Allerleirauh
Allerleirauh (German "All-Kinds-of-Fur", sometimes translated as "Thousandfurs") is a fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm. Since the second edition published in 1819, it has been recorded as Tale no. 65.[1] Andrew Lang included it in The Green Fairy Book.[2]
It is Aarne-Thompson folktale type 510B, unnatural love. Others of this type include Cap O' Rushes, Donkeyskin, Catskin, Little Cat Skin, The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter, The She-Bear, Mossycoat, Tattercoats, The Princess That Wore A Rabbit-Skin Dress, and The Bear.[3] Indeed, some English translators of Allerleirauh titled that story Catskin despite the differences between the German and English tales.[4]
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[edit] Synopsis
A king promised his dying wife that he would not marry unless to a woman as beautiful as she was, and when he looked for a new wife, he realized that the only woman that would not break the promise was his own daughter.
The daughter tried to make the wedding impossible by asking for three dresses, one as golden as the sun, one as silver as moon, and one as bright as the stars, and a mantle made from the fur of every kind of animal in the kingdom. When her father provided them, she took them, with a gold ring, a gold spindle, and a gold reel, and ran.
She slept in a forest where another king hunted, and his dogs found her. She asked them to have pity on her and received a place in the kitchen, where she worked, and was called "All-Kinds-of-Fur."
When the king held a ball, she went to it in her golden dress, and the king fell in love with her. The next morning, the cook set her to make soup for the king, and she put her golden ring in it. The king found it and questioned the cook and then All-Kinds-of-Fur, but she revealed nothing.
The next ball, she went dressed in her silver dress and put the golden spindle in the soup, and the king again could discover nothing.
The third ball, she went in the star dress, and the king slipped a golden ring on her finger without her noticing it and ordered that the last dance go longer than usual. She was not able to get away in time to change; she was able only to throw her fur mantle over her clothing before she had to cook the soup. When the king questioned her, he caught her hand, seeing the ring, and when she tried to pull it away, her mantle slipped, revealing the star dress. The king pulled off the mantle, revealing her, and they married. They lived happily ever after.
[edit] Commentary
Among variants of this tale, the threat of enforced marriage to her own father, as here, is the usual motive for the heroine's flight, as in The She-Bear, Donkeyskin and The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter,[5] or the legend of Saint Dymphna, but others are possible. Catskin fled because her father, who wanted a son, was marrying her off to the first prospect. Cap O' Rushes was thrown out because her father interpreted her words to mean she did not love him. The Child who came from an Egg fled because her (apparent) father had been conquered by another army. The Bear flees because her father is too fond of her and keeps her prisoner to keep her safe.
The motif of a father who tries to marry his own daughter is found in fairy tales overwhelmingly in tales of this variety, ending with the three balls, but it also appears in variants of The Girl Without Hands.[6] The oldest known variant is the medieval Vitae Duorum Offarum;[7] it appears in chivalric romance in Nicholas Trivet's Chronique Anglo-Normane, the source of both Chaucer's The Man of Law's Tale and John Gower's variant in Confessio Amantis,[8] and in Emaré.[9] It also became attached to Henry the Fowler.[10]
When the motive is the enforced marriage, many modern tales soften it, by representing the daughter as adopted (as in Andrew Lang's version of Donkeyskin for The Grey Fairy Book), the marriage as put forth and urged by the king's councillors rather than the king himself, or the entire notion being a fit of madness from which he recovers in time to attend the wedding. Alternately, the undesired marriage may be to an ogre or monster.
Variants of Cinderella, in which the heroine is persecuted by her stepmother, include Katie Woodencloak, where the heroine is driven off by the persecutions and must, like Allerleirauh, seek service in a kitchen.
The heroine does not always have to flee persecution; Tattercoats is denied permission to go to the ball because her grandfather had sworn never to look at her, but he has not driven her off.
[edit] Adaptations
Robin McKinley adapted this in her novel, Deerskin, in which the princess is raped by the king before she can escape.[11]
Jane Yolen wrote a modern variant, also titled "Allerleirauh." The variant involves the king marrying his daughter, who has been emotionally neglected by her father and misunderstands the king's intentions toward her. The daughter dies in childbirth like her mother did and the story ends suggesting that the daughter's daughter will suffer the same fate when she comes of age.[12]
[edit] References
- ^ Jacob and Wilheim Grimm, "Allerleirauh", Household Tales
- ^ Andrew Lang, "Allerleirauh; or, The Many-Furred Creature", The Green Fairy Book
- ^ Heidi Anne Heiner, "Tales Similar to Donkeyskin"
- ^ Anne Wilson, Traditional Romance and Tale, p 53, D.S. Brewer, Rowman & Littlefield, Ipswitch, 1976, ISBN 0-87471-905-4
- ^ Maria Tatar, p 213, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, ISBN 0-393-05163-3
- ^ Margaret Schlauch, Chaucer's Constance and Accused Queens, New York: Gordian Press 1969 p 64
- ^ Margaret Schlauch, Chaucer's Constance and Accused Queens, New York: Gordian Press 1969 p 65-6
- ^ Laura A. Hibbard, Medieval Romance in England p24-5 New York Burt Franklin,1963
- ^ Emaré: Introduction, Edited by Anne Laskaya and Eve Salisbury, Originally Published in The Middle English Breton Lays, Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1995
- ^ Margaret Schlauch, Chaucer's Constance and Accused Queens, New York: Gordian Press 1969 p 64
- ^ Helen Pilinovsky, "Donkeyskin, Deerskin, Allerleirauh"
- ^ Helen Pilinovsky, "Donkeyskin, Deerskin, Allerleirauh"
