The Golden Bird facts for kids
Quick facts for kids The Golden Bird |
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The prince and the princess ride on the horse to escape with the caged golden bird, the fox at their side. Illustration from Household stories from the collection of the Bros. Grimm (1914).
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| Folk tale | |
| Name | The Golden Bird |
| Data | |
| Aarne–Thompson grouping | ATU 550 (The Quest for the Golden Bird; The Quest for the Firebird; Bird, Horse and Princess) |
| Region | Germany |
| Published in | Kinder- und Hausmärchen, by the Brothers Grimm (1812) |
| Related | The Bird 'Grip'; The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener; Tsarevitch Ivan, the Fire Bird and the Gray Wolf; How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon; The Nunda, Eater of People |
"The Golden Bird (German: Der goldene Vogel) is a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm (KHM 57) about the pursuit of a golden bird by a gardener's three sons.
It is Aarne-Thompson folktale type 550, "The Golden Bird", a Supernatural Helper (Animal as Helper). Other tales of this type include The Bird 'Grip', The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener, Tsarevitch Ivan, the Fire Bird and the Gray Wolf, How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon, and The Nunda, Eater of People.
Contents
Origin
A similar version of the story was previously collected in 1808 and published as Der weisse Taube ("The White Dove"), provided by Ms. Gretchen Wild and published along The Golden Bird in the first edition of the Brothers Grimm compilation. In the original tale, the youngest son of the king is known as Dummling, a typical name for naïve or foolish characters in German fairy tales. In newer editions that restore the original tale, it is known as "The Simpleton".
Synopsis
Every year, a king's apple tree is robbed of one golden apple during the night. He sets his gardener's sons to watch, and though the first two fall asleep, the youngest stays awake and sees that the thief is a golden bird. He tries to shoot it, but only knocks a feather off.
The feather is so valuable that the king decides he must have the bird. He sends his gardener's three sons, one after another, to capture the priceless golden bird. The sons each meet a talking fox, who gives them advice for their quest: to choose a bad inn over a brightly lit and merry one. The first two sons ignore the advice and, in the pleasant inn, abandon their quest.
The third son obeys the fox, so the fox advises him to take the bird in its wooden cage from the castle in which it lives, instead of putting it into the golden cage next to it, because this is signal. But he disobeys, and the golden bird rouses the castle, resulting in his capture. He is sent after the golden horse as a condition for sparing his life. The fox advises him to use a leather saddle rather than a golden one which is signal again, but he fails again. He is sent after the princess from the golden castle. The fox advises him not to let her say farewell to her parents, but he disobeys, and the princess's father orders him to remove a hill as the price of his life.
The fox removes it, and then, as they set out, he advises the prince how to keep all the things he has won since then. It then asks the prince to shoot it and cut off its head. When the prince refuses, it warns him against buying gallows' flesh and sitting on the edge of rivers.
He finds that his brothers, who have been carousing and living sinfully in the meantime, are to be hanged (on the gallows) and buys their liberty. They find out what he has done. When he sits on a river's edge, they push him in. They take the things and the princess and bring them to their father. However the bird, the horse, and the princess all grieve for the youngest son. The fox rescues the prince. When he returns to his father's castle dressed in a beggar's cloak, the bird, the horse, and the princess all recognize him as the man who won them, and become cheerful again. His brothers are put to death, and he marries the princess.
Finally, the third son cuts off the fox's head and feet at the creature's request. The fox is revealed to be a man, the brother of the princess.
The animal helper
The helper of the hero differs between versions: usually a fox or a wolf in most versions, but very rarely there is another type of animal, like a lion, a bear or a hare. In some variants, it is a grateful dead who helps the hero as retribution for a good deed of the protagonist.
In a variant collected in Austria, by Ignaz and Joseph Zingerle (Der Vogel Phönix, das Wasser des Lebens und die Wunderblume, or "The Phoenix Bird, the Water of Life and the Most beautiful Flower"), the tale begins with the motif of the birth of twin wonder-children, akin to The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird. Cast away from home, the twins grow up and take refuge in their (unbeknownst to them) father's house. Their aunt asks for the titular items, and the fox who helps the hero is his mother's reincarnation.
In a Polish variant by Oskar Kolberg, O królewiczu i jego przyjacielu, kruku ("About the prince and his friend, the Raven"), a raven, sent by a mysterious hermit, helps a prince in his quest for a golden bird. This variant is peculiar in that the princess is the second-to-last object of the quest, and the horse the last.
The bird as the object of the quest
The character of the Golden Bird has been noted to resemble the mythological phoenix bird. Indeed, in many variants the hero quests for the Phoenix bird.
