Chötiktscha or Xo’tikcha (German: Eselkind; English: "Donkey-Child") is an Uzbek fairy tale. The story deals about a princess who marries a youth under an animal disguise, loses him due to her breaking his trust, and goes after him at his mother's home, where she is forced to perform hard tasks for her.
The tale belongs to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, wherein a human princess marries a supernatural husband, loses him, and goes on a quest to find him. It is also distantly related to the Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche, in that the heroine is forced to perform difficult tasks for a witch or her mother-in-law.
Sources
Researcher Gabriele Keller collected the tale from a source named Grandmother Matluba Usmonova.Keller, Gabriele. Märchen aus Samarkand: Feldforschung an der Seidenstraße in Zentralasien; aus der mündlichen Überlieferung in Usbekistan. Druck und Werbestudio, 2004. pp. 52-53 (source for tale nr. 6). .
Summary In this tale, the titular Chötiktscha is no ordinary animal; he, a donkey, falls in love with the padishah's daughter and asks his elderly owner to act as his Sovtschi (one that arranges a marriage) and request her hand in marriage. Despite her reservations, the old lady goes to the padishah's palace doors and, after a few days, is invited in to explain the reason for her visit. After divulging her motives, the padishah rejects the woman's proposal. Nevertheless, the old woman insists, and the padishah agrees—provided that her donkey first performs a series of tasks: he must bring a herd of lambs, oxen, camels, and a horse, and cause cooking oil to flow between their doors as if along a path. He completes these tasks and marries the princess in a grand ceremony, after which the princess goes to live with the donkey.
One day, the princess's mother visits her daughter and reveals that her husband is not an ordinary donkey; he removes the donkey skin at night to become a handsome youth—a Peri—and dons the donkey skin again in the morning. The princess's mother tells her that her father lives in shame because of her choice of husband and urges her to burn the donkey skin. Her husband learns of this and forbids her from doing so, warning that she will never see him again unless she wears out a cane until it is as small as a needle and shoes until they resemble a sieve. Despite his protests, the princess takes the donkey skin and burns it. The man laments this loss, transforms into a pair of doves, and flies away. Though her mother tries to comfort her by suggesting she can have any other man, the princess proclaims that she needs no one else and embarks on a quest, dressed as a dervish, to find him.
She journeys far and wide until she reaches an oasis where she rests in the shade of a tree, noticing that both the cane and the shoes are worn out. There, she sees a child (a girl) carrying an Oftoba (a water jug) to fetch water. When the princess asks whom the water is for, the girl replies that it is for her brother. The princess places her ring in the water jug, and the girl delivers it to her brother. Her husband, recognizing the ring, instructs his sisters to bring the dervish to him, and he recognizes the dervish as his wife. The story further explains that the princess's mother-in-law is a Dev.
The princess's husband hides her from his mother by transforming her into a broom, but later introduces her as his wife and makes his mother promise not to devour her. Sometime later, the Dev-mother orders the princess to visit her Dev sister and bring back a pair of scissors. The princess's husband advises her that she must pass by several landmarks: she is to compliment a broken bridge; a stream of blood named "Qonjiring" ("blood-stream"); a squeaking mosque called Ridscha; and a fallen door. She must also trade the animals' fodder (a plate for the dog, a jug for the stork), meet his cousin "Olti-Emtschak" ("The Six-Breasted One") and give her tools (an armguard and a handguard) to help clean the tandir oven; then, she must delouse his aunt on the clay terrace ("Supa"), tie her hair around the terrace, retrieve the scissors, and flee.
