Fairy Tale Friday--Prince Hat Underground

This title caught my eye because I love hats.  The tale, as told starting on page 187 of the collection Swedish fairy tales. Translated by Tyra Engdahl and Jessie Rew., never explains why he is Prince Hat.  Does he favor hats over crowns?  Is his head particularly important?

Another interesting element is the "singing leaves," which the good daughter (pictured above) asks her father to bring her.  Of course, her request for this weird gift gets her away from her father into the realm of Prince Hat Underground.  She has to live with him without seeing him, but (as in the story of Cupid and Psyche) she sneaks a look at him while he's sleeping, which makes him leave.  Then she has to go through a lot of rigamarole to get him back.

It's a very long, complicated story with many motifs.

Fairy Tale Friday--a New Series

I love fairy tales, and thanks to an army of 19th C tale-collectors Google Books has lots of copyright-free ones.   In honor of Open Access Week, I'm going to search out ones that interest me and feature them here on Fridays.

 

The first one is from Old Norse Fairy Tales: Gathered from the Swedish Folk. 

The Princess Sigorra

This tale includes several common folklore motifs:  A father is fooled into giving his child to a supernatural being (pictured above) (Thompson S241)*;  the child (in this case a son) is trapped in the SB's realm and is set, by said SB, several impossible tasks (Thompson H900), which the son accomplishes with directions from a woman (Princess Sigorra) (Thompson K1848); The son is finally able to flee with the aid of PS;  The son returns home, and, because he does not follow her instructions, he forgets PS.(Thompson D2003); The son's family arranges for him to get marries, and SB has to resort to complicated tricks to get to him and refresh his memory.


* Thompson, Stith, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature