"Harap Alb" or "Harap-Alb" () is the protagonist as well as the title of a Romanian-language fairy tale by Ion Creangă, known in full as Povestea lui Harap Alb ("The Story of Harap Alb"). He is the youngest of three princes.
"Harap Alb" received much posthumous attention from literary critics, and inspired works in other genres. These include Ion Popescu-Gopo's film De-aș fi Harap Alb, a Postmodernist novel by and a comic book by Sandu Florea, alongside one of Gabriel Liiceanu's theses in the field of political philosophy.
Name Harap Alb in Romanian signifies "White African"Library of Congress Subject Headings (1996), Vol. II:D-J, Library of Congress, Cataloging Distribution Service, Washington, D. C., p. 2328. ISSN 1048-9711Lamb, Ruth S. (1984), "Romanian Drama", in Stanley Hochman (ed.), The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama, Vol. 4: O-S, McGraw-Hill, New York, p. 248. or "White Arab". The word harap is an antiquated form of arap derived from "Arab" means "black person" or a "Moor". It may also refer to a handsome man, usually with dark features.
The arap or harap are a stereotypical race in the folklore of the Balkans, from Turkey in the south to modern Romania in the north, often, but not always, portrayed in a negative light.Elsie, Robert (2001), A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology and Folk Culture, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, London, p. 12. Cognate terms exist in Albanian (arap in the Tosk, harap in Gheg) and Bulgarian-language (арап, arap or арапин, arapin). Mollov, Todor (2006–2009) book chapter Български фолклорни мотиви. Т. VІI. Възрожденски и съвременни песни, ЕИ "LiterNet", Varna.
The name may also be an allusion to the protagonist's slave-like condition of "degradation and submission", as alp may be readily associated with the African slave trade or the enslavement of minorities in the Slavery in Romania. The tale thus becomes the hero's quest for the recovery of "human status". The name which means "White Black" has also been regarded as an oxymoronic example of absurdist tradition in the local folklore by comparatist Vasile Măruţă.Măruţă, Vasile (1987) "Arp et Tzara. A 'la recherche d'un niveau – la différence'", in Cahiers du Centre de Recherche sur le Surréalisme. Mélusine IX. Arp poète plasticien, L'Age d'Homme, Paris, p. 92
Plot summary
Beginning The narrative begins with a stock formula: a king's three sons are sent on a quest, and the hero, the youngest son, is set to succeed. Povestea lui Harap-Alb, Wikisource.Plot partly outlined in and , passim.
An unnamed king has a brother, the Green Emperor () who is nearing death, and as he has no male heirs, he has written to the king to send any of his three princes, and whichever one completes the journey shall inherit the whole empire. The kingdom and the Empire are on the "margins" of the earth, separated by desolate lands.
The eldest son agrees to take up his uncle's challenge, and the king decides to test his courage by dressing up in a bearskin and blocking the bridge along the way. The eldest prince makes a terrified return home. The monarch plays the same trick on his second son, with the same result. Without revealing his ruse, the king expresses his disappointment, which prompts the youngest to burst into tears and run out to the palace garden. There, an old woman beggar tells his fortune: the youngest prince shall become a glorious emperor. She urges him to attempt his uncle's quest, but warns that he should use only the items his father had when he was a bridegroom: ragged clothes, rusty weapons and an old stallion. She then vanishes into the skies.
The youngest prince suffers his father's ridicule, but eventually obtains permission to go, and the king's old items. The horse can be identified by the piece of wisdom given him by the old woman: the right horse will be the only one in the stable which will approach a tray full of embers at feeding. The horse gives three shakes and transforms into a beautiful steed. The horse can talk with his new master, and carry him leaping to the clouds and the Moon. The prince goes to the bridge and endures the bear ruse, and the king gives him the bearskin as trophy. As parting words, he tells the youngest prince to beware "of the Red Man, and especially of the Bald one".
The Bald Man The next leg of the journey takes the prince into a deep forest inhabited by the evil Bald Man (), who will enslave him by trickery. The prince twice rebuffs the Bald Man's offer of services, but the third time, after losing his way, decides to accept. By deception, the creature tricks the prince into the bottom of a well, and would only let him out by submitting to his condition that the two must now exchange roles. So at the palace, the Bald Man is introduced as the king's son, while the young prince follows as his servant named "Harap Alb". The Green Emperor welcomes them unsuspectingly, but the Emperor's daughter catches the master striking his servant and reproaches him; she begins to wonder which one out of the two is truly noble and which one is base.
Bear and stag quests Harap-Alb is soon sent on his first dangerous quest. He is ordered by the Bald Man to retrieve the "salad from the Bear's Garden", which the Green Emperor was fond of. His talking horse reassures him and flying up into the air, carries him to an island, where he is reunited with the fortunetelling beggar, who now identifies herself as "Saint Sunday" (Sfânta Duminică). She dopes the bear's watering fountain with a sleep-inducing infusion of herbs, honey, and milk, and Harap Alb wrapped in bearskin gathers the salad before the beast awakes.
