ATU 425A: The Animal as Bridegroom

**ATU 425A: The Animal as Bridegroom** is a wonder tale subtype in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index.

## General description

Before going on a trip a father asks his daughter what he should bring them, the youngest asks for flowers or fruits with some wonderful property instead of expensive clothing or jewelry. The father finds what his youngest daughter asked for, but to get it he must make a deal with an animal (bear, lion, wolf) that he must give him the first living creature that greets him when he arrives at home. Thinking it would be some of the home pets the father agrees, but it turns out it's his youngest daughter. Sometimes the father tries to deceive the animal sending some other girl pretending to be his daughter, but the animal always discovers the truth at the end, and the youngest daughter has to go and live with the animal. At night the animal takes his skin off and turns into a handsome prince. If the heroine can't turn any light on at midnight, she would light a candle given by some family member, usually her mother while he's sleeping, and some drops of wax fall in the prince, waking him up. Another common incident is the heroine or somebody else, like her jealous sisters, burning the skin. Because of this incident the prince must leave his bride, that goes out searching for him, wearing out iron shoes. During her travels she meets three entities that gave her three gifts. Once the iron shoes are worn out she reaches where his bridegroom, who has forgotten her and it's going to marry somebody else, lives, usually after climbing a glass mountain. Sometimes the heroine has to clean the blood or the wax from one of the prince's shirts, and the false bride takes the merit for doing it. To spend the night in the prince's bedroom the heroine exchanges the three tokens for three nights. The two first nights the heroine can't wake the prince because he has been drugged, but the third he's warned and he just pretends to drink the sleeping drug before going to bed. Pretending to be asleep he hears everything his true bride has done for him, his memories come back and the next day he questions the guests about a doubt he has: he lost a key and ordered a new one to be made, but now has found the lost one and don't know which one he should keep. All the guests say he should keep the first one, and the prince marries his true bride.

## Examples

**Germany:** Grimm nº 59a *Prince Swan* nº 88 *The Singing Springing Lark* nº 127 *The Iron Stove* **Norway:** Asbjørnsen & Moe nº 41 *East of the Sun & West of the Moon* **Belgium:** Gittée & Lemoine nº 3 *The White Wolf* **France:** Massignon nº 9 *The Beast* **Italy:** Basile V nº 3 *Pintosmalto* De Gubernatis nº 14 *Sir Fiorante Magician* Imbriani *NF* p. 168 nº 12 *The Pig King* *NM* nº 6 *The Little Crow* Di Francia p. 87 nº 5 *King Pepper* Gonzenbach nº 42 *The Pig King* **Spain:** Maspons i Labrós *CPC* p. 32 nº 6 *The Sprig of Rosemary* Espinosa nº 130 *The Lizard with the Seven Shirts* **Portugal:** Leite de Vasconcellos nº 108 *The Bear Prince Orange Marmalade* **Czech Republic:** Němcová vol. V p. 55 nº 35 *The White Snake* Mikšíček p. 3 nº 1 *The White Bear* **Slovakia:** Škultéty & Dobšinský p. 56 nº 7 *Gaspar the Serpent* **Lithuania:** Leskien & Brugmann p. 438 nº 23 = Basanavičius p. 237 nº 102 *The White Wolf*