The Girl from the Egg (Hungarian: A tojásbul lett jányok) is a Romani-Hungarian folktale collected in Ung. The tale is a local form of 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 in an egg, who is replaced by a false bride and goes through a cycle of incarnations, until she regains physical form again. According to scholarship, in Hungarian tales, the heroine can come out of reeds, plants, apples and even eggs.

Source According to Lajos Géczi, the tale was collected from a Romani informant named Jónás Dezső, who heard it from his father.

Summary In this tale, a prince brings his coachman to a hunt in the forest. The prince feels tired and orders his servant to build a fire for them under a tall poplar tree and fetch the eggs from a bird's nest. The coachmen says his clothes will be torn if he does it, so the prince goes to climb it himself. He finds four eggs in the nest which he pockets. While he is climbing down the tree, an egg breaks and out comes a fairy asking for water. The prince has none with him, so she dies. As he goes down the tree, another egg breaks, and yet a third one breaks when he reaches the ground, each one releasing a fairy asking for water and dying for not having any. The prince keeps the remaining egg to himself and tells the coachman he will open it near water. As they ride home, the prince sees a well in a pasture, fills a bottle with water and opens up the final egg: out comes a fairy named Tündírszíp Iloná. The prince says he will take her home, but she says she will wait for him on a nearby tree, while he goes home for some clothes. While the prince is away, an ugly gypsy women comes in with her daughter, who is thirsty. The woman tells her daughter to go draw water herself, and the girl notices Tündírszíp Iloná atop the tree. The girl conspires with her mother she will climb the tree, shove the maiden in the well and take her place. It happens thus, and Tündírszíp Iloná becomes a fish in the well. The prince returns and notices his bride looks different, but the gypsy girl lies that he left her under the sun. Still, the prince takes her as his bride. Back at the castle, after the wedding is over, the gypsy girl asks the prince to capture the fish. The coachman tries to capture it, but the fish only jumps on the prince's hands. The prince brings back the fish, but the gypsy girl scoffs it for its smell, then asks the fish to be cooked and for its scales to be removed. A scale flies away through a window and falls in the garden, originating a large pear tree. The gypsy girl asks the prince to cut down the tree, otherwise she will die. The prince cuts down the tree, but a woodchip flies off to an old woman's house, which she keeps in a box. One day, the old woman complains in her sleep she has nothing to eat, and Tündírszíp Iloná comes out of the woodchip to make some food. The old woman discovers the fairy and captures her by the hair. She tries to escape by transforming into other shapes. Tündírszíp Iloná agrees to live with the old woman if she does not reveal her presence there. Some weeks later, the prince passes by the woman's house and notices the beautiful girl that lives there, so he gathers all the girls in the country to work at the spinning house. During the event, the girls are to tell tales to the crowd. When it is Tündírszíp Iloná's turn, the gypsy bride wants the prince to remove her, but the prince bids Tündírszíp Iloná to tell her tale. Tündírszíp Iloná retells the entire tale of how the coachman and the prince went into the forest, and how the prince found the eggs.

Analysis Tale type The tale is related to type ATU 408, "The Love for Three Oranges" or Die Drei Citronenjungfrauen ("The Three Maidens in the Citron Fruits").Sklarek, Elisabet. Ungarische Volksmärchen. Einl. A. Schullerus. Leipzig: Dieterich. 1901. pp. 289-290.Ashliman, D. L. A Guide to Folktales in the English Language: Based on the Aarne-Thompson Classification System. Bibliographies and Indexes in World Literature, vol. 11. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1987. p. 85. . In some tales of the same type, 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 aatt). pp. 250-253.

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.

A prince is cursed by an old woman to seek the fruit princess; The prince finds helpers that guide him to the princess's location; The prince finds the fruits (usually three), releases the maidens inside, but only the third survives; 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; The slave or servant replaces the princess (transformation sequence); The fruit princess and the prince reunite, and the false bride is punished.

Motifs The motif of the heroine or maiden buying or bribing her way to her husband's chamber for three nights from the false bride harks back to variants of general tale type ATU 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband", and ATU 425A, "The Animal as Bridegroom".Sklarek, Elisabet. Ungarische Volksmärchen. Einl. A. Schullerus. Leipzig: Dieterich. 1901. pp. 289-290.

Scholar Linda Dégh suggested a common origin for tale types ATU 403 ("The Black and the White Bride"), ATU 408 ("The Three Oranges"), ATU 425 ("The Search for the Lost Husband"), ATU 706 ("The Maiden Without Hands") and ATU 707 ("The Three Golden Sons"), since "their variants cross each other constantly and because their blendings are more common than their keeping to their separate type outlines" and even influence each other.Dégh, Linda. Narratives in Society: A Performer-Centered Study of Narration. FF Communications 255. Pieksämäki: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, 1995. p. 41.

The heroine's appearance According to Hungarian folktale collector Arnold Ipolyi, Hungarian variants of the tale type usually show the fairy maiden coming out of a plant ("növényből").Arnold Ipolyi. Ipolyi Arnold népmesegyüjteménye (Népköltési gyüjtemény 13. kötet). Budapest: az Athenaeum Részvénytársulat Tulajdona. 1914. p. 521. In addition, the Hungarian Folktale Catalogue (MNK) named the type A Három Nádszálkisasszony ("The Three Reed Maidens"), since the maidens come out of reeds instead of fruits.Dömötör Ákos (szerk.). Magyar népmesekatalógus 2. Budapest, MTA Néprajzi Kutató Csoport, 1988. A magyar tündérmesék katalógusa (AaTh 300-749). p. 202. However, they may also appear out of eggs (in 5 variants)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 2024-01-07. or from apples (in 3 variants).Dömötör Ákos (szerk.). Magyar népmesekatalógus 2. Budapest, MTA Néprajzi Kutató Csoport, 1988. A magyar tündérmesék katalógusa (AaTh 300-749). p. 206. According to Ákos Dömötör, the motif of "girls from eggs" in variants of type 408 indicates "the Subcarpathian unity" of the tales.

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 aatt). 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.

Variants According to scholar Stith Thompson, Hungarian ethnographer , Hungarian-American folklorist Linda Dégh and German scholar Hans-Jörg Uther, the tale of the reed girls is one of the popular fairy tales in Hungary.Sebestyén Ádám. Bukovinai Székely Népmesék. Volume I. Szekszárd: 2009. p. 516 (notes to tale nr. 85). . In addition, the tale type is known all throughout the Hungarian speaking regions. The Hungarian Folktale Catalogue (MNK) listed 59 variants of type 408, A Három Nádszálkisasszony ("The Three Reed Maidens"), across Hungarian sources.Dömötör Ákos (szerk.). Magyar népmesekatalógus 2. Budapest, MTA Néprajzi Kutató Csoport, 1988. A magyar tündérmesék katalógusa (AaTh 300-749). pp. 202-205. On the other hand, Hans-Jörg Uther reports 79 variants.

A previous study reported four texts in Palóc. Later fieldwork conducted in 1999 by researcher Zoltán Vasvári amongst the Palóc population found 3 texts.Vasvári, Zoltán. "Népmese a Palócföldön". In: Palócföld 1999/2, pp. 93-94.

Tales with eggs The Ugly Queen