The Knights of the Fish

The Knights of the Fish (Spanish: "Los Caballeros del Pez") is a Spanish fairy tale collected by Fernán Caballero in Cuentos. Oraciones y Adivinas.[3] Andrew Lang included it in The Brown Fairy Book. Another version of the tale appears in A Book of Enchantments and Curses by Ruth Manning-Sanders.

The Knights of the Fish
The seven-headed dragon. Illustration from Europa's Fairy Book (1916).
Folk tale
NameThe Knights of the Fish
Also known asLos Caballeros del Pez; The King of the Fishes (Joseph Jacobs)
Data
Aarne-Thompson grouping
  • ATU 303 (The Twins or Blood Brothers)[1]
  • ATU 300 (The Dragonslayer)[2]
RegionSpain, Eurasia, Worldwide
Published inCuentos. Oraciones y Adivinas (1878), by Fernán Caballero
The Brown Fairy Book, by Andrew Lang
Europa's Fairy Book (1916), by Joseph Jacobs
RelatedThe Twins (Albanian tale); Perseus and Andromeda
Princess and dragon

It is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type 303 ("The Blood Brothers").[4] Most tales of the sort begin with the father catching a talking fish thrice and, in the third time, the animal asks to be sacrificed and fed to the fisherman's wife and horses, and for his remains to be buried underneath a tree. By doing so, twins are born to him and his wife, as well as two foals and two trees.

It is also classified as ATU 300 ("The Dragon-Slayer"),[5] a widespread tale.[6]

Synopsis

An industrious but poor cobbler tried to fish until he was so hungry that he thought he would hang himself if he caught nothing. He caught a beautiful fish. It told him to cook it and then give two pieces to his wife, and bury two more in the garden. He did this. His wife gave birth to twin boys, and two plants sprang up, bearing shields, in the garden.

When the boys were grown, they decided to travel. At a crossroad, they parted ways. One found a city grieving, because every year a maiden had to be offered up to a dragon, and this year the lot had fallen on the princess. He went to see where the princess was, and then left her to fetch a mirror. He told her to cover it with her veil and hide behind it; when the dragon approached, she was to tear the veil off. She did, and the dragon stared at his rival, identical to him. He threatened it until he finally smashed it to pieces, but as every fragment reflected him, he thought he too had been smashed. While it was still baffled, the knight killed it. The king married him to his daughter.

The princess then showed him all over the country. He saw a castle of black marble, and was warned that whoever went to it never returned. He set out the next day. When he blew his horn and struck the gate, a woman finally opened the door. Echoes warned him off. He lifted his helmet, and the woman, who was an evil witch, let him in because he was so handsome. She told him that she would marry him, but he refused. The witch showed him over the castle and suddenly killed him by dropping him through a trapdoor.

His brother came to the city, and was taken for him. He kept quiet, so he could help his brother, and told the princess that he had to go back to the castle. He demanded to know what happened to his brother, and the echoes told him. With this knowledge, as soon as he met the witch, he stabbed her with his sword. The dying witch then pled to him to save her life with magical plants from the garden. He found the bodies of his brother and her previous victims, and restored them to life. He also found a cave full of maidens who had been killed by the dragon, reviving them too. After they all left, the witch died and the castle collapsed.

Motifs

The motif of the demand for sacrifice of youngsters of either sex happens in the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.[7] However, a specific variant, where the dragon or serpent demands the sacrifice of young maidens or princesses is shared by many tales or legends all over the world: Japanese tale of Susanoo-no-Mikoto and the eight-headed serpent Orochi;[8] Chinese folktale of Li Ji Slays the Great Serpent,[9][10][11][12][13] attested in Soushen Ji, a 4th century compilation of stories, by Gan Bao.

The myth of Perseus and Andromeda is an archaic reflex of the princess and dragon theme:[14] for disrepecting the Nereids, sea god Poseidon demands in sacrifice the life of the Ethiopian princess Andromeda to the sea monster Cetus. She is thus chained to a rock afloat in the sea, but is rescued by semi-divine hero Perseus. A similar event happens in the story of Trojan princess Hesione.

The many-headed serpent enemy shares similarities with Greek mythic creature Hydra, defeated by Heracles as part of his Twelve Labors. An episode of a battle with the dragon also occurs in several fairy tales: The Three Dogs, The Two Brothers, The Merchant (fairy tale), The Bold Knight, the Apples of Youth, and the Water of Life, The Three Princes and their Beasts, The Thirteenth Son of the King of Erin, Georgic and Merlin, the epic feats of Dobrynya Nikitich, the Polish legend of the Wawel Dragon.

The motif of the birth of twin boys by eating a magical fish shares similarities with a practice involving flower petals, as seen in the ATU 711, "The Beautiful and the Ugly Twin" (Tatterhood).

