Fairy Tale of the Sun Prince

The Wonderful and Strange Fairy Tale of the Sun Prince

(A fairy tale from the Merino region of Switzerland)

A long time ago there lived a father and mother with their four children, a grown girl and three small boys. The father wanted to marry off his daughter to someone he liked. But because his daughter refused, he wanted to kill her.

One day the maiden told her mother she should look and see what was written on the wall of her bedroom. When the mother entered her daughter’s chamber, she found an inscription on the wall “Your daughter is my bride and I am the Sun Prince.” When the mother returned to the parlor, her daughter had vanished. The Sun Prince had taken her.

From that day on, the mother was deeply troubled and cried most of the time. The three brothers noticed this as they grew older. They begged their mother to say why she was so sad. After they had learned the fate of their sister, they could not find a moment’s rest. The oldest son took the prettiest horse in their stable and went out looking for the Sun Prince. After a very long trip he arrived at a large dwelling, where he tied the horse next to the door. A woman emerged and she said he should bring his horse into the stable. Horses were not tolerated near the door.

After the youth took his horse to the adjacent stable, the woman asked what kind of trip he was undertaking. “I must go to look for my sister, who married the Sun Prince!”

“Then you are my brother,” the woman replied and hugged him. Both went to the Sun Prince, and the brother asked permission for his sister to visit their home so that she could visit their mother one last time. “I will allow it,” the Sun Prince replied, “If you tend my sheep an entire day. But as sign that you have watched them, in the evening you must bring me what the sheep have eaten during the day.”

The youth thought “That won’t be difficult!” And early the next morning he went out into the fields with the sheep of the Sun Prince. Soon the herd came to a very deep valley. The sheep crossed the river flowing through the valley floor without difficulty. But the youth did not know how to cross the river. When the sheep saw from the other bank, that the shepherd stayed back, they sent two older sheep to fetch him. They motioned to the shepherd that he was to hold tightly to their tails. But the shepherd was afraid and did not dare do what the sheep commanded. By evening, he was still on the same side of the valley and when the sheep returned, he plucked some grass and put it in his sack, because he thought that was what the sheep must have eaten on the other side of the river. When they arrived at the house of the Sun Prince, the sheep first bowed to the Sun Prince, then to the wife and lastly to the shepherd, who then showed the Prince the grass in his bag. “My sheep don’t eat that!” the Prince cried loudly and the youth sadly returned home.

The second brother decided to see what would happen to him if he tended the herd of the Sun Prince. But he, too, did not have the courage to hold tightly to the tail of the sheep and stayed back.

In the evening he plucked several leaves, placed them in his sack and brought them to the Sun Prince. When the Sun Prince saw this, he said “You did not tend the sheep and must return home without your sister!”

Because this brother also returned home without his sister, it was left to the youngest brother to try to bring back his sister. After a trip lasting many days and years, he arrived at the dwelling of the Sun Prince, where he endeavored to tie his horse to the post. When the Sun Prince heard what he wanted, he made the same proposal as he had to his brothers. At the first light of morning the youth went out with the sheep. But when he came to the stream in the valley, he let the old sheep guide him through the water to the far side.

On the far side of the water, the youth saw the sheep entering a chapel and as they crossed the doorway, they were all transformed into humans. Once inside the chapel they all celebrated mass. After the service, they entered a nearby inn and ate a celebratory feast. The youth could see what wonderful and delicious food the sheep ate. He tried a bit of the best cake and placed it in his sack. When he returned home with his herd that evening, two old sheep once again pulled him safely through the river. When they arrived home, the herd first bowed to the youth and then to the Sun Prince and then to his wife. After the youth showed the Sun Prince the cake, he and his sister were immediately brought home the following morning and stayed until evening. When the sun went down, she vanished for always.