The Golden Bird of the Brothers Grimm tale can be seen as a counterpart to the Firebird of Slavic folklore, a bird said to possess magical powers and a radiant brilliance, in many fairy tales. The Slavic Firebird can also be known by the name Ohnivak Zhar Bird or Bird Zhar; Glowing Bird, or The Bird of Light.
Sometimes, the king or the hero's father send the hero on his quest for the bird to cure him of his illness or blindness, instead of finding out who has been destroying his garden and/or stealing his precious golden apples. Under this lens, the tale veers close to ATU 551, "The Water of Life" (The Sons on a quest for a wonderful remedy for their father), also collected by the Brothers Grimm.
In many variants, the reason for the quest is to bring the bird to decorate a newly-built church, temple or mosque, as per the suggestion of a passing beggar or hermit that informed the king of its existence.
In 20th century Dutch collections, the bird is sometimes called Vogel Vinus or Vogel Venus. Scholarship suggests that the name is a corruption of the name Phönix by the narrators. The name also appears in the 19th century Hungarian tale A Vénus madara ("The Bird Venus").
In a variant published by illustrator Howard Pyle, The White Bird, the prince takes part in a chain of quests: for the Fruit of Happiness, the Sword of Brightness and the titular White Bird. When the prince captures the White Bird, it transforms into a beautiful princess.
In the Hungarian variant Az aranymadár ("The Golden Bird"), the king wants to own a fabled golden bird. A prince captures the bird and it reveals it is a princess cursed into the avian form by a witch.
The horse as the object of the quest
The horse of the variants of the tale is sometimes referenced along with the bird, attached to a special trait, such as in Flemish versions Van de Gouden Vogel, het Gouden Peerde en de Prinses, and Van de wonderschoone Prinses, het zilveren Paardeken en de gouden Vogel, and in French-Flanders version Van Vogel Venus, Peerdeken-Muishaar en Glooremonde.
The horse, in many variants of the tale, is the means by which the hero escapes with the princess. In one Italian variant, the horse is described as irraggiungibile ("unreachable").
In the Hungarian variant A vak király ("The Blind King"), the youngest prince, with the help of a fox, joins the quest for the golden bird and the silver-coloured horse with golden hair.
In a French tale from Poitou, Le merle blanc ("The White Blackbird"), an old king sends his sons to find the titular white blackbird so he can be young again. When the youngest prince begins his quest, he finds a friendly fox, which informs him about the lengthy chain of quests he must make: to get the bird, he must take the "belle fille" first; to get her, he must find the mule whose every step can jump seven leagues.
The princess as the object of the quest
In the title of many variants, the Princess as the last object the hero's quest is referenced in the title. The tales usually reference a peculiar characteristic or special trait, such as in Corsican variant La jument qui marche comme le vent, l'oiseau qui chante et joue de la musique et la dame des sept beautés (Corsican: "A jumenta chi biaghja quant'u ventu, l'agellu chi canta e chi sona, a donna di sette bellezze"; English: "The she-donkey that rides like the wind, the bird that sings and plays music, and the maiden of seven beauties"), collected by Genevieve Massignon.
In Italian variant L'acqua di l'occhi e la bella di setti veli ("The water for the eyes and the beauty with seven veils"), the prince is sent on a quest for "l'acqua di l'occhi", the beauty with seven veils, the talking horse and the "aceddu Bonvirdi" (a kind of bird).
In Romanian variant Pasărea cîntă, domnii dorm, the emperor asks for the golden bird whose song makes men sleep. His son travels the lands for the fabled bird, and discovers its owner is the princess of the golden kingdom.
In Hungarian variant A próbára tett királyfi ("The king's son put to the test"), in the final part of the quest, the prince is tasked with kidnapping a fairy princess from her witch mother. With his faithful fox companion, which transforms into a replica of the fairy maiden to trick her mother, the prince obtains the fairy maiden.
In a tale collected by Andrew Lang and attributed to the Brothers Grimm, The Golden Mermaid, the king's golden apples are stolen by some creature or thief, so he sends his sons to find it. The youngest son, however, is the only one successful: he discovers the thief is a magic bird that belongs to an Emperor; steals a golden horse and obtains the titular golden mermaid as his wife.
Variants
It has been noted that the tale "is told in Middle East and in Europe", but its variants are present in traditions from the world over, including India, Indonesia and Central Africa.
Swedish folktale collectors George Stephens and Gunnar Olof Hyltén-Cavallius suggested an Eastern origin for the story.
