The Golden Fish, The Wonder-working Tree and the Golden Bird is an Eastern European fairy tale. 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 collected among oral sources in Eastern and Southern Europe, in the Slavic languages.
Source The tale was first collected by , in Národní pohádky, Volume III, in 1856, with the title O princovi se zlatým sluncem a o princezně se zlatým měsícem na prsou ("The prince with the golden sun and the princess with the golden moon on her breast").Košín z Radostova, Josef. Národní Pohádky. Svazek III. V Praze: Tisk a náklad Jarosl. Pospíšila. 1856. pp. 17–50.Košín z Radostova, Josef. Národní Pohádky. Volume I. V Praze: Jarosl. Pospíšil. 1872. pp. 161–188. Scholars Johannes Bolte and Jiří Polívka sourced it as from the Czech lands.Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Zweiter Band (NR. 61–120). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1913. p. 385.
However, American ethnographer Jeremiah Curtin, who translated the tale into English, sourced it as from Hungary.Curtin, Jeremiah. Fairy Tales of Eastern Europe. New York, McBride, Nast & Company. 1914. pp. 91–119.
Summary Prince Yarboi (Jarboj, in the original) is the heir to the throne. He likes to stroll around a fishpond near the castle. One day, when he goes for a stroll, he overhears conversation behind the bushes. He spies on three women cutting grass on the hot summer day, then stop for a bit to rest. All three maidens are beautiful and to his liking, but the third is the most beautiful. He listens to their conversation: the first comments that it was foretold that she shall have golden times with her future spouse, a widower; the second says it was foretold that she shall remain single and have an evil time. As for the third maiden, she says that it was foretold that she will marry the prince and that God shall give her twins: a boy with a golden sun on the breast and a girl with a golden moon.
Prince Yarboi becomes interested in fulfilling the maiden's prophecy and falls ill with longing for her, to the king and the queen's dismay. He tells his parents he wants to marry the maiden from the village, and his parents agree with his decision. He rides a carriage to the village, finds the maiden and takes her to the castle to marry. Some time later, a neighbouring king, offended at not being invited to Yarboi's wedding, attacks the kingdom, and prince Yarboi goes to war to defend the kingdom.
Meanwhile, his wife is left to the care of the queen, who is skilled in the black arts. After the wondrous twins are born, the queen takes the children and places them in wicker basket with some money and a letter, then casts the twins in the water. Yarboi's wife is told her children died in childbirth. The queen writes a vicious letter to her son, who replies that his wife shall be thrown in prison.
As for the children, near the river, a fisherman lives with his family. One night, he has a dream about a pale woman guiding him to go to an island in the middle river, and that great fortune awaits him there. He decides to follow the vision's instructions and goes to the island; he finds the wicker basket with the twins and decides to take them as his adopted children, raising them along with his own biological sons.
Six years pass; the twins excel at school, while one of the fisherman's sons "was a bit of a dunce", and complains to his mother. The fisherman's wife advises her son to insult the twins by saying they are foundling. Unaffected by the offenses, they thank the fisherman for rearing them and leave home. They venture into the wood and find a large sum of money. They go to town to hire a wagon to carry the money, and live off of it.
The twins buy a palace from a man with the money and live richly. They send an invitation to prince Yarboi to visit them, who feels a strange sensation telling him to visit them. However, his mother spikes Yarboi's wine and he falls asleep. The queen wears her son's garments and goes to the twins' palace. After the banquet, the male twin shows her around and they go a fishpond. The queen, passing herself off as Yarboi, convinces him to seek golden fishes in the Glass Mountain beyond the Crimson Sea - a dangerous journey that certainly will kill him.
The male twin decides to go to the Crimson Sea and meets a hermit in the way. The hermit warns him against continuing his journey, but he insists. The hermit then explains that the youth will reach the Glass Mountain, pass by a pear tree garden and not get any pear; an apple orchard and he must not get any tree and at last a fishpond with the golden fishes; he is to get a nearby earthen vessel and to get only the water. The youth follows the instructions, but ponders about getting only the water and no fish.
At any rate, the youth gets a bit of the water, returns home and pours it in his pond. The next day, a gleaming gold fish appears in the pond. The male twin invites monarchs and nobles to come see the golden fish. The queen, Yarboi's mother, gives her son a sleeping potion and goes in his place. She visits the male twin and, seeing that he is marvelling at the golden fish, suggests that he could seek a music tree in the same place.
The next day, the youth goes to the hermit near the Crimson Sea, who instructs him on how to get the music tree: he is to climb the Glass Mountain; climb down a white staircase into a garden, cut off a rod from the music tree and leave without looking behind. He returns home with the branch of the music tree and plants it in his garden. The next morning, a tree sprouts in the garden and it begins to produce music for the fish to dance.
