Prâslea the Brave and the Golden Apples () is a Romanian fairy tale collected by Petre Ispirescu in Legende sau basmele românilor.
It is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 301, "The Three Stolen Princesses". This type refers to a set of stories where three heroes (or three brothers) approach a cave or hollow and send one of them down to rescue three captured princesses, albeit with a localized opening about the heroes standing guard on the king's garden for a nocturnal thief that leads them down the hole.
Synopsis
A king had a magnificent garden with a tree that bore golden apples, but he never ate them, because every year, the apples were stolen as they became ripe. None of his guards could catch the thief. His oldest two sons tried, one year after the other, but fell asleep near midnight. The next year, the youngest son, , tried. He set up two stakes to prick him if he ever started to lean in his sleep. At midnight, he heard rustling and shot an arrow. In the morning, a trail of blood led away, and the apples were ripe.
The king was pleased, but Prâslea wanted to track the thief. He and his brothers followed the blood to a ravine, where the older two brothers tried to have the others lower each one of them, grew frightened, and came back. Prâslea had them lower him. He found a copper castle. There, a lovely maiden told him she was a princess, and that the ogres (Zmeu) that had kidnapped her and her two sisters had wanted to marry them, but the sisters had put them off with demands. He fought with the ogre there and killed him; went on to the second castle, of silver, and killed the second ogre; went on the third castle, of gold, where the ogre thief was, and wrestled with him as well. It was a longer fight, and Prâslea called on a raven to drop some tallow on him, in return for three corpses. This strengthened him, and he fought on. Then both the ogre and Prâslea called on the princess there to give them water; she gave it to Prâslea, and he killed the ogre.
The princesses showed him a magic whip that made golden apples. Each of them took one. Prâslea brought the princesses back and sent them up. The older two told the brothers that they would marry them. Then Prâslea sent up a stone with his cap. His brothers dropped it, to kill him, and married the older sisters.
Prâslea saved some eaglets from a dragon, and their mother, in gratitude, carried him to the other world. There, he found that the youngest princess was being pressed to accept a suitor. She said that she would accept only if she received a golden distaff and spindle that would spin of themselves, because the ogre had given her one. Prâslea went to work for the silversmith who had to do this and brought out the one the ogre had given her, using the golden apple. The princess then demanded a golden hen with golden chick, and when he produced it, insisted that he be brought before her, because he had to have the golden apple. They recognized Prâslea. He and his brothers went outside and shot arrows into the air. The brothers' arrows hit and killed them, but Prâslea's hit the ground. He married the youngest princess.
Translations The tale was also translated to Hungarian with the name Prislea vitéz és az aranyalmákKovács Ágnes. Szegény ember okos leánya: Román népmesék. Budapest: Európa Könyvkiadó. 1957. pp. 43-57. ("The Hero Prislea and the Golden Apples").Bálint Péter. Átok, titok és ígéret a népméseben [The Curse, the Secret and the Promise in the Folktale]. Fabula Aeterna V. Edited by Péter Bálint. Debrecen: Didakt Kft. 2018. p. 256 (footnote nr. 16). .
The tale was translated into English with the title Gallant Young Praslea and the Golden ApplesIspirescu, Petre. Roumanian folk tales. Retold from the original by Jacob Bernard Segall. Orono, Me.: Printed at the University Press, 1925. pp. 31ff (Tale nr. 3). and Prislea the Brave and the Golden Apples.Sturdza, Ioana; Vianu, Raymond; Lăzărescu, Mary; Hillard, Richard. Fairy Tales and Legends from Romania. New York: Twayne Publishers. 1971. pp. 301-313.
Variants Asia Iran German scholar , in his catalogue of Persian folktales, identified a similar narrative in the Iranian tale corpus: type 301, Erlebnisse in der Unterwelt ("Adventure in the Underworld"). According to his index, the type registers 6 Persian variants, five of which begin with the episode of the apple (or flower) thief; then segues into the hero's descent to the underworld to release three princesses, his journey to an even deeper underworld to face a dragon blocking the waters of a kingdom, and his ride back to the surface on the Simorġ's back.Marzolph, Ulrich. Typologie des persischen Volksmärchens. Beirut: Orient-Inst. der Deutschen Morgenländischen Ges.; Wiesbaden: Steiner [in Komm.], 1984. pp. 60-61. However, in a later study, professor Mehri Bagheri stated that this narrative is "well-known" in Iran and neighbouring countries, with more than 20 versions collected in the former. In these tales, the hero's name is Malik Mohammad, and the story is alternatively known as "The Tale of Prince Mohammad", "The Tale of the Apple Orchard", "The Apple Tree and the Dev", or "Prince Djamshid's Tale".. Accessed 1 Apr. 2023.
