The dragon flew out and caught the queen on the road and carried her away

"The Nine Peahens and the Golden Apple" ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Златна јабука и девет пауница, Zlatna jabuka i devet paunica) is a work of

Serbian epic poetry Serbian epic poetry () is a form of epic poetry created by Serbs originating in today's Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia. The main cycles were composed by unknown Serb authors between the 14th and 19th centu ...

. It is classified as Aarne-Thompson type 400*, "The

Swan Maiden The "swan maiden" () is a tale classified as Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index, ATU 400, "The Swan Maiden" or "The Man on a Quest for His Lost Wife," in which a man makes a pact with, or marries, a supernatural female being who later departs. The ...

", and as Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index (ATU) type 400, "The Quest for the Lost Wife".

Publication history

It was published for the first time as a

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 ...

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić VUK or Vuk may refer to: *Vuk (name), South Slavic given name ** Vuk, Ban of Bosnia (), a member of the Kotromanić dynasty ** Vuk Karadžić (1787–1864), Serbian language reformer and folklorist, often referred to simply as Vuk * ''Vuk'' (film) ...

in 1853, translated into English as "The Golden Apple-tree, and the Nine Peahens" (1874) by Elodie Lawton Mijatović, and under a similar title by Woislav M. Petrovitch (1914). Later on it was published in 1890 as a

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

n fairy tale translated as "The Golden Apples and the Nine Peahens" by A. H. Wratislaw in his ''Sixty Folk-Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources'', as tale number 38. American illustrator and poet Katherine Pyle translated the tale as "The Seven Golden Peahens", while keeping its source as Serbian. Parker Fillmore translated the tale as ''The Enchanted Peafowl'' and indicated its source as

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

n. Anthropologist

Andrew Lang Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 – 20 July 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a folkloristics, collector of folklore, folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectur ...

in ''

The Violet Fairy Book ''The Langs' Fairy Books'' are a series of 25 collections of true and fictional children's literature, stories for children published between 1889 in literature, 1889 and 1913 in literature, 1913 by Andrew Lang and Leonora Blanche Alleyne, a marr ...

'' included a re-translation from a German translation of Karadžić's tale.

Ruth Manning-Sanders Ruth Manning-Sanders (21 August 1886 – 12 October 1988) was an English poet and author born in Wales, known for a series of children's books for which she collected and related fairy tales worldwide. She published over 90 books in her lifetime ...

included it in '' The Glass Man and the Golden Bird: Hungarian Folk and Fairy Tales''.

Synopsis

An emperor's

golden apple The golden apple is an element that appears in various legends that depict a hero (for example Hercules or Făt-Frumos) retrieving the golden apples hidden or stolen by an antagonist. Gold apples also appear on the Silver Branch of the Otherwor ...

tree was robbed every night, and his sons set themselves to watch it. The older two slept, but the youngest stayed awake. Nine peahens arrived. Eight rifled the tree, while the ninth came down beside him and became a beautiful maiden. She talked with him. He begged her to leave one apple, and she left two. This went on for two nights, until his brothers spied on him and saw how it happened. They made a bargain with a

witch Witchcraft is the use of magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. According to ''Enc ...

, and the next night she leapt up and cut off a lock of the maiden's hair. The prince caught the witch and had her executed, but the peahens did not return. Grieving, the prince set out in search of his beloved. He found a castle with an aging empress, who had one daughter. On hearing that nine peahens bathed in the lake outside, he set out, despite her efforts to have him stay. The empress bribed the prince’s servant to blow a whistle when the nine peahens approached. This threw him into an enchanted sleep. The ninth tried to wake him, but to no avail. She told the servant they would come on the next day and never again. The next day, the servant put him to sleep again, and the maiden told him that if the prince wanted to find her, he should roll the under peg on the upper. The servant repeated this to the prince. The prince cut off the servant’s head and went on alone. A hermit directed him to a castle where he found the ninth peahen, the empress of a kingdom. They were married at once and lived in her castle. One day his wife had to go on journey, and forbade him to go into the twelfth cellar. When he went in, a cask with iron bands about it asked him for water. He gave it

three 3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious and cultural significance in many societies ...