The youth then invites the monarchs and kings to marvel at the music produced by the "wonder-working tree". The queen dresses like Yarboi again and visits the twins; she compliments the fish and the tree, and suggests he seeks a golden bird in a golden cage for his garden. The next day, the youth goes to the hermit, who gives him instructions: pass the lake and the garden and enter a castle; go to a third chamber where the cage is; wait for the bird to fly around the place and alight at a table, then get him and use a feather to disenchant a pile of stones. The youth follows the instructions, but the bird escapes from his hands at the last minute and he becomes stone.
Back to his sister, she learns that her brother has not returned and goes to the Crimson Sea. She meets the hermit, who gives her the same exact instructions. The sister traps the bird in her hands, plucks from it a feather and disenchants the piles of stones near the cage back to human form: princes who were turned to stone after failing to secure the bird. She also disenchants her Brother, and both take the bird to the hermit. The hermit dissuades them for desiring anything else and begs for their help: they are to cut off his head. They reluctantly obey his wish and decapitate him, a little bird springing where the hermit stood.
The twins bring the bird and the cage with them and place it near the tree and the lake, then invite all monarchs and princes to marvel at the new item. Prince Yarboi finally goes to the twins' palace. During the banquet, a piece of the male twin's clothing falls apart, showing the golden sun on his chest. Prince Yarboi recognizes the birthmark and embraces the youth and his sister as his children. He then leads the noblemen and other guests back to his palace, to release his wife from prison and mete out a severe punishment on his mother.
Before an assembly of kings and princes, Yarboi orders them to write in a piece of paper the ideal punishment for someone who tried to separate a family and kill two children through trickery and magic. The old queen is executed and, after Yarboi dies, his son succeeds him.
Analysis Tale type The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children".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. 242–243. Scholars Johannes Bolte and Jiri Polívka listed the tale as belonging to the same cycle of stories as the German tale The Three Little Birds, collected by the Brothers Grimm.Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Zweiter Band (NR. 61–120). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1913. p. 385.
Variants Eastern Europe In the South Slavic tale Die böse Schwiegermutter, also collected by Friedrich Salomon Krauss, the mother gives birth to triplets: male twins with golden hands and a girl with a golden star on her forehead. Years later, they search for the green water, the speaking bird and the singing tree.Krauss, Friedrich Salomon. Sagen und Märchen der Südslaven: Zum grossen Teil aus ungedruckten Quellen. II. Bande. Wien: Verlag von Wilhelm Friedrich. 1884. pp. 391–396.
West Slavic Czech Republic Author Božena Němcová published a Czech tale titled O mluvícím ptáku, živé vodě a třech zlatých jabloních ("The speaking bird, the water of life and the three golden apples"): three poor sisters, Marketka, Terezka and Johanka discuss among themselves their future husbands. The king overhears their conversation and summons them to his presence, and fulfills Johanka's wishes. Each time a child is born (three in total), the envious sisters cast the babies in the water, but they are carried by the stream to another kingdom. The second king adopts the babies and names them Jaromír, Jaroslav and Růženka.Němcová, Božena. Národní báchorky a pověsti. 4th Vol. 1846. Tale nr. 24.Němcová, Božena. Národní báchorky a pověsti 1. V Praze: Kvasnička a Hampl. 1928. pp. 303–317. Dostupné také z:
Author and journalist collected and published a Moravian tale titled Pohádka o krásné zahradě ("The Tale of a Beautiful Garden"): a king has a beautiful garden. One day, three women pass by the garden and express their wishes to walk in that garden, the third one promising to bear the king twin children, a boy and a girl with a golden cross on the forehead. The king overhears their talk and chooses the third maiden as his wife. As soon as they are born, they are cast into the water by their own grandmother, but are found by a humble fisherman couple and given the names Františka and František. They are sent for three items to embellish their garden: a fountain that gushes golden pearls, a singing grass and a singing bird.Mikšiček, Matěj. Sbjrka powësti morawskýct a slezkých. Swazek [VI]. W Solomonice: 1845. pp. 82-87.Tille, V. (1889). [Review of Contes populaires de Lorraine, by E. Cosquin]. In: Listy Filologické [Folia Philologica], 16(5), 379. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23435451
Slovakia According to professor , professor 's fieldwork in Slovakia collected 9 variants of tale type Deti nevinné upodozrievanej matkyGašparíková, Viera. "Wollmanovská zberatel'ska akcia v rokoch 1928-1944". In: Slavia: časopis pro slovanskou filologii. Praha: Euroslavica, 1988, 57(4), p. 359. . Available also from: http://www.digitalniknihovna.cz/knav/uuid/uuid:59286a33-518b-11e1-8339-001143e3f55c or The Children of an Innocently Suspected Mother.Filová, Božena; Gašparíková, Viera. Slovenské ľudové rozprávky: Výber zápisov z rokov 1928-1947: východné Slovensko. Veda, 2004.