The Son of the Horse is a folktale from the Salar people, an ethnic minority in China. It concerns a hero of animal parentage and his adventures with two companions. Similar stories are located in China, among its ethnic minorities.
The tale is related, in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, to type ATU 301, "The Three Stolen Princesses".
Summary A family owns a black mare. One day, the owner finds the mare in labour in the stables. She foals a young boy. The owner takes the boy to the imam, who names him Ma Shengbao ("Baby Born of a Horse"). The owner adopts him as his own son, and he learns kung fu and archery.
Years later, Ma Shengbao decides to leave home to find himself some brothers. In his wanderings, he sees smoke coming off a tree and shoots an arrow at it. A man comes out of the tree and says that Ma Shengbao broke his pot, but both become sworn brothers. Next, the duo walks on until they see smoke coming out of a rock. Ma Shengbao shoots an arrow at it. A man comes out of the rock and says Ma Shengbao broke his cooking pot. They decide to become sworn brothers.
Now a trio, the man from the tree is called Big Brother, the man from the stone becomes Second Brother, and Ma Shengbao is called Little Brother (by degree of seniority). They live and hunt together. One time, when they return home, they find a meal prepared for them. They decide to be on the lookout in turns to discover who made it.
Big Brother finds out that three doves fly in, become human maidens, prepare the food for the men, and fly back. Big Brother does not report the fact to his companions. The same happens to Second Brother. Ma Shengbao, Little Brother, spies on the dove maidens, takes their feathers and burns them to have them become humans permanently.
The dove maidens introduce themselves as a trio of sisters, the first named Ayi Ana, the second Yulutusi Ana, and the third Guni Ana. Guni Ana is the most beautiful of the three, but she smears her face with soot to hide her beauty. Ma Shengbao's companions decide to marry the maidens, while he gets to stay with Guni Ana.
Some time later, the maidens are cooking food at home, when a chicken comes out of nowhere, flutters its wings and snuffs out the fire in the hearth. The maidens leave home to look for another source of fire, and see smoke coming out of a cave. They enter the cave and a demoness, disguised as an old woman, gives them a piece of hot coal and a pouch of fruit.
The maidens go back home; their fruit pouch rips open and pieces fall one after the other, creating a trail for the demoness to follow. The old woman tricks the maidens into allowing them to delouse their hair, but in fact she begins to suck their blood. Ma Shengbao and his companions notice that their wives are looking weak, emaciated and pale for the past days, and decide to investigate.
Big Brother stays on the lookout and sees the demoness sucking the maidens' blood, but reports nothing to his companions. The same happens to Second Brother. Ma Shengbao discovers the truth and injures the demoness with his bow and arrow. Hurt, the demoness kidnaps Guni Ana and flees, leaving a trail of blood.
Ma Shengbao follows the trail to a cave and asks his companions to rope him into the hole. Down there, he finds his wife, Guni Ana, who tells him to hide, since the demoness will come back soon. Ma Shengbao and Guni Ana kill the demoness, and he takes his wife to the rope, along with the devil's treasure. Ma Shengbao's companions lift the maiden and the treasure, but leave him stranded underground.
Ma Shengbao wanders off underground, but falls exhausted and sleeps. When he wakes up, a snake threatens a young eagle, but the youth saves the bird by killing the snake. In gratitude, the young eagle carries him to its eagle parents atop a tree. The eagle mother agrees to lift him back home, but it must be fed a hundred sparrows for it to complete the journey.
Ma Shengbao manages to capture 99 sparrows, and begins the journey on the eagle's back. After exhausting the sparrows, Ma Shengbao cuts off part of his leg to feed the eagle near the end of the journey. After they land, the eagle notices that the youth is limping, and scolds him.
Ma Shengbao hobbles back home and stops to rest by a well, when he sees a woman coming to fetch water. The woman, Guni Ana, recognizes the man as her husband, and explains his companions are mistreating her. Ma Shengbao comes home disguised as a tattered man, and finds his two companions practicing martial arts in the garden. Ma Shengbao challenges and beats them. Defeated, Big Brother and Second Brother flee with their wives, leaving Ma Shengbao and Guni Ana. The pair lives happily.Yuan, Haiwang. Princess Peacock: tales from the other peoples of China. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, 2008. pp. 86-89.
Analysis Tale type The tale is related, in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, to tale type ATU 301, "The Three Stolen Princesses" and its subtypes:Nai-tung TING. A Type Index of Chinese Folktales in the Oral Tradition and Major Works of Non-religious Classical Literature. FF Communications, no. 223. Helsinki, Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1978. pp. 47-51.Yuan, Haiwang. Princess Peacock: tales from the other peoples of China. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, 2008. pp. 251-252. a hero - often having an animal parentage - finds two companions, climbs down a hole and rescues three maidens from their underground captivity; he is betrayed by his companions and trapped underground, but eventually finds a way out back to the surface - usually by flying on an eagle's back.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. 90-93.
