Dawn, Twilight and Midnight or Dawn, Evening, and Midnight () is a Russian fairy tale collected by Russian folklorist Alexander Afanasyev and published in his compilation Russian Fairy Tales as number 140. The tale was translated by Jeremiah Curtin and published in Fairy Tales of Eastern Europe.Curtin, Jeremiah. Fairy Tales of Eastern Europe. New York, McBride, Nast & Company. 1914. pp. 15-23.
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.
Summary A king, Gosudar, builds an underground palace to house his daughters from any danger. Yet, they insist they leave the palace for a stroll in the garden, to see "the white world". When they do so, a strong whirlwind blows and takes them away.
The king, then, sends his men all over the kingdom, to find heroes brave enough to rescue the three princesses. An old widow's three sons decide to try their luck and heed the king's proclamation. They were called Midnight, Twilight and Dawn, named so after the time of the day when they were born.
The three siblings go their way and arrive in an abandoned hut in the forest at the edge of a desert. They soon alternate their tasks: while two hunt, the other stays at home to cook something. For three days, a man, small in stature, but strong in power, defeats the older brothers, Midnight and Twilight, but Dawn defeats the creature, who escapes to a crevasse on the mountain.
Dawn fashions a strong rope from the bark of trees and descends the hole, arriving at three palaces, of copper, silver and gold. Inside each palace, one of the kidnapped princesses and a many-headed serpent that guards her.
Dawn kills each of the evil serpents, rescues the princesses and lifts them through the rope to the upper world.
Analysis Tale type The story belongs to a Märchen cycle of a youth that rescues three princesses from their captivity in a subterranean realm and is betrayed by his companions. He soon finds another exit to the surface, reveals his companions' deceit and marries one of the princesses - a narrative structure commented on by ,Gonzenbach, Laura. Sicilianische Märchen. Leipzig: Engelmann. 1870. p. 238. although in this version, the heroic brothers work together to rescue the princesses from the pit, which is unusual for the tale type.
Russian scholarship classifies the tale as type SUS 301A,B, "Три подземных царства" ("Three Underground Tsardoms"), of the East Slavic Folktale Classification ().Barag, Lev. "Сравнительный указатель сюжетов. Восточнославянская сказка". Leningrad: НАУКА, 1979. pp. 106-107. The East Slavic type corresponds, in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, to tale type ATU 301, "The Three Stolen Princesses".Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. pp. 90–92.
Relation to other tale types The tale is related to tale type AT 301B, Jean de l'Ours, wherein a strong man, born of a union between a bear and a human woman, meets two equally strong companions and departs to rescue three maidens, imprisoned in an underground realm.
It has also been suggested that tale types ATU 301 and Jean de l'Ours, ATU 650 ("Strong Hans"), ATU 302 ("Devil's Heart in the Egg") and ATU 554 ("The Grateful Animals") may have once comprised a single narrative, but, with time, the original story fragmented into different tale types.
Motifs The birth of the heroes Professor Jack V. Haney stated that the motif of triplets being born at different times of one single day occurs in East Slavic tradition. Similarly, Russian folklorist noted that his motif is "characteristic" of East Slavic folklore: the heroes are bogatyr-brothers born at different times of the day: in the evening (thus being called Vyachorka, Vechernik, or Vechornik), at night (thus being named Punoshnik, Polunoshnik, Upuvnichnik), and in the morning (which gives them the name Zaranka, Zorka, or Svitovik). In addition, Bashkir scholarship concurs that the motif of the heroes' birth at different times of the day happens in East Slavic tales, as well as among other peoples of the (then) Soviet Union.Зарипов Н.Т. (сост.). [Bashkir Folk Art]. Том 3: Богатырские сказки [Tales of Bogatyrs]. Уфа, 1988. p. 416.
The castles in the eggs or apples A recurrent motif of the tale type is the transformation of the underworld castles of the princesses into a more portable form (usually eggs, apples or balls). Thus, the eggs serve as protective shells for the castles - one of many magical properties attached to eggs, as folklorist Venetia Newall observed. Russian philologist Vladimir Toporov noticed the occurrence of the "egg-kingdom" in Russian fairy talesSzyjewski, Andrzej (2003). Religia Słowian. Krakow: Wydawnictwo WAM. pp. 36-38. . (in Polish) and saw an approximation of the motif with the Estonian and Balto-Finnic cosmogonic myth about the "cosmic egg".Valk, Ülo (2000). “Ex Ovo Omnia: Where Does the Balto-Finnic Cosmogony Originate? The Etiology of an Etiology”. In: Oral Tradition 15: 148-149.
Jeremiah Curtin saw a parallel between the Russian tale and a similar motif in the Hungarian folktale Prince Mirko or Mirko, the King's Son, wherein Prince Mirko and a rescued princess shrink a diamond castle into a golden apple.Curtin, Jeremiah. "Illustrations of Mythology from Slav and Magyar Folk-Lore". In: Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Washington Vol. 2. Washington: Printed for the Society. 1883. p. 149.
Translations Journalist and children's book author Arthur Ransome published an extended and more detailed version of the story, with the name The Three Men of Power - Evening, Midnight and Sunrise.Ransome, Arthur. Old Peter's Russian tales. London, New York: Thomas Nelson and sons. 1916. pp. 269-293. He described Evening as "dusky, with brown eyes and hair" and riding a horse of a dusky brown color; Midnight as "dark, with eyes and hair as black as charcoal" and riding a black horse; and Sunrise with "hair golden as the sun, and eyes blue as morning sky", and riding a horse "as white as the clouds".Ransome, Arthur. Old Peter's Russian tales. London, New York: Thomas Nelson and sons. 1916. pp. 274-275.
