The Maiden from the Apple Tree () is a Czech fairy tale, first collected by author Karel Jaromír Erben in the 19th century, but only published in the 20th century. It is classified as tale type ATU 408, "The Love for Three Oranges", of the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index. As with The Three Oranges, the tale deals with a prince's search for a bride that lives inside a fruit, who is replaced by a false bride and goes through a cycle of incarnations, until she regains physical form again.
Publication The tale Jabloňová panna was first collected by Erben in the mid-19th century, but it was only published in the 20th century. Scholar translated the story to German as Die Jungfrau vom Apfelbaum ("The Maiden from the Apple Tree") and sourced it from Bohemia.
Summary In this tale, a young king likes to hunt in the woods. One day, while on a hunt, he starts to feel thirst and searches for anything that can sate it. He reaches an apple tree with apples half-crimson and half wax yellow, and he wants to have one. He plucks a fruit and opens it: out comes a beautiful maiden that asks for water, but the prince is stunned at the appearance of the maiden and forgets to give her some, so she vanishes like a burst bubble. The prince goes to pluck another apple, cuts it and out comes another maiden that asks for water, which he also forgets to give, so she also disappears. He takes the third apple and hides it until he can find a water source. He reaches a river and opens the last apple, releasing a beautiful naked maiden to whom he gives water. She notices she is naked and asks the prince for his cloak, which he gives after she agrees to marry him. He leaves her there while he goes back home to find her some clothes and a carriage.
After the prince leaves, an ugly old woman appears behind the apple maiden and shoves her down the stream, then takes the cloak. The prince returns and finds the ugly old woman, whom he thinks is the apple maiden under a disguise to test him. He marries the ugly old woman and believes that she will return to her younger form after the wedding, on the wedding night, or after she gives birth. Meanwhile, a red-beaked dove perches on the window and he caresses it, cooing that he married the wrong person. The following day, the dove returns to the prince's happiness, and coos that his true bride is in the stream. On the third day, the old woman discovers the prince is talking to the dove and orders a hunter to catch it. The hunter lies in waiting below the prince's window and shoots the dove, then takes it to the old woman, who tosses the bird inside an oven to burn it to cinders. However, three drops of the dove's blood fall on the garden and an apple tree sprouts yielding beautiful flowers in red and white.
The gardener's daughter comes in and plucks a flower to bring home. When the gardener's daughter leaves and returns later, she finds the house swept and the food prepared, and decides to investigate: one night, she untidies the pans and exits the house, then sees the apple maiden, in "blood and milk", coming out of the flower, and doing chores. The gardener's daughter discovers the apple maiden, who, scared, begs for water, and some is sprinkled on her body. The gardener's daughter gives her some clothes and goes to report to the king, who rushes to meet with the apple maiden. They reunite, and she explains how the ugly old woman threw her in the river, and she and her sisters were princesses, cursed by that same old woman, and that, as long as the witch lives, her sisters will remain in dove form. Suddenly, two doves fly in and perch on the apple maiden's shoulders. The king then orders the execution of the old witch by burning, and, with her death, the doves are restored to human form, and embrace their sister. The king marries the apple maiden, and her sisters also find marriages.
Analysis Tale type The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 408, "The Three Oranges".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. 135-137. In an article in Enzyklopädie des Märchens, scholar Christine Shojaei Kawan separated the tale type into six sections, and stated that parts 3 to 5 represented the "core" of the story:Kawan, Christine Shojaei. "Orangen: Die drei Orangen (AaTh 408)" [Three Oranges (ATU 408)]. In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Online, edited by Rolf Wilhelm Brednich, Heidrun Alzheimer, Hermann Bausinger, Wolfgang Brückner, Daniel Drascek, Helge Gerndt, Ines Köhler-Zülch, Klaus Roth and Hans-Jörg Uther. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2016 . p. 347. https://www-degruyter-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/database/EMO/entry/emo.10.063/html. Accessed 2023-06-20.
(1) A prince is cursed by an old woman to seek the fruit princess; (2) The prince finds helpers that guide him to the princess's location; (3) The prince finds the fruits (usually three), releases the maidens inside, but only the third survives; (4) The prince leaves the princess up a tree near a spring or stream, and a slave or servant sees the princess's reflection in the water; (5) The slave or servant replaces the princess (transformation sequence); (6) The fruit princess and the prince reunite, and the false bride is punished.
