One of the most usual situations in folktales is the contest for the hand of a princess. In the wonder tales the hero normally succeeds in this competition through some marvelous help or through some supernatural power of his own. [236] But quite as interesting are those stories in which his success depends upon his quickness of wit. We have already noticed the tale in which the princess is to be given to the man who can make her speak (Type 945) and in which the hero so cleverly propounds a question that she is brought to speech in spite of herself. The silent princess is relatively rare in folktales; it is much more usual to find one who has never laughed. To cause such a woman to burst out in laughter will bring the hero not only her hand, but wealth and a share of the kingdom. Two of the stories involving this incident have several points in common and are occasionally confused, though the main action in each is clear.

The first of these is the tale of Dungbeetle (Type 559). It is so named because the help of this humble insect appears in nearly all versions of the narrative. When he hears that the princess has been offered to the man who can make her laugh, the hero sets out and, in the usual way of folktales, secures the help of grateful animals, or sometimes acquires magic objects, particularly a rope that binds and tightens and a magic fiddle which compels people to dance. [237] By employing these animals or objects, he succeeds in bringing the princess to laughter. But, instead of receiving her in marriage, he is thrown into a lions' den. By use of his magic or his helpers, he escapes. When again he has been refused the princess, he causes wasps to attack and drive out successive rivals on the bridal night. Eventually the princess recognizes his power and marries him. [p. 154]

This story appeared in Basile's Pentamerone and most versions conform rather closely to his telling of the tale. It seems to be known in all parts of Europe, but is not popular in any. It has also been reported from the Nuba of east Africa.

The closely related story, "All Stick Together" (Type 571), is much more popular. Though it is sometimes impossible to make a clear-cut distinction between the two stories, the center of interest in the latter is the sticking together of people and objects. The youngest of three brothers is the only one who divides food and drink with a hungry man, and, as a reward, he receives a golden goose with the power to make everything stick to it. Sometimes the goose is acquired through a lucky bargain. He takes the goose to an inn where the innkeeper's daughter tries to steal one of the golden feathers. He compels her to stick fast to the goose and later those who try to help her—the parson, the sexton, and others. It is usually through this absurd parade of people stuck to the goose that the princess is brought to laughter. But sometimes, as in the last tale, it is occasioned by the sight of three small animals which the hero owns, and sometimes by the foolish actions of the hero. As in the other tale, he is not immediately given his reward, but is assigned preliminary tasks: drinking a cellar full of wine, eating up a mountain of bread, or making a land and water ship. These he accomplishes, sometimes with the help of extraordinary companions. [238]

The tale has a way of adapting motifs from other stories, so that all kinds of contacts with material familiar elsewhere are noticeable as one moves from version to version. [239] The sticking together of the people as punishment for meddling appears in many other connections, particularly in a fifteenth century English poem, "The Tale of the Basyn." [240] As for the folktale, it is popular all over Europe, and several versions are known from the Near East.

The French have brought it to Canada and from them it has passed on to at least four of the eastern American Indian tribes. Several of the tales already reviewed have shown the hero winning the princess through the help of his magic objects. The story known as The Rabbit-herd (Type 570) combines such magic means with cleverness and trickery. The king has offered the princess as a prize to the man who is able to herd all his rabbits. The king has a magic pipe which always calls the animals back. The hero, unlike his elder brothers, is kind to an old woman and from her he also receives a pipe, stronger in its magic than the king's, [p. 155] with which he is able to call all the animals together. The success of the hero with his magic pipe causes great envy on the part of the king, the princess, or the queen. The versions differ as to which of them tries to obtain the pipe. In some, the queen bribes him by kissing him; in some, the princess lies with him; and in some, the king kisses a horse. In any case, the youth now knows a disgraceful story to tell. Before finally granting the princess to him, the king orders the boy to tell a sack of lies. He begins to tell great lies until the king or the queen sees that he is going to betray their disgrace. They make him stop, and give him the princess.

The characteristic trait in this story seems not to be the magic pipe so much as the hero's use of blackmail to gain his point at the end. For that reason, the story is frequently known as The Sack of Lies, or something similar. It is rather popular all the way from Iceland to the Caucasus, more than two hundred versions having already been noted. Sporadic variants have been collected on the Gold Coast of Africa, in the Philippines, from Cape Verde Islanders in Massachusetts, and very recently from persons of English stock in Virginia. Its general distribution would seem to indicate that it is essentially a European, rather than an Oriental tale.

The princess as a prize for correct guessing is the principal feature of The Louse-Skin (Type 621). She has had a louse fattened until it becomes as big as a calf and at its death has had a dress made from its skin. She agrees to marry the man who can guess what the dress is made from. The hero learns by trickery, and thus wins her. The major interest in this tale is concerned with the tricks whereby the puzzle is solved. [241]

As an autonomous story, we find it here and there all over Europe, whence it has been carried to Indonesia and the Philippines. Within Europe, the overwhelming majority of the variants are from four east Baltic countries.

In other parts of Europe, the tale is more likely to serve merely as an introduction to Cupid and Psyche (Type 425B), King Thrushbeard (Type 900), and The Robber Bridegroom (Type 955). In some cases our story proceeds, like the next one we shall consider, with the giving of the princess to the suitor to whom she turns in the night.

