- Tatterhood
Tatterhood is a
fairy tale collected byPeter Christen Asbjørnsen andJørgen Moe . [George Webbe Dasent, translator. "Popular Tales from the Norse". Edinburgh: David Douglass, 1888. [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/asbjornsenmoe/tatterhood.html "Tatterhood"] ]It is
Aarne-Thompson type 711, the beautiful and the ugly twin. [D. L. Ashliman, [http://www.pitt.edu/AFShome/d/a/dash/public/html/norway122.html "Tatterhood"] ] This tale type is quite common in Norway and Iceland and very rare elsewhere. [Stith Thompson, "The Folktale", p 96, University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles London, 1977]A version of the tale also appears in "
A Book of Witches " and "A Choice of Magic ", byRuth Manning-Sanders .ypnosis
A king and queen wanted children, but having none, they raised an orphan girl in their castle. One day, the orphan began to play with a beggar child, and the queen tried to separate them, but the beggar girl said that if the queen knew that her mother knew how the queen could have a child, she would not send her off.
When the mother would not, the beggar girl urged the queen to give her something to drink, and when she was drunk, the mother told her take two buckets of water, wash in them before bed, and throw the water under the bed. In the morning, two flowers would spring, one beautiful, one ugly, and she was to eat the beautiful one. The queen obeys, except that she eats the ugly one as well.
Soon, she gives birth to an ugly and troublesome girl, and then to a beautiful and gentle one. The ugly girl they called Tatterhood because she was always dressed in rags. She rode on a goat and always carried a wooden spoon, and she and her beautiful sister were inseparable.
One
Christmas Eve , there was a great clamor, and Tatterhood demanded until she learned that sometroll s andwitch es had come to celebrate Christmas. Tatterhood went out to face them down, but while she was fighting, her sister put her head out to watch, and a witch turned her head into a calf's head.Tatterhood rebuked them for their carelessness and ordered a ship fitted out, so she might find a way to free her sister. She sailed the witches' land, and there she fought them so hard that they had to free her sister from the spell.
Then Tatterhood sailed to a far off kingdom, where the king was a widower with only one son. The king fell in love with Tatterhood's sister, and Tatterhood refused to give permission for them to marry unless she married the king's son. The king talked his son around, and a wedding was set.
On the wedding day, Tatterhood asked her bridegroom why he didn't ask her why she rode a goat, and when he asked her, declared it was a grand horse — and then it was.
She then asked him why he didn't ask her why she carried a wooden spoon, and when he asked her, declared it was a silver wand — and then it was.
She then asked him why he didn't ask her why she wore a tattered hood, and when he asked her, declared it was a golden crown — and then it was.
She then asked him why he didn't ask her why she was so ugly, and when he asked her, declared she was more beautiful than her sister — and then she was.
ee also
*
Kate Crackernuts
*Prince Lindworm
*The Cat on the Dovrefell References
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