The Bird of Truth (Spanish: El Pájaro de la Verdad) is a Spanish fairy tale collected by Cecilia Böhl de Faber in her Cuentos de encantamiento.Caballero, Fernán. Cuentos, oraciones, adivinas y refranes populares e infantiles. Leipzig: Brockhaus. 1878. pp. 31-43. Andrew Lang included it in The Orange Fairy Book.
It is related to the motif of the calumniated wife and classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children". These tales refer to stories where a girl promises a king she will bear a child or children with wonderful attributes, but her jealous relatives or the king's wives plot against the babies and their mother. Variants are widely collected from Iberian tradition, in the many languages of Spain.
Synopsis A fisherman found two beautiful children in a crystal cradle, a girl and a boy, floating in the river and brought them to his wife to raise as their own. As the babies grew up, their older brothers were cruel to them and the boy and the girl often ran away to the riverbank, where they would feed breadcrumbs to the birds. In gratitude, the birds taught them to speak their language.
One day the oldest boy taunted them with having no parents, and so the boy and girl went out into the world to seek their fortunes. When they stopped to rest along their journey, they heard birds gossiping, and one bird said that the king had married the youngest daughter of a tailor, over the opposition of the nobles. He was obliged to go to war, and when he returned, he was told that his wife had given birth to twins who had died. Missing her babies, the queen went mad, and had to be shut up in a tower in the mountains where the fresh air might restore her. In fact, the babies had not really died, but were taken to a gardener's cottage, and that night the chamberlain threw them into the river in a crystal cradle, which the children recognized from the story of how the fisherman had found them.
The bird went on to say that only the Bird of Truth could convince the king that the children were really his children, and the bird was kept by a giant who only slept a quarter-hour a day in the castle of Come-and-never-go. Only a witch could tell the way to the castle, and she would not do it unless she was given the water from the fountain of many colours. Furthermore, the Bird of Truth is surrounded by the Birds of ill Faith, and only an owl could tell which one was which.
They went to the city, where they begged hospitality for a night, and were so helpful that the innkeeper asked them to stay. The girl did, but her brother left on his quest. A dove directed him to go with the wind, and by following it, he reached the witch's tower and asked the way to the castle of Come-and-never-go. The witch tried to get him to stay the night, but when he refused, demanded a jug of the many-colored waters, or she would turn him into a lizard. She then directed a dog to lead him to the water.
At the castle, he heard the owl's cry and asked its advice. It told him to fill the jug from another fountain and then find the white bird in the corner, not the brightly colored birds. He had a quarter of an hour to do the task, and succeeded. When he brought back the water, the witch threw it over him and told him to become a parrot, but he became more handsome, and all the creatures about the hut threw themselves into the water and became human again. The witch fled.
The courtiers who were responsible for abandoning the children tried to prevent the King from learning about the children, but they talked so much of it that he overheard the commotion and became curious. When the bird flew to him, he listened. The King at once went to embrace his children, and then all three of them freed his wife, their mother, from the tower. The wicked courtiers had their heads cut off, and the couple who had raised them were given riches and honor.
Analysis Tale type The tale is one of the many variants of Aarne–Thompson–Uther type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children", a type widespread across all continents. According to scholarship, the tale type may also be known in Spain as El lucerito de oro en la frente ("The golden star on the forehead").Briones, Antonio. El cuento tradicional. Ediciones AKAL, 2007. p. 105. .
Distribution American fairy tale researcher and Hispanist Ralph Steele Boggs (de) published in 1930 a structural analysis of the tale type in Spanish sources. According to him, a cursory glance at the material indicated that the tale type was "very popular in Spanish".
Modern sources, from the 20th century and early 21st century, confirm the wide area of distribution of tale type across Spain:Atiénzar García, Mª del Carmen. Cuentos populares de Chinchilla. España, Albacete: Instituto de Estudios Albacetenses "Don Juan Manuel". 2017. pp. 341–343. . in Catalonia,Groome, Francis Hindes (1899). "No. 18—The Golden Children". In: Gypsy folk-tales. London: Hurst and Blackett. pp. 71–72 (footnote). Asturias, Andalusia, Extremadura, New Castilla;Boggs, Ralph Steele. "Spanish folklore from Tampa, Florida Nº V: Folktales". In: Southern Folklore Quarterly Year 2, Volume 2 (1938): 95. University of Florida. Cuenca, Salamanca, Cáceres,Taggart, James M. Enchanted Maidens: Gender Relations in Spanish Folktales of Courtship and Marriage]. Princeton University Press, 1990. p. 197. . and in Province of Ciudad Real. Scholar Montserrat Amores has published a catalogue of the variants of ATU 707 that can be found in Spanish sources (1997).Amores, Monstserrat. Catalogo de cuentos folcloricos reelaborados por escritores del siglo XIX. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Departamento de Antropología de España y América. 1997. pp. 118–120. .
Researcher James M. Taggart commented that the tale type was one of "the most popular stories about brothers and sisters" told by tellers in Cáceres, Spain (apart from types AT 327, 450 and 451). Interpreting this data under a sociological lens, he remarked that the heroine's role in rescuing her brother reflects the expected feminine task of "maintaining family unity".
