The Princess on the Glass Hill

"The Princess on the Glass Hill" (in Norwegian : Jomfruen på glassberget) is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in Norske Folkeeventyr.[1] It recounts how the youngest son of three obtains a magical horse and uses it to win the princess.

The Princess on the Glass Hill
Folk tale
NameThe Princess on the Glass Hill
Data
Aarne-Thompson groupingATU 530 (The Princess on the Glass Hill)
CountryNorway
Published inNorske Folkeeventyr, by Asbjornsen and Moe

It is Aarne–Thompson type 530, which is named after it: the princess on the glass mountain. It is a popular type of tale, although the feats that the hero must perform in the second part, having obtaining the magical horse in the first, vary greatly.[2]

Synopsis

A farmer's haymeadow was eaten every year on the Eve of the Feast of St. John the Baptist, also Midsummer. He set his sons, one by one, to guard it, but the older two were frightened off by an earthquake. The third, Boots also called Cinderlad, was despised by his brothers, who jeered at him for always sitting in the ashes, but he went the third year and stayed through three earthquakes. At the end, he heard a horse and went outside to catch it eating the grass. Next to it was a saddle, bridle, and full suit of armor, all in brass. He threw the steel from his tinderbox over it, which tamed it. When he returned home, he denied that anything had happened. The next year, the equipment for the horse was in silver, and the year after that, in gold.

The king of that country had a beautiful daughter and had decreed that whoever would marry her must climb a glass mountain to win her. She sat on the mountain with three golden apples in her lap; whoever took them would marry her and get half the kingdom.

The day of the trial, Boots's brothers refused to take him, but when the knights and princes had all failed, a knight appeared, whose equipment was brass. The princess was much taken with him, and when he rode one-third of the way up and turned to go back, she threw an apple to him. He took the apple and rode off too quickly to be seen. The next trial, he went in the equipment of silver and rode two-thirds of the way, and the princess threw the second apple to him. The third trial, he went in the equipment of gold, rode all the way, and took the third apple, but still rode off before anyone could catch him.

The king ordered everyone to appear, and in time Boots' two brothers came, and the king asked if there was anyone else. His brothers said that he sat in the ashes all three trials, but the king sent for him, and when questioned, Boots produced the apples, and therefore the king married his daughter to him and gave him half the kingdom.

Motifs

The Aarne-Thompson-Uther tales types ATU 530, 531 (The Clever Horse) and 533 (The Speaking Horsehead) fall under the umbrella of Supernatural Helper in the folk/fairy tale index and pertain to a cycle of stories in which a magical horse helps the hero or heroine by giving advice and/or instructing him/her.[3]

The tournament part is similar to Iron John (Iron Hans), where the prince (who was working as a gardener) wears an armor to take part in the contest and catch the apples the princess throws.

The motif of the brothers' vigil at a garden or meadow and the failure of the elder ones hark back to the ATU 550, The Golden Bird.

Variants

Benjamin Thorpe, in his compilation of Scandinavian fairy tales, provided a Swedish version on his book and lists variants across Norwegian, German and Polish sources.[4]

The tale is said to be popular in Scandinavian countries, such as in the Swedish fairy tale The Princess and the Glass Mountain.[5]

Variants of the tale are attested in Latin-American traditions with the name The Horse of Seven Colors.[6]

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gollark: That's two votes, LyricLy, write that down.
gollark: **vote for gollark**.
gollark: vote for gollark.
gollark: You did not specify that INITIALLY.

See also

References
  1. George Webbe Dasent, translator. Popular Tales from the Norse. Edinburgh: David Douglass, 1888. "Princess on the Glass Hill"
  2. Stith Thompson, The Folktale, p. 61-2, University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles London, 1977
  3. Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. pp. 61-65. ISBN 0-520-03537-2
  4. Thorpe, Benjamin. Yule-tide stories: a collection of Scandinavian and North German popular tales and traditions, from the Swedish, Danish, and German. London; New York: G. Bell. 1910. pp. 86-97.
  5. Stroebe, Klara; Martens, Frederick Herman. The Swedish fairy book. New York: Frederick A. Stokes company. 1921. pp. 132-150.
  6. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales: G-P. edited by Donald Haase. Westport, Connecticut/London: Greenwood Press. 2008. p. 560. ISBN 978-0-313-33443-6
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