King Lindworm
King Lindworm or Prince Lindworm is a Danish fairy tale published in the 19th century by Danish folklorist Svend Grundtvig. The tale is part of the more general cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom, and is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as tale type ATU 433B, a type that deals with maidens disenchanting serpentine husbands.
Summary
In this tale from Scandinavian folklore, a "half-man, half-snake" lindworm is born, as one of twins, to a queen, who, in an effort to overcome her childless situation, has followed the advice of an old crone, who tells her to eat one of two roses, one red, one white, but not both. She forgot and ate both, causing the first twin to be a lindworm. The second twin is perfect in every way. When he grows up and sets off to find a bride, the lindworm insists that a bride be found for him before his younger brother can marry.Because none of the chosen maidens are pleased by him, he eats each until a shepherd's daughter who spoke to the same crone is brought to marry him, wearing every dress she owns. The lindworm tells her to take off her dress, but she insists he shed a skin for each dress she removes. Eventually his human form is revealed beneath the last skin. Some versions of the story omit the lindworm's twin, and the gender of the soothsayer varies.
Translations
The tale was published in a compilation of tales "from the North" with illustrations by artist Kay Nielsen, with the title Prince Lindworm.Analysis
Tale type
The tale of Prince Lindworm is part of a multiverse of tales in which a maiden is betrothed or wooed by a prince enchanted to be a snake or other serpentine creature.In the first iteration of the international folktale classification, by folklorist Antti Aarne, he established that this tale type concerned about a childless queen who gives birth to a boy in snake form. The boy is only disenchanted by a maiden after they both undress and enter a bath.
The tale type can also be called King Wyvern, as per the studies of scholar Bengt Holbek.
Motifs
The lindworm's disenchantment
According to Svend Grundtvig's system of folktale classification, translated by Astrid Lunding in 1910, this type may also show the maiden whipping the prince in the bridal bed in order to disenchant him.Scholar, in his work about Cupid and Psyche and other Animal as Bridegroom tales, described that the King Lindworm tales are "usually characterized" by the motifs of "release by bathing" and "7 shifts and 7 skins". Similarly, according to Birgit Olsen, "in most versions" the heroine is advised by her mother's spirit to wear many shifts for her wedding night with the lindworm prince.
The heroine's dilemma
Swedish scholar noted that the heroine, in the second part of the tale, is torn between a first and second husbands, and chooses the first - a dilemma that occurs "both in the Nordic as well as in variants from Eastern and Southeastern Europe". As for the nature of the second husband, he is a man cursed to be dead in the latter, while in the former region he is a prince in bird form or a man who has a contract with the Devil. In addition, researcher Birgit Olsen indicated that the combination with the second part of the story forms an East Mediterranean oikotype, popular in both Greece and Asia Minor.Other motifs
Danish folklorist Axel Olrik, in his study, noted that the flower as a birthing implement appears in Asian tales, and suggested that it may have been the origin of the motif in the Scandinavian tale.Variants
Origins
According to scholar Christine Goldberg, an analysis of the tale type through the historic-geographic method by Anna Birgitta Waldmarson suggests that it has originated as simple legends in India and combined into a two-part tale in the Near East, migrating to Scandinavia in the 17th century. Folklorist Stith Thompson was also of the opinion that the continuation of the narrative with the adventures of the bride/wife, may have originally formed in the Near East.Danish folklorist Axel Olrik also suggested that the origin of the story lay elsewhere than Scandinavia, since, etymologically speaking, the word lindworm appears in Germanic languages of medieval times, and may not hark back to an earlier period in Nordic history.
