The King who would have a Beautiful Wife
Encyclopedia
The King who would have a Beautiful Wife or The King Who Wanted a Beautiful Wife is an Italian fairy tale
collected by Laura Gonzenbach in Sicilianische Märchen. Thomas Crane included in his Italian Popular Tales, and Andrew Lang
, in The Pink Fairy Book.
Italo Calvino
included a variant The Three Crone
s, from Venice, in Italian Folktales
.
One of them lied, claiming to be fifteen and her sister twenty, and the king decided to marry her. She said that she had never seen a ray of sun since she was born, and being touched would turn her black; the king had to send a carriage. He did, she went, heavily veiled, and they married. Their wedding night, he saw the old woman he had married and threw her out the window, where she caught on a hook. Four fairies
saw her there and mischievously gave her youth, beauty, wisdom, and a tender heart. The king saw her the next morning, thought he must have been blind, and had her rescued.
Her sister came to her and plagued her for how she had become young again, until the queen said that she had had her head cut off, or, in other variants, that she had had herself skinned, and a new one had grown in its place. The sister went to get the same treatment from a barber, and died.
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
collected by Laura Gonzenbach in Sicilianische Märchen. Thomas Crane included in his Italian Popular Tales, and Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.- Biography :Lang was born in Selkirk...
, in The Pink Fairy Book.
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy , the Cosmicomics collection of short stories , and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler .Lionised in Britain and the United States,...
included a variant The Three Crone
Crone
The crone is a stock character in folklore and fairy tale, an old woman who is usually disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructing. She is marginalized by her exclusion from the reproductive cycle,...
s, from Venice, in Italian Folktales
Italian Folktales
Italian Folktales is a collection of 200 Italian folktales published in 1956 by Italo Calvino. Calvino began to undertake the project that will lead to the Italian Folktales in 1954, influenced by Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale; his intention was to emulate the Brothers Grimm in...
.
Synopsis
A king was determined to find a beautiful wife. He himself , searched high and low to find the love he so desired, but he failed to do so . Finally, he sent a trustworthy servant to search for him. One day, he passed a tiny cottage, which held two sisters, one eighty and the other ninety. He saw their small, delicate hands, which had kept white and soft through spinning. He thought they must belong to a beautiful woman, and told the king. The king sent him to try to see her.One of them lied, claiming to be fifteen and her sister twenty, and the king decided to marry her. She said that she had never seen a ray of sun since she was born, and being touched would turn her black; the king had to send a carriage. He did, she went, heavily veiled, and they married. Their wedding night, he saw the old woman he had married and threw her out the window, where she caught on a hook. Four fairies
Fairy
A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...
saw her there and mischievously gave her youth, beauty, wisdom, and a tender heart. The king saw her the next morning, thought he must have been blind, and had her rescued.
Her sister came to her and plagued her for how she had become young again, until the queen said that she had had her head cut off, or, in other variants, that she had had herself skinned, and a new one had grown in its place. The sister went to get the same treatment from a barber, and died.