María, manos blancas is a Spanish fairy tale from Extremadura, collected by Spanish author . The tale belongs to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom as a subtype, with few variants reported across Europe and in Spain. In it, the heroine is delivered to a cursed or enchanted prince, but breaks a taboo and loses him; later, she finds work elsewhere and wards off the unwanted advances of male suitors with the magical object her enchanted husband gave her.
Summary A humble baker has three beautiful daughters. The man chops wood for his trade and, one day, goes to chop wood in the forest, when he sights a broom bush which he tries to cut down. Suddenly, a black man appears before him and demands the baker brings one of his daughters the following day, lest he be killed. The baker returns home and explains the situation to his daughters: the elder, haughty and proud, refuses to marry a black man, and so does the middle one; only the youngest, named María, hardworking and fond of her father, agrees to marry the stranger to save him. The baker delivers María to the black man the following morning and leaves her there, then returns home. The black man falls in love with María and takes her to a nearby garden, which he asks her to water. When night falls, María goes to sleep, and senses someone coming to her bed at night. This goes on for a year, until María wishes to visit her family. The black man allows her a three-day visit and lends her a fine coach and coachman to take her home.
Back home, María spends three days there, when a female neighbour gives her a box of matches and a candle to better see her bedmate at night. The black man's coachman informs her it is time to return to the black man's house. At night, María goes to sleep and senses her companion come to bed; she lights up the candle and a drop of wax falls on the black man's body. The black man wakes up and admonishes her, saying he was nearing the end of his curse, but María ruined it; still, for her kindness, he gives her a ring that can grant everything she wishes by uttering a spell, and vanishes. María then finds herself alone in the forest, and cries.
The girl then wanders off until she finds a house of arrieros, who welcome them as their maidservant. The arrieros notice María's hands are "white" and delicate to be used in manual labour, but she insists she can do it. One of the arrieros takes her in and introduces her to his wife, tia Francisca, who also makes a remark on María's hands. María does her chores and, due to her beauty, draws the attention of the unmarried men in the village. One day, one of the youths decides to pay María a visit, and she sets a date at eight o'clock. The youth appears at the appointed time while María is sifting the flour, and he also comments that a girl with soft hands cannot do such a task. María then uses the ring the black man gave her and, uttering a spell, uses the ring's magic to force the youth to sift the flour for her.
The next day, another man attempts to woo her and appears by eight o'clock, like the one before him. This time, the second suitor finds María in the middle of shovelling some coals. The second youth also comments María's hands are too delicate for such a task; the girl uses the ring's magic to force the youth to shovel the coals for her, eventually releasing him by morning. The third time, a third suitor also tries his hand at courting her and finds María opening and closing a door. The third youth also makes a remark about her soft hands, and María uses the ring to force the third youth to open and close the same door for the whole night.
After these humiliating events, the three suitors, who are friends, meet one another and comment about their respective experiences with María. The three men suspect she may be a witch, and inform her female employer. The woman at first defends María's honour from such attacks, but the youths' arguments are strong enough she concedes and takes María to the public square so that she is trialed and burnt as a witch. A pyre is prepared for her and María is guided to her execution, but she remains calm all the while. The three youths, wanting to take revenge on María for their humiliation, fetch some stones and aim them at the girl. María, however, utters the ring's spell again so that everyone knocks one another down like rams and people cannot light up the pyre.
It happens thus and everyone is knocked down. María sights a familiar coach, the same that belonged to the black man. Out of the coach comes a handsome prince who greets María and explains she is no witch, but a virtuous woman who gave her life to save her father, and that he was the black man, enchanted into that form. After the explanations, María marries the prince in a grand wedding.Camarena, Julio; Maxime Chevalier (1995). Catálogo tipográfico del cuento folklórico español. Vol. I: Cuentos maravillosos. Madrid, Castalia. pp. 278-281.
Analysis Tale type The tale belongs to the cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom (tale type ATU 425).三原, 幸久 [Mihara, Yukihisa]. ボッグズ以後のイスパニア昔話の試験的な話型索引 [Una lista tentativa suplementaria a "Index of Spanish folktales" por Ralph S. Boggs]. In: "大阪外国語大学学報" [Journal of Osaka University of Foreign Studies] 50 (1980). p. 9. Spanish scholars Julio Camarena and Maxime Chevalier, in their joint Spanish Folktale Index, classified the tale as type AaTh 425N, La burla a los galanteadores ("Mocking the would-be suitors").CAMARENA, JULIO; Maxime CHEVALIER (1995). Catálogo tipográfico del cuento folklórico español. Vol. I: Cuentos maravillosos. Madrid, Castalia. p. 278. The Spanish type corresponds, in the international Aarne-Thompson Index, to tale type AaTh 425N, "Bird Husband": after losing her husband, the heroine finds work somewhere else and has to avoid the romantic advances of unwanted suitors.Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1973 . pp. 144.Delarue, Paul. Le conte populaire français: catalogue raisonné des versions de France et des pays de langue française d'outre-mer: Canada, Louisiane, îlots français des États-Unis, Antilles françaises, Haïti, Ile Maurice, La Réunion. Volume 2. Érasme, 1957. p. 109. According to Christine Goldberg, the heroine enchants the servants to be kept busy with some other task for the whole night.Goldberg, Christine. "Nächte erkauft". In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Band 9: Magica-Literatur – Neẓāmi. Edited by Rudolf Wilhelm Brednich; Hermann Bausinger; Wolfgang Brückner; Helge Gerndt; Lutz Röhrich; Klaus Roth. De Gruyter, 2016 . p. 1119. .
