ATU 923: Love Like Salt

**ATU 923: Love Like Salt** is a romantic tale type in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index.

## General description

A father has three daughters and asks them one day how much they love him. The youngest compares the love she feels for her father with how much food needs salt. The father, offended for being compared with something as common as salt, kicks his youngest daughter out. After many adventures the girl ends up marrying, and the father is invited to the wedding without knowing that the bride it's his own daughter. The girl orders her father's food to be prepared without salt, so when the father tastes the food he founds it insipid. In that moment he realises the true meaning of his youngest daughter's words, and tells the other guests how much he regrets kicking her out. In that moment the bride reveals she's his lost daughter, and forgives him.

## Characteristics

This type's variants tend to appear combined with the number 510B: *Donkey Skin*. After getting kicked out by her father, the girl is hired as a servant in a castle's kitchen, or taking care of the animals. This last one is pretty common in France and Spain. If she's put to take care of the animals, the most common way she's discovered it's because, when she takes the animals out to pasture she has the custom to change her rags for beautiful dresses when she thinks no one's around and looks at herself in a pond. But one day the prince discovers her and falls ill. The heroine hides a ring on his food, and after he discovers it he marries her, and at the wedding the episode in which father and daughter meet again happens.

Another common plot development is that, after the heroine is hired as a servant, three balls are held and the heroine goes wearing a different dress each night, that is provided by a magic helper, or that was one of the few possesions she was allowed to take with herself when she was kicked out. At the ball the young master falls in love with her, and after the third ball he falls sick because he can bare the thought of not seeing her ever again. Like in the previous case he marries the heroine after realising who she actually is after finding the ring or some other token she hide on his food, that tend to be a gift he gave her at the last ball.

## Examples

**Germany:** Grimm nº 71a *Princess Mouseskin* nº 179 *The Goose Girl at the Well* Meier nº 27 *As Dear as Salt* **Austria:** Zingerle *KHMSD* p. 55 nº 31 *The Necessity of Salt* **Belgium:** Lootens p. 55 nº 8 *Slut-Sweeps-the-Oven* Gittée & Lemoine p. 41 nº 7 *Pepper and Salt* De Mont & De Cock p. 155 nº 19 Van Sloddeken-vuil Meyere II p. 73 nº 70 *Like Salt* **France:** Sébillot *LOHB* p. 45 *The Dirty Shepherdess* Bladé p. 251 nº 17 *The Turkey Herdess* **Italy:** Pigorini-Beri *ApSTP* vol. II p. 45 *La Sendraroeula* Bernoni p. 68 nº 14 *Like Good Salt* Coronedi-Berti nº 24 *The Story of the Candlestick* Comparetti p. 264 nº 61 = Nerucci nº 13 *Rotten-Eyes* Finamore p. 130 nº 26 *The Tale of the Screw of Salt* Pitrè vol. I p. 38 nº 10 *Water and Salt* **Spain:** Milá y Fontanals p. 181 nº 5 = Maspons i Labrós vol. I nº 12 *Los fustots* Olavarría y Huarte *BTPE* vol. VIII p. 175 *Johnny of the Bark* Nogués y Milagro p. 47 nº 5 *The Wand of Virtues* Espinosa nº 107 *As the Viand Wants the Salt* nº 108 *La Zamarra* **Slovakia:** Němcová vol. II p. 69 nº 37 = Dobšinský vol. III p. 22 nº 25 *Salt Is More Worth Than Gold* **Hungary:** Berze Nagy *MNG* vol. IX nº 30 *The Goose Girl Who Became Queen*