Trandafiru is a Romanian fairy tale collected by Arthur Carl Victor Schott and Albert Schott in the mid-19th century and sourced from Banat. It is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, albeit with a gourd instead of a snake as the form of the enchanted husband: a human maiden marries an animal that is a prince in disguise, breaks a taboo and loses him, and she has to seek him out.
The story shares motifs with other tales of the region, like Serbian Again, The Snake Bridegroom, and Hungarian The Serpent Prince: the heroine must search for her husband under a curse not to bear their child until he touches her again. Other Romanian tales of the same classification are The Enchanted Pig, wherein the animal husband is a pig, and Enchanted Balaur, wherein the animal husband is a snake.
Summary A man has a gourd for a son, who is a vegetable by day and man by night, named Trandafiru. One day, the gourd asks his parents to go and ask for the hand of the emperor's daughter. Worried about the reaction of the emperor when they see a pumpkin, the gourd son assuages their fears and becomes a man when night falls, so he can meet the princess. And so it happens: the emperor's daughter marries him and lives with him, despite him being a gourd by day and a man by night.
One day, the princess's mother visits her daughter and, despising the gourd as her son-in-law, convinces her to burn the gourd shape in the oven. The princess's mother-in-law asks her what is she doing with the oven, and she lies that she is preparing to make bread, then takes her husband's gourd shape and places it in the oven to burn it. Inside the oven, Trandafiru's voice curses his wife not to give birth to their child, until he lovingly embraces her again. The story then explains that, as the gourd burned, Trandafiru's soul was carried over by spirits to another kingdom, where he became their king.
Back to the princess, after grieving for some time, she puts an iron circle around her belly to endure the pains of the long pregnancy, then departs on her quest. Her first stop is the house of Holy Mother Wednesday, who, despite not knowing the location of Trandafiru, gives the princess a golden distaff and sends her to the house of Mother Holy Friday. Again, Holy Friday's help is of little use, but she gives the princess a golden reel to help in her quest. Lastly, the princess arrives at Holy Mother Sunday's house. Holy Mother Sunday tells the princess she is near her husband's location, and advises her to stand by the marble fountain with the golden gifts, one for each day, and draw the attention of the Empress (the false bride), then use the gifts to bribe the Empress for a night in the Emperor's (Trandafiru's) bedchamber. Before the princess goes to the fountain, Holy Mother Sunday gives her a golden hen with golden chicks.
Now knowing what to do, the princess goes to the fountain and uses the gifts to bribe the Empress for three nights with her husband. As for Trandafiru, he is put to sleep for two nights with a sleeping potion given by the Empress, so on the third night he pretends to be asleep to see who has come to his room for the past nights. Trandafiru awakes and embraces his wife, who is able to give birth to "two golden children". Trandafiru leaves the room to punish the Empress for her greed and love for gold, then crowns the princess his true empress.Schott, Arthur; Schott, Albert. Walachische Maehrchen. Stuttgart und Tübingen: J. G. Cotta'scher Verlag. 1845. pp. 239–246.Schott, Arthur und Albert. Rumänische Volkserzählungen aus dem Banat. Bukarest: Kriterion, 1975. pp. 178-186.Ralston, William. "Beauty and the Beast". In: The Nineteenth Century. Vol. 4. (July–December, 1878). London: Henry S. King & Co. pp. 998–999.
Analysis Tale type The tale is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 425A, "The Animal (Monster) as Bridegroom".Dégh, Linda. Hungarian Folktales: The Art of Zsuzsanna Palkó. Routledge, 2014. p. 77. .Dégh, Linda. Folktales and Society: Story-telling in a Hungarian Peasant Community: Expanded Edition with a New Afterword. Indiana University Press, 1989. p. 325. . In this tale type, the princess burns the husband's animal skin and she must seek him out, even paying a visit to the Sun, the Moon and the Wind and gaining their help.Vernaleken, Theodor. In the Land of Marvels: Folk-tales From Austria And Bohemia. London: W. S. Sonnenschein & co., 1884. pp. 359-360.Kovacs, Agnes. "Az égig éro fa meséjének magyar redakcioi és samanisztikus motivumaik" [Die ungarischen Redaktionen des Märchens vom Himmelhohen Baum (AaTh 468) und ihre schamanistischen Motive]. In: Ethnographia vol. 95, n°1 (1984). p. 23.
In tale type ATU 425A, the heroine journeys far and wide to encounter her husband, and finds him at the mercy of a second spouse. The supernatural husband, now human, is put to sleep by the magic potion of the second spouse, so that the heroine has no chance of rescuing him.Bálint Peter. Kedvenc Népmeséim (My Favourite Folk Tales): A hangok sokfélesége (The Multiplicity of Voices) - meseszöveg-gyűjtemény és tanulmányok (a collection of tales and studies). Hajdúböszörmény, 2010. p. 225. .