Variants Francisco Maspons y Labrós In compilations from the 19th century, collector D. Francisco de S. Maspons y Labros compiled variants in Catalan: Los Fills del Rey ("The King's Children"), L'aygua de la vida ("The Water of Life"),Maspons y Labrós, Francisco. Folk-lore catalá. Cuentos populars catalans. Barcelona: Llibreria de Don Alvar Verdaguer. 1885. pp. 38–43, 81–89. Lo castell de irás y no hi veurás and Lo taronjer. Maspon y Labrós noted the resemblance between Lo castell de irás y no hi veurás and Lo taronjer to The Sisters Envious of Their Cadette, from The 1,001 Nights.Maspons y Labrós, Francisco. Lo Rondallayre: Cuentos Populars Catalans. Barcelona: Llibreria de Don Alvar Verdaguer. 1871. p. xv.
In Lo castell de irás y no hi veurás ("The Castle of Going and Not Returning"), a father makes a pact with the Devil in order to get rich, in exchange for one of his daughters. The Devil convinces the man to maim his daughter, but every time she blesses herself with the sign of the cross and the Devil fails. She then runs away from home and takes refuge in a cave, where she is found by a king. They marry. While the king is away at war, she gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl, and writes him a letter telling the good news, but the letter is intercepted by the Devil, who falsifies the contents to say that the queen gave birth to puppies. The king receives the letter and writes one back, which is also intercepted and falsified by the Devil with a command to cast the twins in the water. The false order is carried out and twins are cast in the water in a chest. The twins are saved by a miller and later are adopted by a chaplain who names the twins heirs to his grand fortune. The women of the chaplain's home village, envious of the twins' luck, send a witch to their house. The witch persuades them to seek the tree of leaves of every colour, the water of all colours, and the bird with plumage of every colour - that are to be found in the titular "Castle of Going and Not Returning".Maspons y Labrós, Francisco. Lo Rondallayre: Cuentos Populars Catalans. Barcelona: Llibreria de Don Alvar Verdaguer. 1871. pp. 60–68.
In Lo taronger or Lo taronjer, three girls are talking, and one of them says her children will have a star on the front. The prince hears this and takes her to his castle to marry her. She gives birth to twin boys with a star on the front who are cast in the river, and a year later to a girl with a rose in each hand. They are saved by a gardener, who raises them. Years later, they leave home to look for their parents and find an old woman. The old woman tells them to go to the forest and pluck an orange from the orange tree in a deep forest. After the brothers fail, their sister is the one to pluck it, cracks it open and a many-coloured bird comes out of it.Maspons y Labrós, Francisco. Lo Rondallayre: Cuentos Populars Catalans. Barcelona: Llibreria de Don Alvar Verdaguer. 1871. pp. 107–111.
Antoni Maria Alcover According to Josep Antoni Grimalt Gomila, author Antoni Maria Alcover collected and published 7 Catalan rondalles (folktales) from Mallorca that can be classified as type 707:Grimalt Gomila, Josep Antoni. «Les "Notes de rondaies" de mossèn Alcover, entre l’oralitat i l’escriptura». Revista d’etnologia de Catalunya, [en línia], 1994, Núm. 4, p. 62, https://raco.cat/index.php/RevistaEtnologia/article/view/48533 [Consulta: 1-04-2022]. S'aygo ballant i es canariet parlant ("The dancing water and the talking canary");Alcover, Antoni Maria. Aplec de rondaies mallorquines. Tom VI. Segona Edició. Ciutat de Mallorca: Estampa de N' Antoni Rotger. 1922. pp. 79–95. Sa flor de jerical i s'aucellet d'or;Alcover, Antoni Maria. Aplec de rondaies mallorquines. Tom VII. Sóller: Estampa de "La Sinceridad". 1916. pp. 269–305. La Reina Catalineta ("Queen Catalineta"); La bona reina i la mala cunyada ("The good queen and the evil sister-in-law"); S'aucellet de ses set llengos; S'abre de música, sa font d'or i s'aucell qui parla ("Tree of Music, the Fountains of Gold and the Bird that Talks").Carazo, C. Oriol. "Els primers treballs catalogràfics". In: Estudis de LLengua i Literatura Catalanes. XLIII. Miscel-lània Giuseppe Tavani. Barcelona: Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat. 2001. pp. 193–200.
Other collectors Spanish folklorist Antonio Machado y Alvarez wrote down an Andalusian tale from his own sister, titled El agua amarilla ("The yellow water"). In this tale, three sisters talk about their choices for husbands: the elder wants to marry a baker so there is not shortage of bread for her; the middle one a cook, and the youngest the king. The king listens to their conversation and arranges their marriages. The elder sisters become jealous and conspires against their sister, the queen: after she gives birth to three children (two boys and a girl), each time they replace the baby for an animal and cast them in the water in a basket. However, the three children are saved by the "King's Sultan", who raises them. Years later, the siblings build a little house near the palace, and an old woman comes to visit them and tell about the yellow water, the bird that talks and the tree that sings.Machado y Alvarez, Antonio. El folklore andaluz: revista de cultura tradicional. Sevilla, Andalucía: Fundación Machado. 1882. pp. 305–310.