Oral versions
Europe
France
A French version, collected by Paul Sébillot in Littérature orale de la Haute-Bretagne, is called Le Merle d'or (The Golden Blackbird). Andrew Lang included that variant in The Green Fairy Book (1892). In The Golden Blackbird, the gardener's son set out because the doctors have prescribed the golden blackbird for their ill father. The two older brothers are allured into the inn without any warning, and the youngest meets the talking hare that aids him only after he passes it by. The horse is featured only as a purchase, and he did not have to perform two tasks to win the Porcelain Maiden, the princess figure. Also, the hare is not transformed at the end of the tale.
Another version, collected by François-Marie Luzel, is called Princess Marcassa and the Dreadaine Bird. There, the man sick in a king rather than a gardener, and the fox isn't the brother of the princess, but the soul of a poor old man whom the prince, after being robbed by his older brothers, buries with the last of his money. The prince, while stealing the bird, impregnates the princess as she's asleep, and it's the child's insistence on finding his father which makes the princess follow him and reveal the truth.
Western Europe
In a "Scottish-Tinker" tale, The Fox, Brian, the son of the King of Greece, in order to marry the hen's wife, must quest for "the most marvellous bird" in the world, the White Glaive of Light and the Sun Goddess, "daughter of the king of the gathering of Fionn". He is helped in his tasks by a fox, which is the Sun Goddess's brother transformed.
An Irish variant of the type, published in 1936 (Le roi magicien sous la terre), seems to contain the Celtic motif of "the journey to the Other World".
Southern Europe
In a Galician tale, O Páxaro de Ouro, the king owns an orchard where there is a tree with red Portuguese apples that are stolen by the titular golden bird.
A scholarly inquiry by Italian Istituto centrale per i beni sonori ed audiovisivi ("Central Institute of Sound and Audiovisual Heritage"), produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s, found thirteen variants of the tale across Italian sources, under the name La Ricerca dell'Uccello d'Oro.
Germany
Folklorist Jeremiah Curtin noted that the Russian, Slavic and German variants are many, such as Die drei Gärtnerssöhne ("The gardener's three sons"); or Der Goldvogel, das Goldpferd und die Prinzeßin, by German theologue Johann Andreas Christian Löhr.
In the Plattdeutsche (Low German) variant collected by Wilhelm Wisser, Vagel Fenus, the protagonist searches for the bird Fenus because his father dreamt that it could restore his health, while in the tale De gollen Vagel, the tale begins with the usual vigil at the garden to protect the tree of golden apples.
In a variant from Flensburg, Guldfuglen ("Goldbird"), the gardener's youngest son, with the help of a fox, searches for the White Hart and the "White Maiden" ("hivde Jomfru").
Romania
In a Romanian variant, Boy-Beautiful, the Golden Apples, and the Were-Wolf, the sons of the emperor investigate who has been eating the emperor's prized apples, and the youngest prince (possibly Făt-Frumos) finds two shining golden feathers in the foliage.
In Romanian variant Povestea lupului năsdrăvan şi a Ilenei Cosinzene, a wolf helps the prince in his quest for the feather of a golden dove, a golden apple, a horse and the legendary princess Ileana Cosânzeana. When the king's other sons kill the prince, the apple wilts, the dove becomes a black raven and the horse and the princess vanish into the sky.
In another tale, The Wonderful Bird (Pasărea măiastră), the king sends his sons for a bird to decorate a newly built church. His elder sons return with the bird and a poultry maid, the bird does not sing and the maid seems to be despondent. The youngest prince returns incognito to his father's kingdom and tells his story: the bird begins to sing when the prince enters the church, recognizing its master.
In the tale Der Vogel des Paradieses ("The Bird of Paradise"), collected by Romanian ethnologue Pauline Schullerus from Harbachtal, the king wants to find the Bird of Paradise to become young again. The third prince's helper is an old man (implied by the narrative to be God Himself), and both quest for the Bird of Paradise, the horse of "Negru Dovedit", the saber of the Red King and the daughter of the Green King.
Eastern Europe
In a Polish variant, About Jan the Prince, the fabled bird is named The Flamebird. The tale was originally collected by Antoni Josef Glinski, with the title O Janie królewiczu, żar-ptaku i o wilku wiatrolocie ("About Jan the Prince, the Flamebird and the Wind-like Wolf").
In a Yugoslavian variant, The Little Lame Fox, Janko, the naive but good-hearted youngest son of a farmer, is helped by a fox in his quest for the Golden Apple-Tree, the Golden Horse, the Golden Cradle and the Golden Maiden. The Golden Maiden, a princess herself, insists that she will marry Janko, for his good and brave heart.
In a Hungarian tale, A csodás szőlőtő ("The Wonderful Grapevine"), three princes ask his father, the king, why one of his eyes laughs while the other cries. This prompts a quest for the king's lost grapevine and, later, for a horse and a princess.