Professor Jack V. Haney translated the tale as "Dawn, Evening and Midnight". Another translation is Evening, Midnight and Dawn.The Three Kingdoms: Russian Folk Tales From Alexander Afanasiev's Collection. Illustrated by A. Kurkin. Moscow: Raduga Publishers. 1985. Tale nr. 13.
Variants Distribution The tale type ATU 301 is, according to Jack Haney, "one of the most popular in the East Slavic tradition", as well as being "widely reported" across Europe.
East Slavic Russia
Russian variants of the tale fall under the banner The Realms of Copper, Silver and Gold.Afanasyev, Alexander (1916). Magnus, Leonard A. (ed.). Russian Folk-Tales. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.. pp. 225-229. In fact, this tale type, also known as Three Kingdoms - Copper, Silver and Golden, is one of "the most popular Russian folktales".Anglickienė, Laima. Slavic Folklore: DIDACTICAL GUIDELINES. Kaunas: Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Cultural Studies and Ethnology. 2013. p. 125. .
Variants of the tale type are also attested with Selkup storytellers. These variants show the presence of character Koschei, the Deathless, the sorcerer of Slavic folklore, and are also classified as type ATU 302, "Devil's (Ogre's) Heart in the Egg" or ATU 313, "The Magic Flight".
Regional tales A similar tale was collected in the White Sea region from Russian storyteller (1883–1943) with the title "Зорька-молодец" ("Zorka-Molodets"), which professor Jack V. Haney translated as Dawn Lad. In this tale, three brothers are born at different times of the day: Evening Lad at night ("Вечер-Молодéць", 'Vecher-Molodets'), Midnight Lad at midnight ("Полнóч-Молодéць", 'Polnóch-Molodets') and Dawn Lad at dawn ('Zorka-Molodets'). Equal in strength, they walk toward a mountain range to find out who lives there: they find three maidens (a merchant's daughter, a king's daughter and a tsarevna) captive under three many-headed serpents. Each brother kills one of the serpents. Later, Dawn Lad and his brothers liberate another princess from evil wizard Chernomor. When they descend the mountain range through an anchor, Dawn Lad's brothers take back the anchor and leave their sibling stranded. With the help of the fourth princess. Dawn Lad returns to the tsarevna and marries her, but the narrative does not mention a reckoning on his brothers' abandonment."Сказки Карельского Беломорья". Тom 1. Кniga 1: Сказки М. М. Коргуева [Tales from M. M. Korguev]. Петрозаводск: Карельское государственное издательство, 1939. pp. 298-313.
Russian folklorist collected a variant titled "Иван Вечерней Зори" ("Ivan Star-of-Evening"), wherein a merchant has three sons that grow up in hours: Иван Вечерней Зори ("Ivan Star-of-the-Evening"), Иван Полуночной Зори ("Ivan Star-of-Midnight") and Иван Утренней Зори ("Ivan Star-of-the-Morning"). They live in a kingdom. In this realm, the king's three daughters have been captured by a six-headed serpent and their father requests any soul brave enough to rescue them. Ivan Star-of-Evening and his brothers offer themselves to the mission. They find a bogatyr named Bely on the journey and the four join forces to rescue the princesses. They soon reach a mountain and Ivan Star-of-Evening shoots an arrow with a rope to create a bridge to reach the mountains dangerous slopes. Ivan Star-of-Evening climbs the rope with his horse, arrives at three palaces (of copper, silver, and gold), kills three serpents (with six, nine and twelve heads) and takes the princesses to his companions. Bely betrays them and abandons Ivan-Star-of-the-Evening in the mountain. Fortunately, the hero finds a winged steed and returns to the realm to expose Bely's betrayal on his wedding day.Khudi︠a︡kov, Ivan Aleksandrovich. "Великорусскія сказки" [Tales of Great Russia]. Vol. 3. Saint Petersburg: 1863. pp. 1-6.
In the tale "О трех богатырях - Вечернике, Полуношнике и Световике" ("About three heroic bogatyrs - The-One-of-the-Evening, The-One-of-Midnight and The-One-of-the-Sunrise"), first collected in Siberia from storyteller Anton Ignatievich Koshkarov (Anton Chiroshnik) in 1925, Tsar Eruslan wishes to have a son. A hermit advises the king to find a golden fish and give to his wife. She becomes pregnant and gives birth to three boys: one in the evening, one at midnight and the last at sunrise. As soon as they are born, they leave home, but return three days later after a stay in the woods. After a series of adventures, the youngest brother, Svetovike ("The-One-of-Sunrise") rescues three princesses and marries the youngest.Вступительная статья, подготовка текстов, примечания, указатели раздела «Волшебные сказки» Р.П. Матвеевой, раздела «Сказки о животных» Т.Г.Леоновой. Новосибирск: ВО «Наука». Сибирская издательская фирма, 1993. pp. 52-78.Русские народные сказки Сибири о богатырях. Edited by: Руфина Матвеева [Rufina Matveyeva]. Новосибирск: Наука (Сибирское отделение), 1979. pp. 104-109.