In the Swan Maiden episode it will be recalled that the hero, by means of taking away from the swan her wings and feathers while she is temporarily in human form, brings it about that she can keep this human form as long [p. 94] as her bird covering is not available to her. This is but one of the ways in which human lovers disenchant wives or sweethearts who may have been so unfortunate as to have been turned into animals or objects, or have been placed under an enchantment.

One such tale is little more than a variation of the story about The Man on a Quest for His Lost Wife (Type 400), and is frequently referred to as being a sub-type of that tale. The emphasis in the story of The Princess Transformed into Deer (Type 401), however, is on the method of disenchantment rather than on the recovery of the wife, which may or may not appear in the story. A prince and his companion are hunting, and are enticed into a deserted castle by a deer who is really a transformed princess. The hero is able to disenchant her by spending three frightful nights in the castle and enduring in silence all the horrible things which happen to him. The story normally continues with the loss, search, and eventual recovery of the wife thus acquired.

As compared with some of the tales we have considered, this is not really well known. In no part of the world does it seem to be a favorite, but there can be no doubt of its validity as a well-recognized story. It seems to be most popular in Italy, among the south Slavic peoples, the Czechs, and the Flemish. But it is also told in Iceland, in Scotland, in France, and in Turkey. Apparently it has not traveled outside of Europe. [100]

Much more popular where it is known, but confined almost exclusively to southern and southeastern Europe, is The Three Oranges (Type 408). A casual examination of its distribution suggests the probability of Italian origin. Practically every tale collection from Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece has at least one version of this story. It is also very common in Hungary and Turkey, but it does not appear in any northern country except Norway, here it was recorded from an Italian fruitwoman. It is found in Persia and in India, but not frequently enough to indicate Oriental origin. The numerous versions reported in Latin America are obvious importations from Spain and Portugal. From the latter country it has been taken to Massachusetts through the medium of Cape Verde Island settlers.

The plot of The Three Oranges is rather constant wherever the story is told and follows the general lines of the literary reworking in Basile's Pentamerone. [101] For one reason or another, a young man sets out in search of a faraway princess. Sometimes this happens at the suggestion of his false elder brothers, and sometimes it is because he angers an old woman who puts a curse on him which sends him on the quest. On his way he is kind to an old woman, or to an animal or bird, and receives help. Eventually he arrives at a [p. 95] castle, where he finds the three oranges which he has been told to look for.

These oranges are enchanted maidens, and he succeeds in rescuing the youngest from her spell. A kitchenmaid later tries to replace her mistress. She sees the reflection of the princess in a pond or stream and throws her in, thinking to drown her. The kitchenmaid succeeds for a time in passing herself off for the princess. Meantime the heroine has been transformed into a silver fish and she subsequently assumes various other shapes and finally her own form. The tale ends with the recognition and reinstatement of the princess and the punishment of the false servant girl.

Although the Grimm collection does not contain The Three Oranges, it does have two stories in which girls are transformed to flowers. One of them is very simple, since it merely tells that the hero disenchants her by breaking a stalk of the flower. They thereupon marry and live without further adventures. It is really handled as a riddle, and the romantic story is only incidental. [102]

The other tale, The Prince Whose Wishes Always Came True (Type 652), has a good deal of complication, and it is only after we are half through the story that we encounter the carnation-girl. The story opens with an incident rather common in folktales, the choice of a godfather for the king's son. This is done by chance, and the first person to arrive is given the high office. After a few years the old man who has been chosen as godfather takes the boy secretly to a church, gives him his blessing, and along with it the power to make all his wishes come true. A treacherous servant has concealed himself and overhears what has happened. He steals the boy, smears blood on the queen's mouth, and accuses her of killing and eating him. She is walled up in a tower.

The boy is reared by a forester. He falls in love with the forester's daughter, who tells him who he is. When the treacherous servant comes to take him away, the prince uses his powers and transforms the servant into a dog and his sweetheart into a carnation. He now takes the dog and the carnation to his father's court, where he enters service as a huntsman. He always gets his food by wishing and changes the carnation to her human form whenever he desires. When the king asks him for the carnation, the boy tells him everything. The queen is thereupon released, the servant imprisoned, and the prince and his sweetheart are married.

Neither of these two tales of girls transformed into flowers is widely known. The first has been reported only five times outside the Grimm collection and can hardly be said to have established a real oral tradition. As for the second of these tales, it is well known and fairly popular in the Baltic states, Germany, and Scandinavia, as well as in southeastern Europe. Analogues have been noted in Turkey, India, and Farther India, but the tale has not traveled to other continents. It is closely related and frequently confused [p. 96] with a common legend of southeast Europe, The Devil's Bride, in which a prince plucks a flower from the grave of a maiden who has turned into a vampire. Thereupon she assumes her human form. [103] The handing down of this tale has also been somewhat confused by a very similar story given currency through Basile's Pentamerone (Day 1, No. 2) in which a woman, through a curse, gives birth to a plant which she puts in a pot and keeps in her room. The prince buys the pot and takes it into his own room, where the plant assumes the form of a maiden. The prince and the girl live happily together until her envious rival enters the room in the prince's absence and tears up the plant. The versions of the story of the carnation girl cited above as coming from southeastern Europe and Asia may belong more properly to the tradition of Basile's story than to that contained in the Grimms' collection.

Largely because it has a place in Grimm, the story of Jorinde and Joringel (Type 405) should be mentioned here. The heroine, turned into a bird by a witch, is restored to her former shape by the hero through the help of his magic objects. The story is entirely without complication and, except as taken directly from Grimm, is not known outside of Germany.

A somewhat similar story of transformation of a woman from an animal (Type 409) has wide currency in Estonia and Livonia, but is entirely unknown elsewhere. The woman who has been transformed into a wolf suckles her child on top of a stove. On the advice of a magician the stove is made hot and when the woman lays her wolf clothing on the stove, she is restored to human form. [104]

In some folktales the form from which the woman must be disenchanted is neither plant nor animal, but may be merely some monstrous deformation or even a magic spell which has been cast over her. One such story, The Beautiful and the Ugly Twin (Type 711), begins with the common motif of the barren mother who longs for a child. She gets advice from a witch, but breaks one of the conditions, and as a result has twins, one of them beautiful, but the other hideously deformed, sometimes with an animal head. The ugly sister always helps the beautiful one. At last a prince is to marry the ugly twin. On her wedding day she is transformed, and becomes as beautiful as her sister. This story is popular in Norway, Iceland, and Lithuania, and seems to be quite unknown elsewhere.

Of tales of enchanted brides there remains one of the most familiar of all stories for those who learn their folktales through children's books. This is Sleeping Beauty, La Belle au Boix Dormante (Type 410). The story is best known as told by Perrault, whose version has been widely translated and forms the basis of the story as it appears in our nursery books. A fairy who has not been invited to the princess's christening celebration makes a wish [p. 97] that the princess shall die from a spindle wound. Another fairy changes the curse from death into a hundred-year sleep. In accordance with the prophecy, the maiden and all the dwellers in the castle fall into a magic sleep and all about the castle there grows up a thick hedge of thorns. At the end of a hundred years a prince breaks through the hedge and awakens the princess with a kiss.

Stories with slight variations from Sleeping Beauty occur in Basile's Pentamerone and in the Grimms' collection. Even as early as the fifteenth century the main outlines are found in the French prose romance of Perceforest. But the tale has never become a real part of oral folklore. The single versions reported from Greece or Russia or Arabia are obviously mere retellings of one or other of these printed variants.