Motifs Ethnologue noted that the enchanted husband in Romanian variants "usually" appears under a snakeskin or a pigskin, but can assume other forms in the texts, like a hedgehog, a crayfish, a frog and even a pumpkin.
The heroine's pregnancy According to Romanian scholar , one of the "characteristic features" of most of the Romanian variants is that, after the burning of his animal skin, the husband wraps hoops around the heroine's body and curses her not to bear their children until he places his arm around her body; after the curse is lifted, the heroine gives birth to a golden-haired son.
In addition, in Balkanic variants of the tale type, the supernatural husband curses his wife not to give birth to their child for a long period of time until she finds him again. Likewise, according to Lithuanian professor , similar tales from Hungary, Romania and Moldova contain the motif of the supernatural husband wrapping iron hoops around the heroine's belly so she cannot give birth to their child until he lays a hand on her again.
The heroine's journey According to Hungarian folklorist , Romanian tales of the "Snake Bridegroom" may show two versions (or redactions): either the mother-in-law burns the man's snakeskin, but he stays with his human bride, or the snakeskin is burnt and the husband disappears. The latter sequence prompts the husband's curse of the long pregnancy and the wife's quest for her husband.Bálint Peter. Kedvenc Népmeséim (My Favourite Folk Tales): A hangok sokfélesége (The Multiplicity of Voices) - meseszöveg-gyűjtemény és tanulmányok (a collection of tales and studies). Hajdúböszörmény, 2010. p. 142 (footnote nr. 1). .
In a study published posthumously, Romanian folklorist noted that, in Romanian and in some South Slavic variants, instead of meeting the Sun, the Moon and the Wind on the way to her husband, the heroine finds incarnations of the days of the week, like Holy Wednesday (ro) and Holy Friday (ro). They function the same as the elements and gift the heroine with golden objects.Caraman, Petru. "Identificarea episodului despre Cupidon şi Psyche, din romanul „Metamorphoses” al lui Apuleius, cu un basm autentic popular" [Identification of the Episode on Cupidon and Psyche, in the Novel Metamorphoses by Appuleius, with An Authentic Folk Fairy Tale]. In: Anuarul Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei 9 (2009): 28–33. French philologist Jean Boutière, in his doctoral thesis, analysed the variants available at the time and concluded that the heroine seeks the help of Holy Wednesday, Holy Friday and (which are sometimes replaced by Holy Monday and Holy Saturday), and, rarely, of the Moon, the Sun and the Wind.Boutière, Jean. La vie et l'oeuvre de Ion Creangă. Paris: Librairie Universitaire J. Gamber, 1930. p. 121.
The gifts from the helpers 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".
Jean Boutière also wrote that the heroine's three helpers (the days of the week) gift her with golden objects (one gift from each helper): a self-moving distaff, a self-moving reel and a hen with chicks - objects that, he noted, are "endowed with movement".Boutière, Jean. La vie et l'oeuvre de Ion Creangă. Paris: Librairie Universitaire J. Gamber, 1930. p. 121.
Variants Tales with pumpkin husband The Enchanted Pumpkin Romanian folklorist Lazar Saineanu provided the summary of a Romanian tale collected by Petre Ispirescu with the title Dovleacul cel năzdrăvan ("The Enchanted Pumpkin"). In this tale, a childless couple find a pumpkin seed and plant it. A pumpkin sprouts and they uproot it. The vegetable begins to speak to them and asks the old man to go to the local emperor and ask for the princess's hand in marriage. The emperor agrees to a future marriage, so long as the suitor builds three bridges: an iron one, a silver one and the third made of gold. The pumpkin son fulfills the emperor's requests and marries the princess. On the wedding night, the pumpkin takes off its husk and becomes a human youth. Later, the princess burns the pumpkin husk in the fire and her husband curses her not to give birth until he places his hand on her body, but she can only find him beyond Câmpu-frumosŭ, in the "Mânăstirea dintr'unŭ osŭ". He vanishes. The princess goes after him in iron shoes and with an iron cane, and passes by the houses of Sfinta Miercuri (Holy Wednesday), who gives her a self-moving golden spindle, Sfinta Vineri (Holy Friday), who gives her a golden hen with chicks, and Sfinta Duminecă (Holy Sunday), who gives her a self-serving table. Sfinta Duminecă also helps the princess to cross a fiery meadow, so she can reach the Mânăstirea dintr'unŭ osŭ, where she waits in front of the palace the golden objects. The princess trades the items she gained with the local lady of the palace for one night with her husband. She tries to wake him up on the first two nights, but fails, only managing to do it on the third night.Saineanu, Lazar. Basmele române: în comparatiune cu legendele antice clasice și în legătură cu basmele popoarelor învecinate și ale tuturor popoarelor romanice: studiu comparativǔ. București: Göbl, 1895. pp. 248-249 (entry "d").
The Pumpkin (Vidin)