Water and Salt

Water and Salt is an Italian fairy tale, it can be found in the collection "Italian Popular Tales", collected by Thomas Frederick Crane.

In the Aarne-Thompson classification system, Water and Salt is Type 923.

ynopsis

A king with three beautifull daughters asks three of them how much they love their father.

*The eldest says, "I love you as bright as the sunshine."
*The second daughter says, "I love you as wide as the ocean."
*The youngest says, "Oh father, I love you as meat loves salt."

The father, not satisfied with the youngest daughter's reply has her thrown out of the palace. But one of the palace servents, an old woman, decides to keep her.

Months later, the king announces a banquet to be held in the palace. Learning of this, the youngest daughter requests that the old woman sees to it that no salt is placed in the meat that will be served at the banquet. The old woman has this done, and when the meat was served, the guests complained greatly about the way it tasted. The young daughter then appeared before her father. She explained to him that as meat is tasteless without salt, so too is her life without her father's love. From that day she was once again treated like a princess.

External links

* [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/crane/waterandsalt.html SurLaLune Fairy Tale site "Water and Salt"]
* [http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/salt.html "Love Like Salt"] a collection of similar tales