Prince Wolf (Danish: Ulv Kongesøn) is a Danish fairy tale collected by Svend Grundtvig in his book Danske Folkeaeventyr,Grundtvig, Sven. Danske Folkeaeventyr: Efter Utrykte Kilder. Kjøbenhaven: C. A. Reitzel. 1876. pp. 192-209. about a human princess that marries a man under an animal curse to be a wolf, breaks the secret about his identity and has to search for him, eventually finding him at the house of the witch that cursed him, where she is forced to perform difficult tasks for her.
The tale is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, in that a heroine marries a supernatural husband in animal shape, loses him, and has to seek him out. It is also classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type 425B, "Son of the Witch", thus distantly related to the Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche. Tales with similar motifs and elements are found across Denmark and Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden and Iceland).
Summary A princess finds a louse on her hair. She shows it to her father and decides to feed it until it grows large enough. The louse dies and the king orders its leather to be cut off and extended. He decides to use it as part of a riddle to give the princess's hand in marriage to anyone who can correctly guess the type of skin.
A wolf comes to the court and guesses it right, demanding the princess as wife, as promised by the king. The king consents in giving his daughter and the wolf comes to fetch her. Wolf and princess walk about a bit, then she climbs onto the wolf's back and they run until they reach a splendid castle. The wolf confirms it is their castle, but warns that no light should be used inside at night. The princess notices that the wolf is only such during the day, but someone human comes at night.
After two years, the princess gives birth to a boy, but he is taken from them and given to the husband's sisters. One day, she wants to visit her family. Her wolf husband consents, but insists that, when she returns, she must not bring anything from home with her. They visit his wife's parents for three days, and her mother advises her daughter to use a knife to confirm that her husband is a human, and not a troll.
She brings the knife from home and puts it on his bedstand at night. He hurts his leg, and moans, confirming he is human, after all. The prince complains to his wife, but she tells him she won't repeat it.
Some time passes, she gives birth to a daughter after four years, and the girl is also taken from her. They visit the princess's parents again. Her mother, this time, convinces the princess to use some light source to see his true face, when he comes at night to the bridal bed. So she gives her a tinder-box and some taper. The princess returns to her husband's palace and lies that she did not bring anything with her. Later that night, she illuminates the bedroom and glimpses at her husband, in human form.
He despairs at his wife's betrayal and reveals he is a human prince who was cursed by a troll witch for refusing to marry her daughter. He turns into a wolf again and vanishes into the night. The princess now has to seek him out. On her way, she visits her sisters-in-law, and recognizes her children, but does not linger and resumes her quest. She finally reaches a glass mountain where the witch resided, but it is so slippery. The princess is advised by an old man to find the nearest ironsmith to shod her shoes.
After she finally climbs the glass mountain, she employs herself as a kitchen maid in the witch's castle, and is ordered to perform difficult tasks. The witch orders the princess to beat a piece of white flannel until it turns black. She takes it to the stream and the old man offers his help in exchange for her affections. She refuses and remains loyal to the wolf prince. Despite the refusal, the old man uses his stick to beat the white shirt into a black color. Seeing the impossible feat, the troll witch orders her to beat it back into a white color, which she does with the old man's help.
Next, the princess is tasked with going to Hebbenfeld to fetch a jewel box from the witch's sister and bring it to her daughter's wedding. On the way, she cries that she does not know the way to Hebbenfeld, and a young man offers his help in exchange for her affections. She thanks his offer, but says she is still loyal to her husband. The young man points her to Hebbenfeld, and instructs her to only ask for the box, and refuse any offer of food from the witch.
She does as told and gets the box. The princess is offered a calf's foot by the witch's sister, but hides it in her bosom. She leaves the house and, on her way back, wants to take a peek inside the box. She opens it and a little bird flies away. She laments that there were no jewels inside, but the young man appears and uses his magic to enchant the calf's foot to return to the witch's house and get the jewels.
Finally, the princess is forced to carry torches during Prince Wolf's wedding to the troll's daughter, after being enchanted to stay still as the torches slowly melt on her hands. After the Prince and the troll daughter pass through the door, the princess cries out for her beloved to help her. Prince Wolf seizes the torches from his true wife's hands and puts them into the hands of the troll witch and her daughter. The torches melt away in their hands and they, as well as the entire castle, are consumed in the fire. Once the princess and her husband escape, they take their children on the journey back home and live happily.
Translations The tale was translated into English by Jane Mulley as Prince Wolf, and published in the Journal of American Folk-Lore and as part of Fairy Tales From Afar;Grundtvig, Svend, and Jane Mulley. "Prince Wolf". In: The Folk-Lore Record 3, no. 2 (1880): 225-36. Accessed September 8, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1252395.Grundtvig, Svend, and Jane Mulley. Fairy Tales From Afar. London: Hutchinson & co., 1900. pp. 224-243. into German as Wolf Königssohn,Grundtvig, Svend. Dänische Volksmärchen. Vol. 1. Leipzig: Joh. Barth, 1878, pp. 252-276.Birkenbihl, Michael. Nordische Volksmärchen. Braunschweig: Westermann, 1921. pp. 95-113. and into Italian as Il Principe Lupo.Storie di Amore e Psiche. A cura di Annamria Zesi. Roma: L'Asino d'Oro Edizioni. 2010. pp. 166-179. .
