The Cucumber Girl (Turkish: Hıyarcı Kızı) is a Turkish Cypriot fairy tale published by folklorist . 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 cucumber, who is replaced by a false bride and goes through a cycle of incarnations, until she regains physical form again.
Summary
In this tale, a padishah has no children, so his wife asks a neighbour how they can have one. The neighbour tells the queen to make a vow with God, which the queen does: she will build fountains of oil and honey. In time, a son is born to them. One night, the queen has a dream: a voice tells her to fulfill her vow. The queen then orders the building of two canals, one with oil and another with honey. People flock to fetch oil and honey for themselves, including the neighbour lady. The old woman fetches some oil and honey with eggshells, but the prince tosses a stone at her and breaks her recipients. Enraged, the old woman curses the prince to suffer for the Cucumber Girl. Some time later, the prince decides to search for the Cucumber Girl, and departs. He meets a man on the road who directs him to a cucumber patch, and advises him to pluck three cucumbers, one white, another yellow, and the third green, cut each open and shout for the "cucumber girl". The prince goes to the cucumber patch and fetches the vegetables; he opens the first one and finds nothing inside. The same thing happens to the second one. After he cuts open the third one and calls out for the cucumber girl, a maiden appears to him. He places her on his horse and both ride away.
They reach a stream where he leaves the cucumber girl, while he goes to hunt some birds. The cucumber girl climbs up a tree. A servant from a nearby house comes to draw water from the stream and sees the girl's reflection in the water, mistaking it for her own, so she returns to her master's house to refuse to work anymore. The master expels the servant and she goes back to the stream, where she spots the girl atop the tree. She convinces the girl to come down and sticks a magic pin on her head, turning her into a dove, then takes her place. The prince returns and sees the servant, who lies that the sun darkened her skin and made her lips grow. Still, the prince takes the servant back home and marries her. As for the true cucumber girl, she, as a dove, flies to the palace and asks the king what the prince and the servant are doing, then blesses his sleep and curses the servant's, then wishes for the trees in the garden to dry up. In time, the prince notices the trees in the garden are drying up and learns of the strange bird that flies in. The prince captures the bird and locks it up in a cage.
The servant realizes the bird will reveal the secret and bribes a doctor to prescribe the bird's meat as cure for a feigned illness. The bird is killed and cooked, its body thrown in the sea, but a drop of the bird's blood survives and falls to the ground, where a cypress tree sprouts. The servant orders the tree to be burnt down. An old woman comes and asks for the cypress splinters as firewood, which she brings home. She tries to cut the branch, when a voice comes from inside it. The old man cuts open the firewood and releases the cucumber maiden, whom she adopts. Later, the prince arranges for the marriage with the servant, and the cucumber girl attends. The false bride (the servant) cannot string a pearl necklace, and the cucumber girl does with ease, while recounting her story. The false bride realizes the newcomer is the real cucumber girl and expels her. The prince sends a messenger to the old woman's house and learns of the whole story, marrying the true cucumber girl. He returns to the palace and asks the servant which she prefers: a sword or a horse? The false bride chooses the horse; the prince places her on a horse and banishes her.
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: 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.
In the Typen türkischer Volksmärchen ("Turkish Folktale Catalogue"), by Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav, tale type ATU 408 corresponds to Turkish type TTV 89, "Der drei Zitronen-Mädchen" ("The Three Citron Maidens").Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî. Typen türkischer Volksmärchen. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1953. pp. 98-103 (tale type), 421 (table of correspondences) (In German). Alternatively, it may also be known as Üç Turunçlar ("Three Citruses" or "Three Sour Oranges").Koçak Macun, Büşra. (2016). "Erzurum Halk Masallarından Üç Turunçlar Masalı'nın Vladimir Propp'un Yapısal Anl" [Investigation of Fairy Tale Name is Three Sour Oranges That is Folk Tale from Erzurum by Using Vladimir Propper’s Structural Narrative Analysis Methods]. In: Turkish Studies volume 11., issue 15 (Summer/2016): 327-346. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7827/TurkishStudies.9542 The Turkish Catalogue registered 40 variants,Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî. Typen türkischer Volksmärchen. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1953. pp. 98-99 (section "Belege"). being the third "most frequent folktale" after types AT 707 and AT 883A.Dov Neuman (Noy). "Reviewed Work: Typen Tuerkischer Volksmaerchen by Wolfram Eberhard, Pertev Naili Boratav". In: Midwest Folklore 4, no. 4 (1954): 257. Accessed April 12, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4317494.
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. Accessed 2024-07-03.
In Turkish variants, the fairy maiden is equated to the peri and, in several variants, manages to escape from the false bride in another form, such as a rose or a cypress.Günay Türkeç, U. (2009). "Türk Masallarında Geleneksel ve Efsanevi Yaratıklar" [Traditional and Legendary Creatures in Turkish Tales]. In: Motif Akademi Halkbilimi Dergisi, 2 (3-4): 92-93. Retrieved from In most of the recorded variants, the fruits are oranges, followed by pomegranates, citrons, and cucumbers in a few of them; then apples, eggs or pumpkins (respectively in one variant each).Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî. Typen türkischer Volksmärchen. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1953. p. 99. In addition, according to French folklorists Paul Delarue and Marie-Louise Théneze, a very frequent motif in the Turkish texts is the hero breaking the old woman's jar or jug, and the old woman, in return, cursing the hero to find the fruit maidens.
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" (especifically, it appears in Greece and Eastern Europe). In the second subtype, AaTh 408B, the girl is transformed into a dove by the needle.
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 Tales with vegetables The Cucumber Beauty In a Turkish Cypriot tale collected with the title Hiyarcı Güzeli ("The Cucumber Beauty"), from informant Yıldan Onur, in Küçük Kaymaklı, Lefkoşa, a sultan has no children, so he prays to Allah for one and vows to build fountains of oil and honey. A son is born, and he fulfills his vow. People come to fetch oil and honey, including an old woman, who has come with eggshells to fill up with the last amount of the liquids. The prince fells sorry for the old woman and tosses her a gold coin, accidentally breaking the eggshell. The old woman turns to face the prince and wishes him to search for the Cucumber Beauty. Time passes; the prince grows ill with longing and decides to search for the Cucumber Beauty. He goes on a journey and stops to rest near the edge of a lake. He falls asleep and sees an old man in his dream, who gives him three hairs and points him to the location of the Cucumber Beauty: the prince is to cross the mountains and reach a vegetable garden that belongs to a garden; he is to steal three cucumbers when the giant's eyes are open, which means that he is asleep, then flee; and he is to use the hairs to help him. He wakes up and continues on his journey: after crossing seven mountains, he reaches the garden, plucks three cucumbers and leaves. The giant wakes up and goes after the prince, who rubs the hairs and creates a storm of dust to blind the giant.