The Twelve Months (fairy tale)

"The Twelve Months" is a Russian fairy tale collected by Georgios A. Megas in Folktales of Greece.[1]:123

It is Aarne-Thompson type 480, the kind and the unkind girls.[1]:232 Others of this type include Diamonds and Toads, The Enchanted Wreath, Mother Hulda, Maiden Bright-eye, The Old Witch, The Three Heads in the Well, The Months, and The Two Caskets.[2]

Synopsis

A young and beautiful girl called Marushka is sent into the cold forest in the winter to perform impossible tasks by her evil stepmother. She must get spring violets, summer strawberries and fall apples in midwinter as presents to give her stepsister for her birthday. The girl ventures out into the blizzard and eventually meets the 12 personified months by a warm fire in the woods. When she approaches and asks politely if she might warm her hands at their fire, they ask why she is there, and when she tells them about her step-family and what she is looking for, the spirits help her. The child spirit of March creates the violets, youthful June the strawberries, and grown September the apples, at the direction of the elderly January. The stepmother and sister take the items, without a word of thanks. When the evil stepsister comes to search for the twelve months herself in the snow, hoping for gifts of her own, the spirits disappear, taking their fire, and leaving the stepsister cold and hungry, searching for eternity. The same fate lay in store for the wicked stepmother. She too let greed run away with her and to this day she still searches in an unfriendly forest for the path back to her home. The kind sister remained in her house, and lived happily ever after.

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See also

References
  1. Georgios A. Megas, Folktales of Greece, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1970
  2. Heidi Anne Heiner, "Tales Similar to Diamonds and Toads"
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