The Story of The Farmer's Three Daughters (Icelandic: Bóndadæturnar; English: "The Farmer's Daughters") is an Icelandic fairy tale collected by author Jón Árnason in his 1864 compilation of Icelandic tales and legends (Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri). It is related to the theme of the calumniated wife and classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children".
Source According to Árnason, the tale was published from a manuscript by reverend Sveinbjörn Guðmundsson.Árnason, Jón; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur. Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri. 2 Band. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1864. p. 420.
Translations This tale has been variously translated as "The Story of The Farmer's Three Daughters", in Icelandic Legends (1866); as Die Bauerntöchter by Scandinavist in Isländische Märchen (1884) and as Die neidischen Schwestern in Die neuisländischen Volksmärchen (1902), by Adeline Rittershaus.Rittershaus, Adeline. Die neuisländischen Volksmärchen. Halle: Max Niemeyer. 1902. pp. 274–276.
Summary A rich farmer lives with his three adult daughters. One day, they see the king riding along the path with the cobbler and the royal scribe. The three sisters announce their wishes: the elder sister wants to marry the king's cobbler, the middle one the king's scribe and the youngest the king himself. The king overhears their conversation and summons them next to his companions. The sisters repeat their wishes and the king consents in fulfilling their wishes.
The youngest sister marries the king, to the jealousy of her elder sisters. When the new queen is ready to give birth to her first child (a son), the sisters offer to look after her, but they take the child as soon as he is born and abandon him on a dyke outside the city, while they place a puppy in his place. The child is found and taken by a poor man to be raised. The same happens to the queen's second child (a son) and third child (a daughter). After the third birth, the king, seeing that the queen gave birth to animals, orders her to be locked in a house with a lion inside to be devoured. However, the lion does not devour the queen, and she lives out her days locked in that house.
Meanwhile, the man who found the children named the two elder boys Vilhjámur and Sigurdur, while the sister remains nameless. Years later, after their adoptive father dies, an old man comes to their house and tells them that on a distant rock a bird is perched that knows the language of men, but to seek it is dangerous, for many have searched for it, and none returned. Despite the perceived danger, the three siblings decide to seek the bird to learn of their true parentage. The old man warns them that, should they seek it, they have to climb the rock and not look behind, otherwise they will turn to stone. Should anyone be courageous enough to catch the bird, below his perch there is a basin of water to revive the petrified people.
The elder brother, Vilhjámur, leaves with his siblings a dagger as a token of life, and says that if three drops of blood appear on the dagger, then something happened to him. He then departs to the mountain. After three days, they notice the bloodied knife and Sigurdur goes after him. The same fate befalls Sigurdur. Their sister leaves for the mountain and bravely climbs it, paying no heed to the voices around her until she gets the bird.
At last she captures the bird, which congratulates her for her bravery, and guides her to revive the stones around the mountain. She revives her brothers and they ask the bird about their origins: they are the king's children, their aunts wanted to kill them and their mother is still alive.
One of the revived stones is another king's son, who falls in love with his saviour, the nameless sister, and joins the siblings in rescuing their mother from the lion's house. They take her out of the house, bathe and dress her in new clothes, and the group goes to the king's palace to reveal the whole truth to the king. He learns of his children's survival, reinstates his wife as queen and punishes the sisters by casting them to the lions. The sister marries the second king's son, while her brothers Vilhjámur and Sigurdur marry princesses and succeed their father.Árnason, Jón; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur. Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri. 2 Band. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1864. pp. 420-424.
Analysis Tale type The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children".Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. pp. 242–243.
The tale has been compared to the German tale The Three Little Birds,Kahle, E. "Aus Isländischer Volküberlieferung". In: Germania: Vierteljahrsschrift für deutsche Alterthumskunde. Vol. 36. Wien: Verlag von Carl Gerold's Sohn, 1891. p. 375. collected by the Brothers Grimm, and The Sisters Envious of Their Cadette, published by Antoine Galland in The One Thousand and One Nights.Eyjólfsson, Sæmundur. "Þjóðtrú og þjóðsagnir". In: Timarit hins Islenzka bokmentafelags. Vol. 12. Reykjavík: Prentađ í Ísafoldarprentsmiđju, 1891. p. 110.Rittershaus, Adeline. Die neuisländischen Volksmärchen. Halle: Max Niemeyer. 1902. pp. 276–277.
In a late-19th century study, scholar W. A. Clouston listed this tale as the "Icelandic version" of The Sisters Envious of Their Cadette, from the compilation The Arabian Nights. According to Rósa Þorsteinsdóttir, although the tale may have derived either from an Icelandic translation of The 1,001 Nights or from the Straparola's 16th century tale, the story had adapted itself locally to Icelandic tradition.
Motifs E. Kahle noted that in this tale, as with the other variants, the queen's abandoned children seek a talking bird and a magical water that revives the petrified people at the end of the tale.Kahle, E. "Aus Isländischer Volküberlieferung". In: Germania: Vierteljahrsschrift für deutsche Alterthumskunde. Vol. 36. Wien: Verlag von Carl Gerold's Sohn, 1891. pp. 375-376. In the same vein, philologist Adeline Rittershaus stated that in more complete variants of the same story, the third and youngest sister promises to bear the king children of wondrous aspect; and after the children are cast in the water, they survive and seek three treasures.Rittershaus, Adeline. Die neuisländischen Volksmärchen. Halle: Max Niemeyer. 1902. pp. 276–277.
Variants Denmark Danish author Evald Tang Kristensen published some Danish variants in his lifetime. In the first tale, collected from a Jens Povlsen, from Tværmose with the title Det springende Vand og det spillende Træ og den talende Fugl ("The leaping water and the playing tree and the talking bird"), a king gets lost in the woods and stays the night in a house in the woods where three sisters live. They each tell one another their marriage plans, the third saying she wants to marry the king. The king overhears their conversation, marries the third sister and she gives birth to two boys and a girl, in three consecutive years. In this tale, the two sisters replace the children for animals.Kristensen, Evald Tang. Æventyr fra Jylland. Vol. I. Kjobehavn: Trykt hos Konrad Jorgensen i Kolding. 1881. pp. vi (source), 171–180 (Tale nr. 23).
In a second tale by Kristensen, collected from the wife of a man named Niels Pedersen, in Vejlby, with the title Den talende fugl, det syngende træ og det guldgule springvand ("The Talking Bird, the Singing Tree and the Golden-Yellow Fountain"), a king goes to war and leaves his wife to the care of his mother, who replaces her three grandchildren for animals.Kristensen, Evald Tang. Danske folkeæventyr: optegnede af folkemindesamfundets medlemmer og udarbejdede. Viborg, Niels Christensen, 1888. pp. 226–233.
In a third tale by Kristensen, collected from teller Ane Nielsen, in Lisbjærg Terp, with the title Den lille prins med guldstjærne på brystet ("The little prince with the golden star on the chest"), three princely brothers go on a journey and tell each other last night's dreams, the third tells he dreamt that he married a princess and that they had a son with a golden star on the chest. His two brothers try to kill him, but spare his life, as long as he works as their servant. The trio reaches another kingdom, whose princess falls in love with the third brother. She marries him and gives birth to a boy with a golden star. The boy's uncles bribe the widwife to cast the boy in the water to die, but the child is saved. Years later, the boy becomes a youth, works for a witch and marries her daughter. When he goes to his grandfather's palace with his wife, a parrot at the entrance announces the presence of "the prince with the golden star on his chest".Kristensen, Evald Tang. Danske folkeæventyr: optegnede af folkemindesamfundets medlemmer og udarbejdede. Viborg, Niels Christensen, 1888. pp. 135–141 (Tale nr. 20). Kristensen published a fourth tale with the title Den talende Fugl og det syngende Trae og det springende Vand ("The Talking Bird, the Singing Tree and the Leaping Water").Kristensen, Evald Tang. Fra bindestue og kølle: Jyske folkeaventyr. Vol. 2. N. C. Rom, 1896. pp. 68ff.
The Danish language magazine Skattegraveren published a tale provided by Jens Madsen, in Höjet, with the title Det rindende træ den syngende fugl og det gule vand ("The Flowing Tree, the Singing Bird and the Golden Water"), wherein the siblings (two brothers and a sister) seek the three treasures to embellish their castle, per the suggestion of a beggar.Kristensen, Evald Tang. Skattegraveren. K. Jörgensens bogtrykkeri, 1890. pp. 148–151 (Tale nr. 110). Another edition published a second tale, with the title Det glimrende vandspring, det spillende træ og den talende fugl ("The glistening water fountain, the playing tree and the talking bird"), that follows the usual story: three sisters, abandonment of children, quest for three treasures.Kristensen, Evald Tang. Skattegraveren. Syvende halvårgang. Januar-Juni 1887. pp. 161–169.
According to Bengt Holbek's Interpretation of Fairy Tales, Denmark registers at least four other variants of type 707: Livsens Vand ("The Water of Life"); Den talende fugl og det syngende trae ("The Talking Bird and the Singing Tree"), and two homonymous tales with the title Den Talende Fugl ("The Talking Bird").Holbek, Bengt. Interpretation of Fairy Tales: Danish Folklore in a European Perspective. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1987. pp. 119, 123, 125, 137.
Sweden Tale type 707 in known in Sweden as Tre systrar vill ha kungen ("Three sisters want to marry the king").Bringéus, Nils-Arvid; Wigström, Eva. Fågeln med guldskrinet: folksagor. Wiken, 1985. p. 268. . According to Swedish scholar , the diffusion of the tale type in Sweden is probably due to printed editions of the story, published between 1800 and 1892, where a king in England features as the royal character. However, there was also a single Swedish version of The Arabian Nights tale, printed once in 1828.Wigström, Eva. Fågeln med guldskrinet: folksagor. Wiken, 1985. pp. 269-270.