A tale very closely related to the last two, since in part it is like one, and in part like the other, is The Birthmarks of the Princess (Type 850). The hero here, like the rabbit-herd, has a magic pipe which causes hogs to dance. The princess covets his dancing hogs, and he sells them to her in return for seeing her naked. By using his knowledge of her birthmarks thus acquired as a basis for blackmail, he wins her as his wife. As a further test, the princess is to be given to the suitor to whom she turns in the night. The hero and a rival suitor are put to bed with her. They each strive to entice her and finally she turns to the hero. [p. 156]

In spite of its appearance as being a mere concoction of two other tales, this narrative as a whole is told all over Europe and has been carried to Virginia. There seem to be no older literary versions, so that its development probably belongs to the authentic folklore of the European continent.

Three of the tales concerned with the winning of a princess place her in an open contest of wits with the hero. [242] The first is The Princess who Cannot Solve the Riddle (Type 851). Here she is offered to the man who can propose a riddle too hard for her. On the way to the contest, the hero is given a clue which he develops later into a riddle. He sees a horse poisoned and then eaten by ravens, who in turn fall dead. The ravens are then eaten by twelve men, who die of the poison. In case the story has this introduction, the riddle which the hero propounds is "One killed none, and yet killed twelve." Other riddles are sometimes substituted, particularly that of the murdered lover and of the unborn. The first of these is generally given: With what thinks, I drink; what sees, I carry; with what eats, I walk. (The queen has a cup made from the skull of her murdered lover and a ring from one of his eyes, and she carries two of his teeth in her boots.) The riddle of the unborn is: I am unborn; my horse is unborn; I carry my mother on my hands. (A boy who has been taken from his dead mother's body digs up her body and makes gloves of her skin. He rides a colt which has been taken from a dead mare's body.) Whichever of these riddles he uses, the princess is greatly puzzled and tries to learn the answer by trickery. She slips into his room at night, hoping that she can learn it from his dreams. He knows about her visit, however, and keeps a token. When he uses this to prove her visit, she surrenders.

In comparison to the other stories of wit contests with the princess, this has the widest distribution as an oral narrative and the most extensive literary history. The general theme of the winning of a bride through the giving or solving of a riddle goes back at least to the Greek romances and recurs in medieval collections. As a part of folklore, the tale is current from Iceland and the British Isles to Russia, and it has been carried abroad frequently: to central Africa and to North and South America, through Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Negro settlers. The tale may well have intimate Oriental relations, because of the great interest eastern story-tellers have in all kinds of riddles and other displays of wit. [243]

In another tale of this group, The Hero Forces the Princess to Say "That is a Lie" (Type 852), he accomplishes the task indicated by the telling of impossible tales, usually gross exaggerations. The interest of the story is primarily in these "tall tales." They may be mere exaggerations of size about an enormous animal or building (a type of story familiar in America in the [p. 157] legends of Paul Bunyan), or they may be about impossible happenings: a tree growing to the skies overnight, like Jack's beanstalk, or the ascent or descent from the skies on a rope of chaff, or of a man who cuts off his head and replaces it. [244] Usually he is not able to bring her to the desired words until he makes up shameful slanders about her.

Though this tale appears to have no literary history, it is scattered rather evenly over Europe as an oral story, and it is found in single versions in Indonesia, North and Central Africa, and in the British tradition of Virginia and the French of Missouri. The distribution in Europe shows the tale unusually popular in Ireland and Scandinavia, though only a detailed analysis of the versions would indicate where the story originated and what has been its history.

In The Hero Catches the Princess with her Own Words (Type 853) we see resemblances to several of the tales just discussed, and indeed to many others farther afield. The princess is offered in marriage to the man who can outwit her in repartee. On the way to the contest the hero picks up various objects, a dead crow, an egg, and the like. In his contest with the princess he always reduces her words to scorn by producing these objects at the proper time. This part of the tale is often very obscene. As usual, the successful hero is put off and is thrown into prison. By means of his magic tablecloth, purse, and fiddle he escapes. Then, by means of his fiddle, he captures the princess and refuses to release her unless she answers "No" to all his questions. By properly phrasing the questions, he gets her into his bed and marries her.

The last half of this tale frequently appears independently, namely, the play upon the word "No." [245] The whole story appears in a Middle High German poem and later was used both in French poetry and in the English ballads.

As a part of folklore, it is most popular in states around the Baltic, though it is known in all parts of Europe. In America it has been brought by the French to the Ojibwa Indians, by the Spanish to the Zuñi, to Massachusetts by Cape Verde Island Portuguese-speaking Negroes, and to Jamaica by Negroes from Africa. The tale does not appear to be known in Asia.

There are, of course, other tricks by which story-tellers have imagined their lowly heroes as winners of the much desired princess. [246] One of them, The Golden Ram (Type 854), reminds us of a scene in Shakespeare's Cymbeline. The hero has made a boast that if he had only one thing, he could marry the princess. The. king challenges him to make good his words. He says that the desired thing is money. When the king gives him all the gold he needs, he has a hollow golden ram constructed. He hides himself in the ram and has [p. 158] it left where the princess will see it. She insists upon having it carried into her room. Of course, the hero eventually comes out and wins her.

In spite of the suggestion of the Trojan horse and of boxes and trunks hiding lovers familiar to literary stories of the Middle Ages, this tale in its present form seems to be an oral development. Its distribution is by no means uniform in Europe, where ninety percent of the versions have been found within Finland, either among the Finnish or the Swedish inhabitants. It seems to have some popularity in Italy and it has been learned, presumably from the French, by the Maliseet Indians of New Brunswick.

In this whole group of tales in which the princess is won by cleverness there is a mixture of motivation. Sometimes the taleteller seems really interested in the romantic aspects of the story, the lowly youth winning the lady of his desire, but most often this is subordinated to the desire to see a sharp contest of wits won by a man against what seems to be overwhelming odds.