Sigurd, the King's Son (Icelandic: Sigurður kóngsson) is an Icelandic fairy tale collected and published by author Jón Árnason. It is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, wherein a human princess marries a prince under an animal curse, loses him and has to search for him.
Source Philologist Adeline Rittershaus identified its origin as a manuscript from Pastor Jón Kristjánsson, of Yztafell.Rittershaus, Adeline Die neuisländischen Volksmärchen. Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1902. p. 21.
Summary A king and a queen with four daughters ruled a great empire. One day, on a hunt, the king gets lost while following a deer, and finds a seemingly abandoned house. He enters it and sees a set table and a bed prepared for someone, but no one in sight, save for a little red-brown dog. He spends some time in the house and leaves, but as soon as he walks down the road, the little red-brown dog stops him. The dog complains that he welcomed the king in his home, and he is leaving without thanking him. The dog threatens him, unless he gives the first thing that greet the king on his way back, saying that he will come in three days to get whatever it is.
The fourth and youngest daughter greets her father and the king reveals to his family the incident. The king tries to elude the dog by sending others' daughters in her place, but the dog notices the deceit and returns to claim his prize. She climbs onto the red-brown dog and both run through the forest until reaching a house. The princess notices that the dog is such by day and a man by night.
One day, she becomes pregnant and her husband says that their child will be taken from them, and the she must not shed a tear, unless she does it on a kerchief he gave her. The first time, it happens to her daughter: she leans over the child's cradle, as a shadow appears by the window and a vulture snatches the child. In the meantime, the fourth princess and her dog husband visit her family on the occasion of the wedding of her three elder sisters, bearing splendid gifts, but refraining from revealing too much of her new life. When she next gives birth (to another daughter and to a boy), the same happened: the shadow and the vulture come and steal the baby.
On the occasion of the wedding of her third sister, the princess is accosted by her mother and reveals to her the whole story, and about the man that comes at night. The queen gives her a flint to light up and see his true face. The princess follows her mother's orders and sees her husband's true face. He wakes up and laments that she couldn't wait a bit more as his curse was nearly breaking. He tells her his story: his name is Sigurd, the son of a king who was cursed by his step-mother for not marrying her daughter; he was to stay a dog during the day, but remain a man at night, for 10 years, unless he found another princess willing to marry him, bear his three children (that would be taken from her as soon as they were born) and to never see his face. The husband disappears and she begins a journey towards his father's kingdom to stop the wedding with the step-sister.
The heroine passes by an old man's house, then another's, and meets her children playing with an old woman. She reaches Sigurd's castle, after the wedding, and buys three nights with her husband with a golden comb, a necklace and finally a mirror. For two nights, she pours her heart out to him, who lies asleep, but on the third night, he recognizes her.Árnason, Jón; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur. Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri, 2. b. J. C. Hinrichs. 1864. pp. 334-342. Isländische Märchen. Wien: Carl Gerolds Sohn, 1884. pp. 21-38.Árnason, Jón; Andersen, Carl. Islandske folkesagn og æventyr Paa Dansk. Ny Samling. Gyldendalske boghandel, 1864. pp. 208-226.
Translations Adeline Rittershaus translated the tale into German as Der braune Hund ("The Brown Dog").Rittershaus, Adeline Die neuisländischen Volksmärchen. Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1902. pp. 21-24. The tale was also translated into English as Sigurdur the King's Son.
Analysis Tale type The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 425A, "The Animal as Bridegroom". in this tale type, the heroine is a human maiden who marries a prince that is cursed to become an animal of some sort. She betrays his trust and he disappears, prompting a quest for him.
Motifs 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.
According to Hans-Jörg Uther, the main feature of tale type ATU 425A is "bribing the false bride for three nights with the husband". In fact, when he developed his revision of Aarne-Thompson's system, Uther remarked that an "essential" trait of the tale type ATU 425A was the "wife's quest and gifts" and "nights bought".