Iraq According to Russian professor V. A. Yaremenko, the story of a thief in the night who comes to steal the king's golden apples and the hero who stops him is "very common in almost every part of Iraq"."Сказки и предания Ирака" [Fairy Tales and Legends of Iraq]. Сост., пер. с араб., вступит, ст. и примеч. В. А. Яременко. М.: Наука. Главная редакция восточной литературы, 1990. p. 270 (Note on Tale nr. 17). Professor Amar Annus reached a similar conclusion in regards to the tale.Annus, Amar. (2009). "Review Article: The Folk-Tales of Iraq and the Literary Traditions of Ancient Mesopotamia". In: Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 9: 94. 10.1163/156921209X449170.
In an Iraqi variant, a king with three sons, Ahmad, Mahmud and Muhammed, owns a tree with beautiful blossoms, but lately it has been losing them. So he orders his sons to guard the tree; only the youngest discovers the culprit: a huge monster, a marid. The tale continues as the third prince descends through the well, kills the marid and rescues a single princess from an underground palace. They meet an old man on their way with two rams, a black and a white one. He explains the magical abilities of his two rams; the princess jumps onto the white ram and is transported to the surface. The prince jumps onto the black one and is carried further into the underworld, to "the seventh underworld kingdom". He goes near a tree, kills an approaching snake and protects a nest of eaglets. Their mother eagle arrives and agrees to take the prince to the surface.Annus, Amar. (2009). "Review Article: The Folk-Tales of Iraq and the Literary Traditions of Ancient Mesopotamia". In: Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 9: 94-95. 10.1163/156921209X449170.
Turkey In the Typen türkischer Volksmärchen ("Turkish Folktale Catalogue"), by Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav, both scholars classified a cycle of stories they named TTV 72, "Der Phönix" ("The Phoenix"). According to their classification, the Turkish variants follow the vigil on the garden and the rescue of the three princesses in the underworld, then segues into the dragon slaying episode of the deeper underworld (ATU 300), and lastly returns the hero to the surface.Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî. Typen türkischer Volksmärchen. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1953. pp. 78-82, 421.
Assyrian people In a tale collected from the Assyrian people and published by Russo-Assyrian author with the title "Царь и три сына" ("The Emperor and the Three Sons"), an emperor has three sons and a prized apple tree in the garden, whose fruits are stolen every year. He orders his sons to stand guard and discover the culprit. Only the youngest, named Mirza-Mamed, finds out and shoots the thief. He calls out for his brothers to follow the trail that leads to a hole in the ground. Mirza-Mamed descends and enters a gated castle. He finds and releases three princesses from the devas and leads them back to his brothers. The youngest princess tells him that, if he gets trapped down there, he should go to her room, get four dice and throw it at the wall; four rams will appear and he must jump on the white one. He jumps on the black one and is led further down, to another kingdom menaced by a dragon that blocked the flow of water. He defeats this dragon, kills a second one that threatened the nest of the Simurgh. He saves the chicks and their father takes Mirza-Mamed back to his realm."Истребитель колючек. Сказки, легенды и притчи современных ассирийцев". Сост., перев. с ассир. и европ. яз. К. П. Матвеева. Отв. ред. М. С. Лазарев. М., Главная редакция восточной литературы издательства «Наука», 1974. pp. 309-317.
Azerbaijan Azerbaijani scholarship indexes the tale as the Azerbaijani tale type 301, "Oğurlanmış üç şahzadə qız" ("Three kidnapped princesses"). In the Azeri type, the brothers guard the apple tree, but only the younger discover the culprit: a div is stealing the apples. The brothers follow the blood trail to a well and climb down; the young hero goes down the well, defeats the div and rescues three princesses, whom he sends to the upper world; the hero's brothers betray him, cut the rope and abandon him in the lower world. The hero then kills a snake or dragon that threatens the Simurgh bird, which promises to help to carry the hero out of the lower world.
In an ancient tale about Malik Mammad, the son of one of the wealthiest kings of Azerbaijan, that king had a big garden. In the center of this garden was a magical apple tree that yielded apples every day. An ugly giant named Div stole all the apples every night. The king sent Malik Mammad and his elder brothers to fight the giant. In the course of this tale, Malik Mammad saves Simurgh's babies from a dragon. In return, Simurgh resolved to help Malik Mammad. When Malik Mammad wanted to pass from The Dark world into the Light world, Simurgh asked him to provide 40 half carcasses of meat and 40 wineskins filled with water. When Simurgh put the water on its left wing and the meat on its right wing, Malik Mammad was able to enter the Light world."Мелик-Мамед". In: Ахундов, Ахлиман. "Азербайджанские сказки" [Azerbaijani Fairy Tales]. Издательство Академии Наук Азербайджанской ССР, 1955. pp. 50-64.
A variant of the Azeri folktale involves a bird named Zumrud.
Armenia