In a Slovakian tale Popelvár, the foolish hero gets the bird for his father, the king, but he is killed by his brothers, who also take his wife, princess Sipsindilona. In this tale, the princess shows more agency than other heroines and tries to find a way back to her beloved on her own terms.
Variants from Scandinavian countries have been attested in the works of Svend Grundtvig (Danish variant "The Golden Bird" or Guldfuglen) and Peter Asbjornsen (Norwegian variant "The Golden Bird" or Gullfuglen).
Baltic Countries
August Leskien collected variants from Lithuania, where the wolf is the helper, akin to Slavic variants: Vom Dummbart und dem Wolf, der sein Freund war and a similarly named tale where the apples are made of diamond and the bird is a falcon, and Von den drei Königssöhnen.
Latvia
In a Latvian variant collected in 1877, "одарѣ раскрасавицѣ царевић и братѣдуракѣ съ его помощниками" ("The talented princes, the foolish brother and his helpers"), the king sets a deadline for his three sons: one year from now, they must capture and bring him the golden bird that ate his golden apples. The youngest son is the only one that soldiers on, and eventually captures the bird, two dogs, a steed and a princess. Fricis Brīvzemnieks, in the same book, gave an abridged summary of two other variants: in one, the prince abducts a princess with golden hair, eyes like dew and fingernails like diamonds, and in the other, when the prince captures the golden bird, it uses its power to revive the older brothers who were petrified.
Asia
In an Indian variant, In Search of a Dream, the youngest prince quests for an emerald bird, because his father, the king, had a dream about a beautiful garden, with a tree in it where the bird was perched. Apart from this tale, Indian scholar A. K. Ramanujan pointed the existence of twenty-seven variants collected from all over India.
In a Tatar tale collected in Tobolsk, Der den Vogel suchende Fürstensohn ("The Prince's Son that seeks the bird"), the prince's youngest son watches his father's house at night and finds a bird. Soon, he travels to capture the bird and bring it home. With the help of a wolf, he later steals seven wonderful horses and a golden cithara from two different foreign princes and finally abducts a princess from a fourth realm.
Americas
A similar variant fairy tale of French-Canadian origin is The Golden Phoenix collected by Marius Barbeau, and retold by Michael Hornyansky. It follows the hero Petit Jean, the youngest son of the King, who discovers the thief of his father's golden apple to be a golden Phoenix, a legendary bird. Other differences include a battle with 3 mythical beasts, a Sultan's game of hide-and-seek and his marriage with the Sultan's beautiful daughter.
Variants have been recorded from American regions and states: a version named The Golden Duck from West Virginia; a tale The King's Golden Apple Tree, from Kentucky; a version from the American Southwest.
J. Alden Mason collected a variant from Mexico, titled Cuento del Pájaro del Dulce Canto (English: "The Bird of the Sweet Song").
In a Brazilian variant collected by Silvio Romero in Sergipe, A Raposinha (English: "The little fox"), a prince stops three men from beating a dead person, and in gratitude is helped by a fox in his search for a parrot from the Kingdom of Parrots as a cure for the king's blindness.
Literary versions
French author Edouard Laboulaye included a literary version named The Three Wonders of the World in his book Last Fairy Tales: the queen wishes for a magical bird that can rejuvenate people with its song. The youngest prince also acquires the winged horse Griffon and a wife for himself, the princess Fairest of the Fair.
Italian author Luigi Capuana used the motif of the golden-coloured bird stealing the apples in his literary fiaba Le arance d'oro ("The Golden Apples"), where a goldfinch is sent to steal the oranges in the King's orchard.
Professor Jack Zipes states that the tale type inspired Russian poet Pyotr Pavlovich Yershov to write his fairy tale poem The Little Humpbacked Horse. The tale begins akin to ATU 530, "The Princess on the Glass Mountain", (hero finds or captures wild horse(s) with magical powers) and continues as ATU 550: the envious Tsar asks the peasant Ivan to bring him the firebird and the beautiful Tsar-Maid.
A literary treatment of the tale exists in The True Annals of Fairy-Land: The Reign of King Herla, titled The Golden Bird: with the help of friendly fox, the king's youngest son ventures to seek the Golden Bird, the Golden Horse and a princess, the Beautiful Daughter of the King of the Golden Castle. At the conclusion of the tale, the fox is revealed to be the Princess's brother, transfomed into a vulpine shape.
Czech school teacher Ludmila Tesařová published a literary version of the tale, named Pták Zlatohlav, wherein the knight quests for the golden-headed bird whose marvellous singing can cure an ailing princess.
Adaptations
A Hungarian variant of the tale was adapted into an episode of the Hungarian television series Hungarian Folk Tales (Magyar népmesék). It was titled The Fox Princess (A rókaszemü menyecske).
See also
In Spanish: El pájaro de oro para niños