Harap-Alb's second dangerous assignment is to hunt the enchanted deer whose skin is studded with precious stones, and to bring back its skull and hide. The deer's stare strikes one dead and no one has ever survived. Saint Sunday provides him with the visor and sword of (a dwarfish character). Following her directions, Harap Alb hides in a deep pit and ambushes the stag, cutting of its head in one stroke, then returns to the hole waiting until the head to completely die. During his wait, the severed stag's head calls out with a human voice asking to see him, and had he complied, the stag's "poisoned eye", would have killed him.
Red Emperor's daughter The triumphant return with the gems greatly enhances Harap Alb's prestige, as well as Green Emperor's esteem of him. The Bald Man jealously tries to credit the feats to himself for training his servant with his stern ways. While the monarch is credulous, his daughter and her sisters grow even more skeptical, and decide to investigate further. They ask Harap Alb to set the table for the banquet, but the Bald Man makes the servant swear not to engage in conversation with the ladies. At the festivities, an enchanted bird-like creature, makes a surprise visit and announces: "You are eating, drinking and enjoying yourselves, but you fail to think about the Red Emperor's daughter!" There follows a lively debate concerning the tyrannical Red Emperor () and his daughter. Some guests claim that the latter is a malevolent witch, and some still that she is the bird itself, on a mission to propagate fear. The Bald Man subsequently volunteers Harap Alb to investigate the mystery, and sends him on a quest to capture the Red Emperor's daughter.
Journey to Red Emperor
Helper animals The prince's journey begins with an act of pity. He happens upon a wedding procession of ants on the bridge, and rather than to trample on them, decides to ford the deep-watered river. A grateful winged ant gives him its wings, telling him to burn these in his need, and the entire colony will come to his aid. The prince has a similar encounter, this time with swarming bees. He deposits his hat for the swarm to rest, then later carries them to a new hive he made by hollowing out a log. In gratitude the queen bee presents him with a wing with which to summon her in his moment of seeking help.
Companions Harap Alb continues the journey, and gains five companions. The first is Gerilă (from ger, "frost", and the diminutive suffix -ilă), a man who shivers even in summer, whose cold breath turns into a gale that freezes everything to ice. After being bantered, Gerilă replies "Laugh if you will, Harap Alb, but you'll not be able to accomplish anything without me where you're going", and the prince changes his mind, agreeing to let the man accompany him. They are joined by Flămânzilă (from flămând, "hungry"; translated as "Eat-All"), who can consume huge amounts without satisfying his appetite and Setilă (from sete, "thirst"; also "Drink-All") with the bottomless drinking ability, Ochilă (from ochi, "eye"), a sharp-eyed man whose sight reaches far distances, and Păsări-Lăți-Lungilă (from pasăre, "bird", a se lăți, "to widen oneself" and a se lungi, "to lengthen oneself"), who can grow in any direction at will, and reach heights only accessible to birds. Initially the gathering produces one disaster after another: burned down forests, depleted soil, drainage of water, exposure of secrets, and bird-killing. Harap Alb alone "did not cause any disruption".
Red Emperor's castle The group eventually reaches the Red Emperor's court, where Harap Alb announces his intention to leave with the girl. The Red Emperor tries to eliminate them by lodging them in acopper house, and ordering it heate to an oven-like temperature. Gerilă with his cold breath cooled it down. As a dilatory tactic, the Red Emperor invites the group to a feast, only to witness with alarm how rapidly his food and drink are consumed by Flămânzilă and Setilă. The emperor then demands a test: they must sort a mierță (some 200 liters) of poppy seed from an equivalent quantity of fine sand in the space of one night, but this is accomplished with assistance from the ants. The monarch then tells the heroes that, if they want his daughter, they are to guard and follow for another night, letting them know that he does not know her ways. At midnight, the princess turns into a bird and escapes the palace, but, even though she takes refuge in the most inaccessible places, from "the shadow of the rabbit" to the far side of the Moon, she is tracked down by Ochilă and eventually grabbed by Păsări-Lăţi-Lungilă.
The Red Emperor gives his final test: Harap Alb must distinguish the real daughter from his adoptive daughter, who is her exact double. This the protagonist accomplishes with assistance from the queen bee which identifies the real princess and alights on her cheek. A final challenge is presented by the girl herself, as a race between her turtle dove and his horse, to go to the place "from where the mountains bump head to head into each other", and obtain three twigs of its apple tree, three measures of the water of life and three measures of the dead water. Although slower, the horse forces the returning bird to hand him the items, and is first to return. The princess accepts the result as her destiny, and now willingly accompanies Harap Alb.
Triumph Harap's companions disperse and go back to their original spots where they joined the group. Harap Alb falls in love with his hostage, and is downcast at the prospect of having to surrender her to the Bald Man.