Dawn, Midnight and Twilight
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| Dawn, Twilight and Midnight | |
|---|---|
| Folk tale | |
| Name | Dawn, Twilight and Midnight |
| Aarne–Thompson grouping | ATU 301 (Three Stolen Princesses) |
| Region | Russia |
| Published in | Fairy Tales of Eastern Europe, by Jeremiah Curtin (1914) |
| Related | The Three Kingdoms (fr) |
Dawn, Twlight and Midnight is a Russian fairy tale collected by Jeremiah Curtin and published in Fairy Tales of Eastern Europe.[1]
It is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 301, "The Three Stolen Princesses". This type refers to a set of stories where three heroes (or three brothers) approach a cave or hollow and send one of them down to rescue three captured princesses.
Summary
A king, Gosudar, builds an underground palace to house his daughters from any danger. Yet, they insist they leave the palace for a stroll in the garden, to see "the white world". When they do so, a strong whirlwind blows and takes them away.
The king, then, sends his men all over the kingdom, to find heroes brave enough to rescue the three princesses. An old widow's three sons decide to try their luck and heed the king's proclamation. They were called Midnight, Twilight and Dawn, named so after the time of the day when they were born.
The three siblings go their way and arrive in a abandoned hut in the forest at the edge of a desert. They soon alternate their tasks: while two hunt, the other stays at home to cook something. For three days, a man, small in stature, but strong in power, defeats the older brothers, Midnight and Twilight, but Dawn defeats the creature, who escapes to a crevisse on the mountain.
Dawn fashions a strong rope from the bark of trees and descends the hole, arriving at three palaces, of copper, silver and gold. Inside each palace, one of the kidnapped princesses and a many-headed serpent that guards her.
Dawn kills each of the evil serpents, rescues the princesses and lifts them through the rope to the upper world.
Analysis
The story belongs to a Märchen cycle of a youth that rescues three princesses from their captivity in a subterranean realm and is betrayed by his companions. He soon finds another exit to the surface, reveals his companions' deceit and marries one of the princesses,[2] although in Curtin's version, the heroic brothers work together to rescue the princesses from the pit.
The tale is related to tale type AT 301B, Jean de l'Ours, wherein a strong man, born of a union between a bear and a human woman, meets two equally strong companions and departs to rescue three maidens, imprisoned in an underground realm.
It has also been suggested that tale types ATU 301 and Jean de l'Ours, ATU 650 ("Strong Hans"), ATU 302 ("Devil's Heart in the Egg") and ATU 554 ("The Grateful Animals") may have once comprised a single narrative, but, with time, the original story fragmented into different tale types.[3]
Variants
Russia
Russian variants of the tale fall under the banner The Realms of Copper, Silver and Gold.[4]
Romania
In Romanian variants, the three heroes are born in the same day, at different times, which gives them their names: Serilă, Mezilă and Zorilă.[5]
See also
- Prâslea the Brave and the Golden Apples (Romanian fairy tale)
- The Story of Bensurdatu (Italian fairy tale)
References
- ^ Curtin, Jeremiah. Fairy Tales of Eastern Europe. New York, McBride, Nast & Company. 1914. pp. 15-23. [1]
- ^ Gonzenbach, Laura. Sicilianische Märchen. Leipzig: Engelmann. 1870. p. 238.
- ^ Frank, R. M. (2019). "Translating a Worldview in the longue durée: The Tale of “The Bear’s Son”". In: Głaz A. (eds). Languages – Cultures – Worldviews. Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. pp. 68-73. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28509-8_3
- ^ Afanasyev, Alexander (1916). Magnus, Leonard A. (ed.). Russian Folk-Tales. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.. pp. 225-229.
- ^ Nicolae, Raluca. "Personifications of Day and Night in Romanian Folktales". In: Fabula 49, 1-2 (2008): 70-86. doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/FABL.2008.006
Russian literature, Russian Folklore, Fairy tales, Folklore, Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index type 301,
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