Variants Iceland In a tale collected from teller Herdís Jónasdóttir in Húsafell with the title The Tale of the Dog Móri, a human princess marries a dog (Prince Sigurdur). They live three years together and have three children (two girls and a boy), who are taken by a vulture as soon as they are born. After the kidnapping, the dog husband returns, congratulates her obedience and gives her a gift (a gold chess set, a gold ring and a mirror). When the princess's third sister is marrying, she visits her family and her mother gives her a pebble to use on her husband. The prince feels betrayed and reveals to his wife he is a prince cursed by his stepmother, and must return to his palace. The princess goes after him, passes by three little houses and finds her children under the care of a person. They direct her to a mountain. She climbs up the mountain, finds her husband and bribes the false bride with the objects her husband gave her.All the World's Reward: Folktales Told by Five Scandinavian Storytellers. Edited by Reimund Kvideland, Henning K Sehmsdorf. University of Washington Press, 1999. pp. 282-286. .
Europe Sweden Swedish folktale collectors George Stephens and Gunnar Olof Hyltén-Cavallius collected a Swedish tale from Södermanland with the title Ulf-Prinsen ("Wolf Prince"), which they grouped it under the banner Jungfrun, som såg på sin Käraste vid Ljus ("The Maiden who looked at her husband with a [source of] light").Friedländer, Ludwig. Roman life and manners under the early Empire. Vol. IV. London: Routledge. 1913. p. 115 (entry nr. 2). In this tale, a king finds a flea on his daughter's hair, fattens it and uses its hide as part of a suitor riddle. A wolf appears in court and guesses it right. However, the king tries to trick the wolf with daughters of other people, but he notices and returns. On the third time, the king relents and gives the wolf his daughter, as promised. The wolf takes the princess to its lair in the mountain, and she discovers a grand atrium by descending a staircase. The wolf and the princess live as man and wife, and she gives birth to three children in the following seven years. However, each time a human child is born (two sons and a daughter), the wolf takes the child between its teeth and takes the baby to the forest. Eventually, the princess is invited to her father's wedding to a new queen. The princess tells her new stepmother about her life with the, and the stepmother gives her a three-armed candlestick to use to spy on her wolf husband at night. The wolf husband (in human form) wakes up and laments that his wolf curse would have broken in three months, reveals that their three sisters are in his sisters' good hands, turns back into a wolf and rushes to the castle of the troll witch that cursed him. The princess goes after him and passes by the houses of her sisters-in-law, where she receives a golden distaff from the first, an apple in bright gold colour from the second, and a golden harp. The princess continues her search for her husband by following a trail of pebbles the wolf places for her. The trail stops before a grand sea that she needs to cross through. She uses the harp to tame a large gray wolf with the song and she rides the wolf across the sea. At last, the princess reaches the troll witch's castle, where she finds work in the kitchen. She uses the golden objects to bribe the troll princess (the false bride) for a night with her husband.Hyltén-Cavallius, Gunnar Olof och Stephens, George. Svenska Folk-Sagor och Äfventyr. Förste Delen. Stockholm: pa A. Bohlins Förlag. 1849. pp. 325-350.
In a Swedish tale collected by Eva Wigström, with the title Kung Vollermansson ("King Vollermanson"), a king and queen have three daughters. Before he goes on a journey, the king asks the princesses what they want: the two elders ask for beautiful dresses, and the youngest for three singing leaves she saw in a dream. The king, on his journey, buys the dresses, but the singing leaves are impossible to find. He enters the woods and sees the tree. He snaps a branch and, before he leaves, a black dog appears and admonishes him for taking the branch. The dog demands the king offers in exchange the first thing that greets him on the way back. The youngest does, learns the whole story and offers to surrender herself to the dog. They live a married life, the dog becoming human while in the castle. She gives birth to three children, but they are taken from her by her husband. She hears the wedding bells coming from her father's kingdom and visits her family on the occasion of the wedding of her two sisters and her brother. On the third visit, she confides in her mother about the uncertain fate of the children, and her husband's curse. The queen tells her to prick his skin with a knife at night, in order to draw his blood. The princess does as advised and the dog prince awakes. He tells her that his curse would have ended in a few hours, but now he has to travel to the castle of the witch that cursed him. He changes back into a dog and takes his wife on his back. They reach three houses where she is asked by her husband to ask for food and shelter in the name of Kung Vollermanson, and, if she sees a child, must not kiss them. On the third house, she receives a staff, but, when she exits the house, the dog has vanished.Wigström, Eva. Folkdiktning, visor, sägner, sagor, gåtor, ordspråk, ringdansar, lekar och barnvisor. Köbenhavn. 1880. pp. 253-261.
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