Analysis Tale type Swedish folklorist Carl Wilhelm von Sydow noted that the tale begins with the episode of (former) tale type AaTh 621,Sydow, Carl Wilhelm. Våra folksagor: vad de berätta om forntida tro och sed. Natur och kultur, 1941. p. 170. "The Louse-Skin", also used in Italian fairy tale The Flea, from the Pentamerone. Folklore scholar Stith Thompson remarked that this tale type often served as introduction to other types, including AaTh 425B. In addition, Swedish scholar also remarked that type AaTh 621 appears as introduction to tales from the Cupid and Psyche cycle of stories in "almost all the Northern region".
The tale has also been compared to the Roman myth of Cupid and PsycheGarner, Emelyn Elizabeth. Folklore From the Schoharie Hills, New York. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan press, 1937. pp. 114, 116-117. and other stories about animal husbands that appear as an animal during the day, but assume human form at night, like Norwegian East of the Sun and West of the Moon. The human wife is advised by her parents to break the husband's prohibition and to see his true face at night. She disobeys the husband's wishes and he disappears.MacCulloch, John Arnott (1868-1950). The Childhood of Fiction: a Study of Folk Tales And Primitive Thought. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1905. p. 327.Clouston, William Alexander. Popular Tales And Fictions: Their Migrations And Transformations. Edinburgh, etc.: W. Blackwood and sons, 1887. p. 211 (footnote nr. 1). The heroine journeys to another kingdom where a witch lives (sometimes identified as her mother-in-law), where she works as her servant. One of the tasks forced upon the heroine is to go to the house of another witch, located in Hell itself, to get fiddlers, musicians, girl carders, ballads, or some bridal ornament (as in some variants from Denmark).Fitzgerald, Robert P. “‘The Wife’s Lament’ and ‘The Search for the Lost Husband’.”. In: The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 62, no. 4 (1963): 774. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27727179.Boberg, I.M. "The Tale of Cupid and Psyche". In: Classica et Medievalia 1 (1938): 188.
Motifs Researcher Annamaria Zesi suggests that the episode of the louse skin appears in tales found around the Baltic Sea.Storie di Amore e Psiche. A cura di Annamaria Zesi. Roma: L'Asino d'Oro Edizioni. 2010. pp. 220-221. .
The motif of the separation of the heroine from her children is located by scholarship across Celtic and Germanic speaking areas.
In his study about Cupid and Psyche and other "animal bridegroom" tales, scholar surmised that the animal husband appears as a dog in Germanic and Celtic areas.Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. p. 228. In addition, to him, the wolf as the animal husband developed in Germanic areas.Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. p. 229.
Variants Denmark Prince Wolf (Kristensen) Danish folklorist Evald Tang Kristensen another Danish tale with the title Ulv Kongesøn. In this tale, the king finds a louse in his hair, fattens it with almond milk and kills it later, using its skin as part of a riddle: whoever guesses it right shall have the princess for wife. A wolf prince appears, deciphers the riddle and gains the princess as his wife. The wolf prince takes her on his back to the foot of a mountain, and he tells the princess to find work in the nearby castle of an evil queen as a servant. The princess enters the castle and becomes a maidservant to the queen, and she is forced to perform tasks for the latter: first, she is given a black dress which she must wash white. The princess tries to wash it white, but it keeps getting blacker. She cries over the impossibility of the task, until the wolf appears to her to help her. She fulfills the first task, and the queen orders her to wash the now white dress back to black. With the wolf prince's help, she fulfills the task. Next, the queen orders the princess to go to Hell to fetch three fiddlers ("tre Spillemænd", in the original). The wolf prince takes the girl to the entrance of Hell and gives her some grease to use on two doors, two brooms to give to two sweepers, and two rags to give to two people cleaning an oven. He also advises her not to eat anything the witch in Hell may offer her. The princess follows the instructions and enters the witch's house in Hell, where she is offered a sausage. The princess hides the sausage in her clothes to trick the witch, gets the box of fiddlers and escapes from the witch's house. To stop her, the witch commands the people and the doors to deter her, to no avail. At a safe distance, the princess opens the box and the fiddlers spring out of it. The wolf prince appears and helps her close them inside the box. Back at the castle, the queen places a candle on the princess's hand for her to hold during the night, as the prince and the queen's daughter marry. The prince, however, asks his bride to hold the candle, so the princess can rest a bit. Finally, the wolf prince decides to flee the queen's castle with the human princess, and they run away from the queen's army by shapeshifting into two cherry trees, then two ducks in a pond. The queen tries to grab the two birds, and drowns in the pond.Kristensen, Evald Tang. Jyske folkeminder, isser fra Hammerumharred. Trettende Samling. [Gyldendal], 1897. pp. 358-363.
The Hound's Bride (Kristensen)