To read more about the Sun Prince:
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The German Fairy Tale of the Mysterious Bee Queen

Grimm’s Fairy Tale No. 62 The German Fairy Tale of the Mysterious Bee Queen

Two king’s sons went out looking for adventure and fell into a wild, dissipated life and did not return home. The youngest, who was also known as the dummkopf, went out looking for his brothers. But when he finally found them, they laughed and mocked him. He was a simpleton, they jeered. How could he succeed in life when they had failed so miserably and they were so much smarter? And so it was, the three brothers decided to go out together and soon they came upon an anthill. The two oldest wanted to stir up the sand and see how the little ants scurried fearfully around, carrying off their eggs. But the dummkopf said “Leave the animals in peace. I won’t tolerate your harming them.” The brothers continued on their way and came to a lake, where many ducks were swimming. The two brothers wanted to catch a few and roast them, but the dummkopf would not allow it. He said” Leave the animals in peace. I won’t tolerate your harming them.”

Finally they came to a bee nest. There was so much honey that it trickled down the trunk of the tree. The two older brothers wanted to light a fire under the tree and suffocate the bees, so that they could rob them of their honey. The dummkopf once more said “Leave the animals in peace. I won’t tolerate your harming them.” Finally the three brothers arrived at a castle. Here the stalls were full of stone horses. But not a single human being was found. They went through each room of the castle, until they arrived at the very last door. The door had three locks but in the middle there was a keyhole. Spying through the hole they saw a gray little man sitting at a table. They called to him, once, twice, but he did not hear. Finally they called a third time. He stood up, opened the locks and came out. But he never said a word. Instead, he led them to a richly set table. When they had eaten and drunk their fill, the old man brought each brother to a separate sleeping chamber. The next morning the gray little man came to the oldest, woke him and took him to a stone tablet. Three tasks were written on the tablet, and fulfillment of the tasks would redeem the castle. The first task was this: in the woods under the moss lay the pearls of the king’s daughter, one thousand in number. They all had to be gathered and if a single pearl was missing when the sun set, the person who was searching for them would be turned to stone. The oldest went out and looked the entire day. But when day was over, and he had only found one hundred, it happened just as the tablet had foretold. He was turned to stone. The next day the second brother took up the adventure. It did not go much better for him. He had found more than two-hundred pearls when he was turned to stone. Finally, it was the dummkopf’s turn. He searched through the moss but it was difficult finding pearls and took too long. He sat down on a stone and began to cry. And as he was sitting there, the ant king came, whose life the dummkopf had once saved. He arrived with five-thousand ants and it didn’t take long for the small animals to gather the pearls into a little pile. The second task was to fetch the key to the princess’s bed chamber at the bottom of the sea. As the dummkopf approached the water, the ducks came swimming, whose life he had once saved. They dove under and fetched the key from the depths. The third task was the most difficult. Among the king’s sleeping daughters the dummkopf had to determine the youngest and dearest. But they all looked the same and nothing distinguished them except for the fact that before they went to sleep, they each had eaten a different sweet: the oldest a sugar cube, the second, some syrup and the third a spoon of honey. The bee queen, whose lives the dummkopf had preserved against fire, arrived with her bees. The queen alighted on the mouth of each princess, but at last she lingered near the mouth of the princess who had eaten honey. In this way, the king’s son recognized the rightful princess. The magic was now over, everyone was freed from their sleep and the brothers who had been turned into stone, took on their human shape again. The dummkopf married the youngest and dearest daughter of the king and became king after her father’s death. But his two brothers married the other two sisters.

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Fairy Tale of the Supranormal Bride

Excerpt from "Hylas and the Nymphs", J.W. Waterhouse

The Supranormal Bride: Taboo, Impropriety and the Power of Language

In the Fairy Sister’s Wedding (see link at right) we encounter a common figure in fairy tales, the supranormal bride, a being who is really a goddess or demi-goddess but consorts with humans and longs to be mortal. The goddess in this fairy tale appears in duplicate form as twin in the propitious month of July, at the moment the corn has almost reached maturity and will soon be ready for harvest. Thus, her powers, which are aligned with plants and vegetation in the narrowest sense and with fertility, bounty and fecundity in a broader sense, are magnified. According to many folk traditions, twins had special powers that often included control over rain and weather. The goddess's powers would be especially potent if she were also a twin.