In his monograph about Cupid and Psyche, Swedish scholar proposed that subtype 425N derived from a type he designated as 425A, that is, "Cupid and Psyche", which contains the episode of the witch's tasks.Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. pp. 23, 344.
However, after 2004, German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther updated the international catalogue and subsumed type AaTh 425N under the more general type ATU 425B, "The Son of the Witch".Oriol, Carme. «La catalogació de les rondalles en el context internacional». In: Revista d’etnologia de Catalunya, [en línia], 2007, Núm. 31, p. 94. https://raco.cat/index.php/RevistaEtnologia/article/view/74325 [Consulta: 11-08-2021].
Motifs The crow is the supernatural husband's form in Northern European variants, but in all of them the heroine receives a magical token from her husband: either a feather from the bird husband, or a ring. According to Swahn, the husband's token (feather or ring) is what allows the heroine to humiliate her unwanted suitors (akin to some variants of tale type ATU 313, "The Magic Flight"), and the feather as the token appears in German, English and Irish variants.Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. pp. 344-345. Similarly, French scholars Paul Delarue and Marie-Louise Thénèze described that subtype N is characterized by the motif of the tricked three youths - also found in type ATU 313.Delarue, Paul. Le conte populaire français: catalogue raisonné des versions de France et des pays de langue française d'outre-mer: Canada, Louisiane, îlots français des États-Unis, Antilles françaises, Haïti, Ile Maurice, La Réunion. Volume 2. Érasme, 1957. p. 109.
Variants Distribution According to scholar Christine Goldberg, Swahn reported 17 variants of subtype 425N across Europe, in Ireland, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain and France. Swahn calls type 425N "West European", with a limited distribution area. In Catalan-speaking areas, the tale type AaTh 425N registers one variant in Catalonia and two in Mallorca.
Spain In a Spanish tale collected by folklorist Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa Sr. with the title Las tres ascuitas, an old woman has three daughters and gathers herbs for their three hares. One day, she pulls a herb from the ground and a male voice complains the woman is pulling his hair. The male voice asks the woman to bring his elder daughter to him. She does, and the elder daughter lives in an enchanted palace with a mysterious husband she cannot see. One day, the little birds are singing, and the mysterious man tells his wife his sister is marrying and allows her to visit them, but she must return pronto. Later, the little birds are crying, which the man explains his wife's youngest sister is dying, and she is allowed to visit them. The girl goes back home and spends some time with her mother, who gives her a candle so she can see her husband at night. The girl returns home to the mysterious husband and, while he is asleep, she lights up the candle and sees his true face: a man with a medallion on his chest and a washerwoman washing some rags. She shouts for the washerwoman and the man awakes. He says he has been disenchanted, gives his wife three hot embers ('ascuitas') and a wand of virtue for her to use it whenever she needs, then vanishes. The girl suddenly appears with a palace in the middle of a city, and the people think she is evil. In the same city live three male friends who want to see who is living in the palace. The first one goes to the palace and asks if one can lunch there. The girl answers one can have lunch, have dinner and later sleep with her, which greatly satisfies him. However, as soon as the man prepares to sleep with her, the girl requests the man to fetch some water from the well, and, while he is at the well, she uses the magic wand of virtue and commands the man to pour water over himself for the whole night. The man goes home and his friend tries to seduce the girl, and again the girl uses the wand of virtue to have the man's nose be glued to the mirror the whole night. Finally, the third man tries to court the girl, and she uses the wand of virtue to have the man stuck to the door hinges for the whole night. After being humiliated, the three men report her to the authorities and some guards come to arrest her. The girl takes the ascuitas and her prince appears to her. He explains to the guards his wife is not an evil person, and marries her.Espinosa, Aurélio M. Cuentos Populares Españoles. Tomo II. Stanford University Press, 1924. pp. 256-258. Camarena and Chevalier sourced the tale to Madrid and classified it as a combination of tale types: 425L, "The Padlock on the Enchanted Husband", and 425N.CAMARENA, JULIO; Maxime CHEVALIER (1995). Catálogo tipográfico del cuento folklórico español. Vol. I: Cuentos maravillosos. Madrid, Castalia. p. 281.
Catalan-speaking areas