tale type

ATU 310, The Maiden in the Tower

The tale is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type 310, "The Maiden in the Tower". Other fairy tales of this type include ''

The Canary Prince The Canary Prince (Italian: ''Il Principe canarino'') is an Italian fairy tale, the 18th tale in Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino. He took the tale from Turin, making various stylistic changes; he noted it developed a medieval motif, but such tal ...

'', ''

Petrosinella "Petrosinella" is a Neapolitan fairy tale, written by Giambattista Basile in his collection of fairy tales in 1634, ''Lo cunto de li cunti'' (''The Tale of Tales''), or ''Pentamerone''. It is Aarne–Thompson type 310 "the Maiden in the Tower", ...

'', ''

Persinette "Persinette" is a French literary fairy tale, written by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force, published in the 1698 book ''Les Contes des Contes''. It is Aarne–Thompson type 310, The Maiden in the Tower, and a significant influence on the Ge ...

'', '' Prunella'', and ''

Rapunzel "Rapunzel" ( ; ; or ) is a German fairy tale most notably recorded by the Brothers Grimm and it was published in 1812 as part of '' Children's and Household Tales'' (KHM 12). The Grimms' story was developed from the French literary fairy tale ...

''. The Greek variant was first recorded in 1890 in eastern Thrace. Unlike most such tales, it does not open with the scene in the garden where the baby is traded to the ogress.

ATU 313, The Magic Flight

The ogress's chase particularly resembles that of ''Petrosinella''. This chase, in fact, is another folktale type, Aarne-Thompson type 313, The Girl Helps the Hero Flee;Georgios A. Megas, ''Folktales of Greece'', p 223, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1970 others of this type include '' The Water Nixie'', ''

Foundling-Bird "Foundling-Bird" (original German title: ''Fundevogel'') is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, number 51. It is Aarne–Thompson type 313A, the girl helps the hero flee, D.L. Ashliman,The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Househo ...

'', '' Nix Nought Nothing'', and ''

The Master Maid "The Master Maid" is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in their '' Norske Folkeeventyr''. "Master" indicates "superior, skilled." Jørgen Moe wrote the tale down from the storyteller Anne Godlid in ...

''. In these tales, the girl is the daughter of the evil from which the hero flees, and some folklorists have interpreted it to mean that in the ''Rapunzel'' tale, the heroine's being the adopted daughter of the ogress or witch is an adaption of an original where she is the daughter. Swiss folktale scholar

Max Lüthi Max Lüthi (1909 in Bern – 1991 in Zürich) was a Swiss literary theorist. He is considered the founder of formalist research on folk tales. His first book is the field's foundational text, "a classic, a definitive statement about the natu ...

also concluded that the episode of the magical flight, typical of tale type ATU 313, "The Magical Flight" ("Girl Helps the Hero Flee"; "The Devil's Daughter"), is indeed a component of tale type ATU 310, "The Maiden in the Tower", although it is absent in ''Rapunzel''. In the same vein, scholar Ton Deker remarked that "in oral versions" the heroine and the prince escape from the tower through the "Magic Flight" sequence. Organizers of the Greek Folktale Catalogue, scholars Anna Angelopoulou and Aigle Broskou remarked that in Greek, Yugoslavian and Corsican variants the heroine is the witch's daughter. To professor Michael Merakles, this trait does appear in type 313, "The Magic Flight". In addition, the establishers of the Spanish Folktale Catalogue, scholars and Maxime Chevalier, created a new subtype in the Spanish Catalogue: type 310B, "La doncella en la torre escapa mediante fuga mágica" (English: "The Maiden in the Tower escapes by Magic Flight"), a combination of "Maiden in the Tower" with the closing episode of the Magic Flight. In this regard, scholars and Jaume Guiscafrè argue that this combination could represent either a Romance or Mediterranean subtype.

Motifs

The heroine's three names mean "Blossoming", "Fair-haired", and "Golden-haired". According to Walter Puchner, in ''The Forgotten Fiancée'' subtype, it is "particularly common" in

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

variants for the heroine to release doves to the prince's palace to remind him. This motif also occurs in combination with tale type ATU 310 in Mediterranean tales.

Variants

A variant from

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

, ''Fenchelchen'' (after the

fennel Fennel (''Foeniculum vulgare'') is a flowering plant species in the carrot family. It is a hardy, perennial herb with yellow flowers and feathery leaves. It is indigenous to the shores of the Mediterranean but has become widely naturalized ...

), collected by scholar Bertha Ilg, also shows a combination of the maiden locked in the tower by the witch, and the girl's magical escape from the tower. Author

Rachel Harriette Busk Rachel Harriette Busk (1831—1907) was a British traveller and folklorist. Life She was born in 1831, in London. She was the youngest of five daughters of Hans Busk the elder and his wife Maria; and sister of Hans Busk the younger and of Juli ...

published a Roman tale collected from Palombara with the title ''Filagranata''. In this tale, a woman's desire for the parsley in the witch's garden leads to the witch taking her child and raising her in a tower. Years later, the prince finds the maiden in the tower and asks her to throw down her tresses. The tale continues with ''The Magic Flight'' sequence: the titular Filagranata gives the prince three items for them to use to distract the witch: a mason's trowel, a comb and a jar of oil. The tale concludes with the episode of the ''Forgotten Fiancé''. In a tale collected by Bulgarian folklorist

Kuzman Shapkarev Kuzman Anastasov Shapkarev ( Bulgarian and ; 1 January 1834 – 18 March 1909) was a Bulgarian folklorist and ethnographer from the Ottoman region of Macedonia, author of textbooks and ethnographic studies, and a figure of the Bulgarian Nationa ...

from

Ohrid Ohrid ( ) is a city in North Macedonia and is the seat of the Ohrid Municipality. It is the largest city on Lake Ohrid and the eighth-largest city in the country, with the municipality recording a population of over 42,000 inhabitants as of ...

, modern day

North Macedonia North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...

, "МОМА ТЕНТЕЛИНА И ВОЛЦИ" ("Girl Tentelina and the Wolf"), a pregnant woman gets lost in the swamp and a wolf appears to help her, as long as he gets her daughter as payment. She makes a deal and forgets about it. Years later, she gives birth to a girl named Tentelina, who is approached by the wolf to uphold her mother's deal. She surrenders herself and the wolf locks her up in a tower. Whenever the wolf wants to reach her, he sings to her: "Tentelina, Tentelina, set loose you hair". Tentelina's brother, named Costadin, asks his mother his sister whereabouts. He is told of the whole story and decides to find her. At the end of the tale, after he is helped by three old ladies, he and Tentelina escape from the tower by throwing magic objects to delay the wolf.Cvetanovska, Danica; Мишковска, Maja.
101 Macedonian Folk Tales: Anthology of Macedonian Folk Tales
'. BIGOSS, 2003. pp. 191ff. .

References

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