The princess follows these instructions, takes the scissors, and runs back to her mother-in-law's house. The Dev-aunt commands her daughter, the animals, the door, the mosque, the stream, and the bridge to stop her, but the princess escapes. The Dev-aunt then visits her sister, and together they plan to eat the princess that very night. At last, Chötiktscha takes his wife along with several objects (a comb, a mirror, and grains of salt) and both escape, with the Dev-family in pursuit. Chötiktscha throws the salt behind him to create a mountain, the comb to form a thornbush, and the mirror to create a river between them. When the Dev-relatives ask how he crossed the river, Chötiktscha suggests that his mother and his aunt put some stones in their pockets and cross it; consequently, the Dev-relatives sink to the bottom of the lake. Chötiktscha and his human wife return home and live happily ever after.Keller, Gabriele. Märchen aus Samarkand: Feldforschung an der Seidenstraße in Zentralasien; aus der mündlichen Überlieferung in Usbekistan. Druck und Werbestudio, 2004. pp. 55-59 (text for tale nr. 6). .
Analysis Tale type Keller classified the tale as type AaTh 425B, "Die Aufgaben der Hexe (Hexensohn)" ("The Witch's Tasks (Son of the Witch)"), and Turkish Type TTV (EB) 98, "Pferdemann" ("Horse as Husband"), with elements of type AaTh 480 (helping and complimenting inanimate things on the way to the second witch) and conclusion as type AaTh 313, "The Magic Flight".Keller, Gabriele. Märchen aus Samarkand: Feldforschung an der Seidenstraße in Zentralasien; aus der mündlichen Überlieferung in Usbekistan. Druck und Werbestudio, 2004. p. 156. . She also noted that the description of Turkish type TTV 98, "Der Pferdemann", corresponded "almost exactly" to the story of Xo’tikcha.Keller, Gabriele. Märchen aus Samarkand: Feldforschung an der Seidenstraße in Zentralasien; aus der mündlichen Überlieferung in Usbekistan. Druck und Werbestudio, 2004. p. 202. .
In the Typen türkischer Volksmärchen ("Turkish Folktale Catalogue"), by Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav, both scholars listed the variants with the horse husband under one type: TTV 98, "Der Pferdemann" ("The Horse Man"), which corresponded in the international classification to tale type AaTh 425. In most of the Turkish variants collected, the supernatural husband is a horse, followed by a man with a donkey's head and a camel. In other tales, he may be a snake, a frog or even Turkish hero Kaloghlan.Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî. Typen türkischer Volksmärchen. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1953. pp. 113-114.
In his monograph on Cupid and Psyche, acknowledged that Turkish type 98 represents subtype 425A in his analysis—that is, the "Cupid and Psyche" variant, considered the oldest and containing the episode of the witch's tasks.Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. p. 23. However, in the international index (ATU), Swahn’s classification is listed as type ATU 425B, "The Son of the Witch."Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Third Printing. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1973 . p. 142 (footnote nr. 1).
Motifs According to Swedish scholar 's study on Animal as Bridegroom tales, a characteristic motif that occurs in the "Indo-Persian" area is the heroine using a ring to signal her arrival to her husband, when she finds his location.
The heroes' Magic Flight According to Christine Goldberg, some variants of the type 425B show as a closing episode "The Magic Flight" sequence, a combination that appears "sporadically in Europe", but "traditionally in Turkey".Goldberg, Christine. (2000). "Gretel's Duck: The Escape from the Ogre in AaTh 327". In: Fabula 41: 47 (footnote nr. 20). 10.1515/fabl.2000.41.1-2.42. Although this episode is more characteristic of tale type ATU 313, "The Magic Flight", some variants of type ATU 425B also show it as a closing episode. German literary critic Walter Puchner argues that the motif attached itself to type 425B, as a Wandermotiv ("Wandering motif").Puchner, Walter. "Magische Flucht (AaTh 313 sqq.)". 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 . pp. 13-14. . https://www.degruyter.com/database/EMO/entry/emo.9.003/html
Variants Gabriele Keller argues that type TTV 98, "Pferdemann" (see above), is also "widespread" ("verbreitet", in the original) in Central Asia.Keller, Gabriele. Märchen aus Samarkand: Feldforschung an der Seidenstraße in Zentralasien; aus der mündlichen Überlieferung in Usbekistan. Druck und Werbestudio, 2004. p. 153. .
Uzbekistan Ilon Oga