The twin fairies promise their prospective mates every boon an earth goddess can bestow. But from the very beginning we get an inkling that the masculine virtues of beauty, pride and courage will fall short when confronted with the feminine qualities of a supernatural bride. Even though they are paragons of virtue (“No one was their equal in all the kingdom.”) and as twins their strengths are also doubled, we know the marriage between the brothers and their fairy wives will culminate in disaster. The problem is not that the grooms are looking for love in all the wrong places (behind a bush in this fairy tale), but rather that they are incapable of fulfilling the strict conditions of their marriage. The fairy wives stipulate two taboos. The first is a food prohibition, tied to ritual cleansing in preparation for marriage. The second is a speech prohibition, tied to naming things and the power of language. The younger brother fails the test immediately. Chewing on a corn kernel barely seems to constitute an infraction. But this thoughtless impropriety has dire consequences, underscoring the frailty of human understanding while hinting at a higher world order that human beings fail to grasp. Punishment is swift and harsh, the sinner is relegated to a life of isolation cut off from his parents and clan. The last we hear of him, he is entering a monastery.

And so we come to what I believe is the heart of this fairy tale: the taboo. In his exhaustive study of magic and religion, Sir James Frazer defines charms or spells as a form of positive magic. A person believes he can regulate the course of nature or an outcome by acting in a certain way such as reciting a particular charm. Taboos, in contrast, are a form of negative magic. By abstaining from certain behaviors, a person hopes to align himself with the forces of nature, thereby promoting the fertility of the earth, the multiplication of plants and animals and promotion of his own kind. According to Frazer, by abstaining from doing certain things, people avoid infecting the earth with their own undesirable state or condition. The taboo prohibiting certain speech in the fairy tale seems like an easy precept to fulfill. But humans are frail beings and to some extent prone to failure. As the fairy tale illustrates, it is the shortcomings of humans, not of the gods, that brings calamity into the world.

The speech prohibition in this story is also interesting in and of itself. The word Fee means both fairy and crazy (fay and fey). The taboo prohibits the husband from naming the essence of his supernatural bride’s character, fairy, while also restricting the pejorative form of the same word, crazy. These diverging usages reflect alternate attitudes toward the deity. On the one hand, the earth goddess was beneficent, having the power to confer fruitfulness. But a contemptuous attitude toward these deities was also possible. The goddesses who had the power to control hail, rain and the weather were frequently likened to witches who rode broomsticks through threatening black hail clouds. These were thought to be essentially malign forces. It was in the best interest of all to harm these creatures whenever possible. Connecting the deity to these destructive forces was equivalent to calling the deity crazy: an act of profanity and desecration and a very serious offence. Naming was also viewed as a way to perform magic because there was a powerful relationship between the object or person and its name. A thoughtless remark could not only bring about the wrath of the gods but also inflict real harm.

The Fairy Sisters’ Wedding ends on a tragic note. The family loses its matriarch, who has brought countless blessings. In this tale the barriers to a union between a mortal and divine being are impossible to bridge. The Swiss folktale Gnome Wife Tirli-Wirli (see link to right) is more optimistic. The husband’s remorse suffices to bring about reconciliation. The couple is subsequently able to enjoy a long and fruitful life together.

There are many examples in which the gender roles of this story are reversed. Instead of a supernatural bride, we encounter an otherworldly groom who prohibits his wife from using certain speech. Frazer contends that it is often the person most intimately connected to the individual by blood or marriage that must adhere to the strictest taboos. The Swan Knight is one example of this form.

Fairy Tales on this Blog featuring a Supernatural Spouse:

Gnome Wife Tirli-Wirli
Life in the Castle
Life in Another Castle
Gerhard the Good, Swan Knight
Hans-My-Hedgehog
The Artist as Hedgehog
Fairy Sisters’ Wedding

Sun Prince

Further Reading:
Sir James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough

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