Motifs The maiden's appearance According to the tale description in the international index, the maiden may appear out of the titular citrus fruits, like oranges and lemons. However, she may also come out of pomegranates or other species of fruits, and even eggs.Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. p. 135. According to Walter Anderson's unpublished manuscript, variants with eggs instead of fruits appear in Southeastern Europe.Ranke, Kurt. Folktales of Germany. Routledge & K. Paul. 1966. p. 209. . In addition, Christine Shojaei-Kawan located the motif of the heroine emerging from the eggs in Slavic texts.Kawan, Christine Shojaei. "Orangen: Die drei Orangen (AaTh 408)" [Three Oranges (ATU 408)]. In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Online, edited by Rolf Wilhelm Brednich, Heidrun Alzheimer, Hermann Bausinger, Wolfgang Brückner, Daniel Drascek, Helge Gerndt, Ines Köhler-Zülch, Klaus Roth and Hans-Jörg Uther. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2016 . p. 350. https://www-degruyter-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/database/EMO/entry/emo.10.063/html. Accessed 2024-07-03.
According to Jaromír Jech, in the Czech texts, the heroine may come out of oranges (as in Malý), of lemons (in two variants), or apples (as in Erben and the Czech tradition).
The transformations and the false bride The tale type is characterized by the substitution of the fairy wife for a false bride. The usual occurrence is when the false bride (a witch or a slave) sticks a magical pin into the maiden's head or hair and she becomes a dove. In some tales, the fruit maiden regains her human form and must bribe the false bride for three nights with her beloved.Gulyás Judit (2010). "Henszlmann Imre bírálata Arany János Rózsa és Ibolya című művéről". In: Balogh Balázs (főszerk). Ethno-Lore XXVII. Az MTA Neprajzi Kutatóintezetenek évkönyve. Budapest, MTA Neprajzi Kutatóintezete (Sajtó aatt). pp. 250-253.
In other variants, the maiden goes through a series of transformations after her liberation from the fruit and regains a physical body. In that regard, according to Christine Shojaei-Kawan's article, Christine Goldberg divided the tale type into two forms. In the first subtype, indexed as AaTh 408A, the fruit maiden suffers the cycle of metamorphosis (fish-tree-human) - a motif Goldberg locates "from the Middle East to Italy and France"Goldberg, Christine. "Imagery and Cohesion in the Tale of the Three Oranges (AT 408)". In: Folk-Narrative and World View. Vortage des 10. Kongresses der Internationalen Gesellschaft fur Volkserzahlungsforschung (ISFNR) - Innsbruck 1992. I. Schneider and P. Streng (ed.). Vol. I, 1996. p. 211. (especifically, it appears in Greece and Eastern Europe). In the second subtype, AaTh 408B, the girl is transformed into a dove by the needle.Shojaei-Kawan, Christine (2004). "Reflections on International Narrative Research on the Example of the Tale of the Three Oranges (AT 408)". In: Folklore (Electronic Journal of Folklore), XXVII, p. 35.
Separated from her husband, she goes to the palace (alone or with other maidens) to tell tales to the king. She shares her story with the audience and is recognized by him.Angelopoulos, Anna and Kaplanoglou, Marianthi. "Greek Magic Tales: aspects of research in Folklore Studies and Anthropology". In: FF Network. 2013; Vol. 43. p. 15.
According to Jaromír Jech, the Czech variants have a "relatively fixed" form: the heroine is turned into a bird or a dove by the antagonist, then transforms, via her blood, into a flower or a flowering tree, from where she emerges.
Variants According to Czech literary critic Antonin Grund, the tale Jabloňová panna originates from the Mediterranean region in South Europe, with a previous version published by author Jakub Malý with the title Pomerančová panna. Variants also exist in Slovak collections.
Enchanted Princess Author published a tale titled Zaklená princezna ("Enchanted Princess"), collected from a source named Frantisek Srom in 1845, in a compilation of Moravian stories. In this tale, an old king, on his deathbed, bids his son to be a just and fair ruler, and to marry the princess who is to be released from the curse. The prince buries his father and, soon after the burial, takes his horse for a ride in the forest. Later, the prince stops by a garden and finds a tree with three apples he wants to pluck to sate his thirst. The prince plucks all three and cuts open one: a maiden comes out of the fruit and asks for water, but dies of thirst, since he has none with him. He cuts open the second fruit and out comes another maiden, who also dies for not getting any water. Thus, the prince withholds the last apple and rides his horse in search of a water source. He eventually reaches a stream, cuts open the last apple and releases a maiden wearing a crown with gems and pearls and a golden and silver dress. The prince gives her some water and she thanks him. He questions how the girls entered the fruits, and the princess explains her father fell in love with a poor girl many years ago and forgot her, so the girl vowed revenge on the king and his descendants, and hired a witch to curse the royal family by turning the king's newborn daughters, born in consecutive years, into the apples from the tree at that garden, and there the three princesses remained for the past fifty years. The prince promises to take her back to the palace, but the apple princess says she is too weak to ride, and asks for a carriage. The prince leaves to come with a carriage, while she waits for him near a tree by the stream.