cups of water. It burst, and a dragon sprang out to fly off and

capture Capture may refer to: Arts and entertainment * "Capture", a song by Simon Townshend * Capture (band), an Australian electronicore band previously known as Capture the Crown * ''Capture'' (TV series), a reality show Television episodes * "Chapter ...

the empress. The prince set out in search of her. He saw a fish on the riverbank, helped it into the water, and received a scale to call it; a fox in a trap, and received a couple of hairs in return for freeing it; and a wolf in a snare, and received a couple of hairs for releasing it. He found the dragon’s palace where the empress was held captive, and they tried to escape. The dragon saw them and wanted to pursue them, but his horse told him there was plenty of time to eat and drink before setting off and, sure enough, after he had eaten and drunk, the dragon captured them. He let the prince go because of the drinks of water, but promised it would be the only

clemency A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...

. The prince returned to the dragon’s palace and had the empress ask the dragon where he got the horse. The dragon related how a witch had a mare and foal, and that whoever watched over these for her for

days would get his pick of her horses, but that whoever failed in the task would lose his life. The prince travelled to the witch's house and noticed that all around it, poles had been set up, all but one of which had a skull upon it. The witch hired the prince to look after the horses. He watched all day, but fell asleep during the night - whereupon the mare and foal escaped into the water. Using the scale he had been given, the prince summoned the fish, who told him the charm with which to get them out. When he went back for dinner, the witch scolded the horse, listened to the excuse it gave for being recaptured by the prince, and told it to try going among the foxes on the morrow. The next day the prince used the fox hairs to summon the fox to retrieve the mare and foal, and, the day after that, the wolf hairs to call the wolf to retrieve them from among the wolves. When at last the prince came to claim his reward, he asked the witch for the ugly horse in the corner and would not be dissuaded from his choice, but straightaway hastened back to the castle on his new steed and carried off the empress. When the dragon saw this, he asked his horse whether he had time to eat and drink before setting off in pursuit, but the horse said he would not catch the fugitives, regardless of whether he ate first or set off immediately. Undaunted, the dragon set off anyway and, during the pursuit, the dragon's horse complained to the prince's steed of the effort involved in trying to catch him. The prince's horse asked the dragon's horse why it put up with it - whereupon the dragon's horse threw the dragon and killed him, and the empress rode it the rest of the way home.

Wratislaw's version

In the Bulgarian version, the prince stays with the peahen for several days before the witch disturbs them. When he leaves to search for her he takes one of his servants who prevents him from seeing the maiden, whereas in the Serbian version the old empress sends her servant to go with him. The wolf has also been replaced by a crow in a trap, and instead of an ugly horse, the prince asked for a skinny horse.

Other versions

Czech author

Václav Tille Václav Tille (16 February 1867 in Tábor – 26 June 1937 in Prague) was a Czech writer. He also used the pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their or ...

(writing under pseudonym ''Václav Říha'') published a similar tale, titled ''Berona'': the youngest prince stays awake at night to see what has been stealing his father's golden apples. Later that night, he sees a flock of twelve golden peahens approaching the tree. One of them, wearing a golden crown, announces she is Princess Berona and asks the prince to find her. Later, he travels with a servant and waits for the coming of Berona. An old lady bribes the servant and orders him to blow a whistle to make the prince fall asleep. A Hungarian variant, titled ''Märchen vom pfauenhaarigen Mädchen'' ("The Tale of the Peacock-Haired Maiden"), was translated from Hungarian into

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

by Elisabeth Rona-Sklárek. In this tale, a king has three sons. The youngest goes to rest in the royal gardens, and a peacock-haired maiden comes near him and becomes his beloved. A witch takes the opportunity one night to cut the maiden's hair. She is startled and disappears, so the king's son and a servant go in search for her. When they arrive at an inn, the innkeeper gives the servant a whistle to make the prince fall asleep. The prince finally finds his beloved after stealing a magic teleporting belt from the devil's three sons. Adolf Schullerus and Elisabeth Rona-Sklárek supposed it was a truncated version of the Servian tale ''The Golden Apple Tree and the Nine Peahens''.