Variants

The usual tale involves the birth of twins from the ingestion of the flesh of the fish. Very rarely, there are born triplets, such as in a variant from Brittany, France, collected by folklorist Adolphe Orain: in Les chevaliers de la belle étoile, instead of the usual twins, three sons are born when their mother is given the flesh of the enchanted eel (which replaces the fish). Each of the brothers is born with a star on the forehead.[15]

Other similar variant is Le rei des peiches, collected from Bélesta, Ariège, where there are also three sons born from the magical fish.[16]

The ATU 303 type usually involves the birth of twins (or triplets), but in variants there are born two similar-looking individuals from a rich mother (queen, lady) and a poor one (maid, servant), who both ate the magical item that, according to some in-story superstition, is said to have pregnancy-inducing properties, such as a fruit or herb. Despite their different origins, both youths hold great affection and loyalty towards each other. One example is the Swedish folktale Silfver-hvit och Lill-vacker (English: "Silverwhite and Lillwacker").[17]

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See also

References
  1. Amores, Monstserrat. Catalogo de cuentos folcloricos reelaborados por escritores del siglo XIX. Madrid: CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTÍFICAS, DEPARTAMENTO DE ANTROPOLOGÍA DE ESPAÑA Y AMÉRICA. 1997. pp. 69-71. ISBN 84-00-07678-8
  2. Boggs, Ralph Steele. Index of Spanish folktales, classified according to Antti Aarne's "Types of the folktale". Chicago: University of Chicago. 1930. pp. 40-41.
  3. Caballero, Fernán. Cuentos, oraciones, adivinas y refranes populares e infantiles. Leipzig: Brockhaus. 1878. pp. 11-19.
  4. Amores, Monstserrat. Catalogo de cuentos folcloricos reelaborados por escritores del siglo XIX. Madrid: CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTÍFICAS, DEPARTAMENTO DE ANTROPOLOGÍA DE ESPAÑA Y AMÉRICA. 1997. pp. 69-71-120. ISBN 84-00-07678-8
  5. Boggs, Ralph Steele. Index of Spanish folktales, classified according to Antti Aarne's "Types of the folktale". Chicago: University of Chicago. 1930. pp. 40-41.
  6. Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. p. 27. ISBN 0-520-03537-2
  7. Schmidt, Bernhard. Griechische Märchen, Sagen und Volkslieder. Leipzig: Teubner, 1877. pp. 236-239.
  8. Lyle, Emily. Ten Gods: A New Approach To Defining The Mythological Structures Of The Indo Europeans. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2012. p. 109. ISBN 1-4438-4156-0
  9. Gan Bao. In Search of the Supernatural: The Written Record, translated into English by Kenneth J. DeWoskin and James Irving Crump. Stanford University Press, 1996. pp. 230-231. ISBN 0-8047-2506-3
  10. Maeth Ch., Russell. “El Cuento De Li Ji.” Estudios De Asia y Africa, vol. 25, no. 3 (83), 1990, pp. 537–539. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40312235. Accessed 15 Apr. 2020.
  11. Journey of a Goddess: Chen Jinggu Subdues the Snake Demon. Translated, edited, and with an introduction by Fan Pen Li Chen. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. 2017. p. 31. ISBN 978-14384-6-7078
  12. Idema, Wilt L. Personal Salvation and Filial Piety: Two Precious Scroll Narratives of Guanyin and Her Acolytes. University of Hawai'i Press. 2008. p. 205. ISBN 978-0-8248-3215-5
  13. He, Saihanjula. "Critical Fantasies: Structure of Chinese Folk Tales" (2000). Masters Theses. 1609.
  14. Jacobs, Joseph. Europa's Fairy Book. New York, London: G. P. Putnam's sons. 1916. pp. 228-230 (Notes on Tale nr. III).
  15. Orain, Adolphe. Contes du Pays Gallo. Paris: Honoré Champion, Éditeur. 1904. pp. 109-134.
  16. [Lambert, Louis?] Contes populaires du Bélesta. Foix: Imprimerie-Librarie Gadrat Ainé. 1891. pp. 20-25.
  17. Stroebe, Klara; Martens, Frederick Herman. The Swedish fairy book. New York: Frederick A. Stokes company. 1921. pp. 40-57.

Bibliography
  • Amores, Monstserrat. Catalogo de cuentos folcloricos reelaborados por escritores del siglo XIX. Madrid: CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTÍFICAS, DEPARTAMENTO DE ANTROPOLOGÍA DE ESPAÑA Y AMÉRICA. 1997. pp. 69-71. ISBN 84-00-07678-8
  • Boggs, Ralph Steele. Index of Spanish folktales, classified according to Antti Aarne's "Types of the folktale". Chicago: University of Chicago. 1930. pp. 40-41.
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