Part Two

The Folktale from Ireland to India

II – The Complex Tale

7. Faithfulness

Whether in the oral folktale or in the most highly developed literary narrative, the interest of reader or hearer is always carried along by, the interplay of contrasting forces, the good and the evil, the clever and the stupid, hero and villain, the faithful and the unfaithful. Every serious tale with any complication of plot has characters whose fortunes we follow with sympathetic concern in their conflict with others whom we do not like and whom we consider as enemies not only of the hero, but of ourselves.

Of the qualities which bring about universal admiration for a character in fiction, none is more compelling than faithfulness. Usually the folktale deals with a faithful relative—a wife or sister or sweetheart. We have already found Psyche and women of her kind going on long wanderings or enduring [p. 109] hardships in order finally to restore their husbands or lovers. [122] Or it may be that the interest is in the faithfulness of a man to a woman, [123] one friend to another (Type 470), or a servant to a master (Type 516), or a sister to a brother (Types 450, 451).

[122] These faithful women appear in Cupid and Psyche (Type 425); The Two Girls, the Bear and the Dwarf (Type 426); Hans my Hedgehog (Type 441); The Maiden in the Tower (Type 310); and The Prince as Bird (Type 432).

[123] We have already seen examples of fidelity in husbands or lovers who have sought to recover or to disenchant their wives or sweethearts. Such tales have been: The Man on a Quest for His Lost Wife (Type 400); The Man Persecuted because of His Beautiful Wife (Type 465); The Princess Transformed into Deer (Type 401); The Three Oranges (Type 408); and The Prince Whose Wishes Always Came True (Type 652).

310, 400, 401, 408, 425, 426, 432, 441, 450, 451, 465, 470, 516, 652