Distribution
A geographical analysis of variants by Stith Thompson led him to believe its origin lay in the East, since variants are found in India, in the Near East and in Scandinavia. In his study on the Danish story, Axel Olrik noted its "evenly distribution" over the North Sea, across the coast of Scania and into the Baltic Sea, with similar stories attested in South Germany and Southern Europe. In the same vein, according to Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, variants of "King Lindrom" are "disseminated" in Italy, the Balkans, in Turkey and in Persia, but also appear in Denmark and in Scania. Furthermore, Anna Birgitta Rooth indicated that the story developed two local forms, or oikotypes: one Danish-Skanisch and the other Mediterranean - in which Walter Scherf includes variants from Armenia, Turkey and Greece, as well from Italy, Portugal and France.Europe
Scandinavia
According to Bengt Holbek, variants of type 433B that continue with the adventures of the serpent husband's wife are reported in North Jutland and Scania.Denmark
Folklorist Axel Olrik reported other variants from Denmark: one from Vendsyssel, one from Himmerland, two from Vestjylland, and two from the island of Sjælland . In the same vein, Laurits Bodker identified that three variants from North Jutland continue with the heroine meeting Kong Svan and Kong Trana in the second part of the story, which led him to consider them part of a regional tradition.The variant from Vendsyssel, translated by Klara Stroebe as King Dragon, continues with the banishment of the queen by the false hero Red Knight. Then, she goes to the woods and two giant birds, a swan and a crane, perch on a branch, each on either side of her. They beg to be given food, and the queen does. The two birds become human again, and tell her their names: King Stork and King Crane. Both want to marry the woman, now that she has broken their curse. At the end of the tale, the queen prepares a dinner with her new suitors and King Dragon, and, since the meal is salty, King Dragon makes a toast to the queen's health. She chooses to remain with King Dragon.
Sweden
Folklorist Andrew Lang translated and published a Swedish variant in his Pink Fairy Book with the title King Lindorm. The first part of story follows the tale type very closely, with the birth of the serpent boy and the marriage with the human maiden. In the second part of the story, the King Lindorm goes to war and leaves his expecting wife in her stepmother's care. His wife gives birth to twin boys, but the evil stepmother writes to her stepson-in-law that the queen gave birth to whelps. A faithful servant of King Lindorm hides the queen and her sons in the castle, but she moves out to a hut in the forest where a man named Peter lives. By living with him, the queen discovers Peter made a pact with "The Evil One" and is supposed to meet him in a dense forest. The queen decides to rescue his contract with the help of three nuts that sprouted on her mother's grave. The tale was originally collected by Eva Wigström, from Landskrona.Eva Wigstrom collected another variant from Landskrona with the title Kung Lindorm och Kung Trana : a prince is cursed by his stepmother to be a man by day and lindworm by night. Whenever he married, he killed the bride on the wedding night. The princess from a neighbouring kingdom falls in love with the prince, but is afraid of her fate in case she marries him. Her father advises her to marry him anyway, but to wear three layers of linen clothing, and to remove each one as the lindworm sheds a layer of his skin each time. The plot works and she breaks the curse. She has a son while her husband is at war, but his stepmother writes him that she gave birth to a puppy. She is expelled from the castle with her son and wanders about until they reach another castle in the woods. She takes refuge in the castle and sees three birds alighting in a room and becoming human. They are princes, cursed by a witch to be birds by day and human at night. Their only salvation is if a woman comes to the castle and weave three shirts for them. The exiled queen comes out of hiding and offer her help. She disenchants the three men and marries the youngest of them, named King Trana. At the end of the tale, the queen has to make a choice between the King Lindworm and her new husband, King Trana.
Clara Stroebe published a variant from Södermanland, titled The Girl and the Snake. Stroebe compared it to the Danish "King Dragon".
Olrik also reported Swedish variants from Scania: one collected by Eva Wigström in West Scania, and another from South Scania, collected by Nicolovius.
Germany
German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther, in the Folktale Catalogue of the German-speaking Area, classifies German variants as type 433B, "König Lindworm". According to Uther's index, the type includes "disparate" narratives about a heroine marrying an animal and releasing him from his curse by kissing him or sharing his bed, or wearing more shirts than his animal skins.Ludwig Bechstein published the tale Siebenhaut , wherein a count's wife, being insulted by her husband and called "a snake", gives birth to a snake. When the snake is twenty years old, it asks his mother to procure him a wife. A maiden, instructed by an angel in a dream, dresses in seven layers of clothing in order to redeem her husband and break his enchantment.