According to Chinese folklorist and scholar , tale type 301 in China forms its own cycle of variants, including those from the ethnic minorities of China.Ting, Nai-tung. "AT Type 301 in China and Some Countries Adjacent to China: A Study of a Regional Group and its Significance in World Tradition". In: Fabula 11, no. Jahresband (1970): 54-57, 76-77. https://doi.org/10.1515/fabl.1970.11.1.54Ting, Nai-tung. "More Chinese Versions of AT 301". In: Fabula 12, no. Jahresband (1971): 72-73, 75-76. https://doi.org/10.1515/fabl.1971.12.1.65
Motifs The women that become birds and vice-versa represent the international motif of the swan maiden: females that alternate between avian and human shapes by the use of a feather cloak or garment. However, Ting Nai-tung supposed that this motif was "unknown to other Chinese versions of AT 301".Ting, Nai-tung. "AT Type 301 in China and Some Countries Adjacent to China: A Study of a Regional Group and its Significance in World Tradition". In: Fabula 11, no. Jahresband (1970): 57, 60-61. https://doi.org/10.1515/fabl.1970.11.1.54
The episode of the journey on the eagle's back is parallel to similar events in many fairy tales, where a hero needs to feed pieces of meat to the eagle (or another mythical bird) for the remainder of the journey, otherwise it will not complete its flight. In this regard, folklorist scholarship recognizes its similarities with the tale of Etana helping an eagle, a tale type later classified as Aarne–Thompson–Uther ATU 537, "The Eagle as helper: hero carried on the wings of a helpful eagle".Annus, Amar & Sarv, Mari. "The Ball Game Motif in the Gilgamesh Tradition and International Folklore". In: Mesopotamia in the Ancient World: Impact, Continuities, Parallels. Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium of the Melammu Project Held in Obergurgl, Austria, November 4-8, 2013. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag - Buch- und Medienhandel GmbH. 2015. pp. 289-290. .
Variants China According to Chinese scholarship, stories of the horse-born hero are found among the nomadic and hunting peoples of northern and western China. Across ten ethnic groups, eight stories contain the hero's miraculous birth from a horse. The existence of the motif is attributed to the importance of the horse for the normadic peoples in ancient times, their survival and prosperity.
In a tale from the Hui people, recorded in 1981 in Xinjiang, Horse Brother, the Cultivator, an old woman has an old horse that brings home a boy. She decides to adopt him and calls him Horse Brother. Years later, after he becomes a great archer, he shoots an arrow at a rock and a fat man comes out of it which he names Stone Brother; he shoots at an elm tree and a slim man comes out of it which he names Elm Brother. The trio journey together and settle at the foot of Bogota Mountain. They build a house and cultivate the land, but lament on the lack of wives for them. On one occasion, after they return from a hunt, they see that the meal has been prepared and the house clean. They take turns to see who is behind this: both Stone Brother and Elm Brother fall asleep; Horse Brother discovers it its three pigeons that descend and become three maidens with white garments. Horse Brother convinces them to become their wives. The tale continues as a creature called Nine-heads Master slowly drains their blood during some time and is defeated by Horse Brother.Li Shujiang; Luckert, Karl W. Mythology and Folklore of the Hui, A Muslim Chinese People. State University of New York Press. 1991. pp. 16-17, 111-118.
Ting Nai-tung summarized a tale from the Tu people, which circulated in Qinghai-Gansu. In this tale, the hero is born of a horse and adopted by an old woman. Years later, he meets two equally extraordinary companions and they discover a deserted house where food is cooked overnight. The trio decide to find out who is responsible for this, and see three dove maidens entering the house and becoming humans. The heroes convince the maidens to marry them, and one of the main hero's companions bring his mother to live with them. Some time later, a nine-headed ogre comes and steals the food, and the hero goes after him to kill it with the help of a young shepherd boy.Ting, Nai-tung. "AT Type 301 in China and Some Countries Adjacent to China: A Study of a Regional Group and its Significance in World Tradition". In: Fabula 11, no. Jahresband (1970): 58, 61. https://doi.org/10.1515/fabl.1970.11.1.54
Ting Nai-tung summarized a tale from the Daur people, which circulated in Heilongjiang. In this tale, the hero lacks the animal origin. Three maidens come to the heroes' house in the form of peacocks. The heroes steal their garments and force the girls to marry them. The three couples live together, until an ogress comes to eat their food and suck the maidens' blood. After his two companions fail to stop the ogress, the hero injures her and follows a trail of her blood to a cavern. He descends a rope to the lower world and finds another maiden washing clothes. The maiden tells him how to defeat the ogress: by locating and destroying the ogress's life, hidden in three animals. The hero does that and brings the maiden to the rope, but his companions cut off the rope and trap him underground. The hero restores a hurt Dragon Prince to health and it takes the hero out of the cave.Ting, Nai-tung. "AT Type 301 in China and Some Countries Adjacent to China: A Study of a Regional Group and its Significance in World Tradition". In: Fabula 11, no. Jahresband (1970): 58, 62. https://doi.org/10.1515/fabl.1970.11.1.54
Monguor people