Analysis

Tale type

This story is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 400, "The Man of a Quest for the Lost wife" (with former subtype AaTh 400*, "Swan Maiden"), with the second part classified as ATU 302. In a ''recenzija'' (review) of a reedition of

Vuk Karadžić Vuk Stefanović Karadžić ( sr-Cyrl, Вук Стефановић Караџић, ; 6 November 1787 (26 October OS)7 February 1864) was a Serbian philologist, anthropologist and linguist. He was one of the most important reformers of the moder ...

's book of Serbian folk tales, Croatian folklorist

Maja Bošković-Stulli Maja Bošković-Stulli (9 November 1922 – 14 August 2012) was a Croatian slavicist and folklorist, literary historian, writer, publisher and an academic, noted for her extensive research of Croatian oral literature. Early life Bošković-St ...

also classified the tale as types AaTh 400 + 302.

Motifs

Romanian folklorist

Marcu Beza Marcu Beza (June 30, 1882 in Kleisoura, Ottoman Empire – May 6, 1949 in Bucharest, Romania) was a Romanian poet, writer, essayist, literary critique, publicist, folklorist, and diplomat of Aromanian origin. Beza was elected a corresponding ...

noted that some Eastern European and Balkanic tales of the bird maiden begin with the episode of seven white birds stealing the

s from a tree in the king's garden (an episode similar to German ''

The Golden Bird "The Golden Bird" ( German: ''Der goldene Vogel'') is a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm (KHM 57) about the pursuit of a golden bird by a gardener's three sons. It is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as type ATU 550, ...

'').

The hero's horse helper

In the story, the hero manages to defeat the villain with the help of a magical horse he tamed while working for the witch. This sequence is classified as ATU 302C, "The Magical Horse". The episode of taming the horse of the wizard/sorcerer fits tale type ATU 556F*, "Herding the Wizard’s Horses". The tale is classified as subtype AaTh 302C because in the international index of folktypes both subtypes AaTh 302A and AaTh 302B were previously occupied by other stories.Horálek, Karel.
Der Märchentypus AaTh 302 (302 C*) in Mittel- und Osteuropa
. In:
Deutsches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde
' 13 (1967), pp. 262. In this subtype, after the hero acquires the powerful horse, it either tramples the sorcerer with its hooves or influences Koschei (or a dragon)'s mount to drop its rider to his death.

Interpretations

Historical linguist

Václav Blažek Václav Blažek (born 23 April 1959) is a Czech historical linguist. He is a professor at Masaryk University in Brno and also teaches at the University of West Bohemia in Plzeň. His major interests include Indo-European languages, Uralic lang ...

argues for parallels of certain motifs (the night watch of the heroes, the golden apples, the avian thief) to Ossetian

Nart saga The Nart sagas (; ; ) are a series of tales originating from the North Caucasus. They form much of the basic mythology of the ethnic groups in the area, including Abazin, Abkhaz, Circassian, Ossetian, Karachay- Balkar, and to some extent C ...

s and the Greek myth of the

Garden of the Hesperides In Greek mythology, the Hesperides (; , ) are the nymphs of evening and golden light of sunsets, who were the "Daughters of the Evening" or "Nymphs of the West". They were also called the Atlantides () from their reputed father, Atlas.Diodorus ...

.BLAŽEK, Václav.
The Role of "Apple" in the Indo-European Mythological Tradition and in Neighboring Traditions
. In: Lisiecki, Marcin; Milne, Louise S.; Yanchevskaya, Nataliya. Power and Speech: Mythology of the Social and the Sacred. Toruń: EIKON, 2016. pp. 257-297. .

Footnotes

References

External links

The Golden Apples and the Nine Peahens
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nine Peahens and the Golden Apples 1853 short stories Serbian epic poetry Serbian fairy tales Witchcraft in fairy tales Fictional Serbian people ATU 400-459 ATU 300-399 Swan maidens Golden apples Fairy tales about princes Dragons in fairy tales Folklore featuring impossible tasks Fairy tales about talking animals