I have read my entire Grimm brothers book, which I have double checked includes this story, and somehow I have no memory of it, even though it’s exactly the type of story I go nuts about.
The title in my collection is The Singing, Soaring Lark. However, the title on Pitt.edu is The Singing, Springing Lark, which I prefer, because Rhyming. Btw, Pitt.edu is a fantastic online resource for folk and fairy tales. Any time I need a text and am away from home, I just google “Pitt.edu story title.”
This story begins with a man who has been traveling, and has offered to bring back gifts for his daughters. The older two request diamonds and pearls, which is easy enough, because this is the rare enchanted bridegroom story where the heroine’s family isn’t impoverished.
But the youngest daughter wants a singing, springing lark, and that’s a little harder to find. At last, on the way home, he spots one in a tree, and sends his servant to catch it.
A lion jumps out, roars, and threatens to eat anyone who takes his lark. The father immediately apologizes and says he didn’t know it belonged to someone, of course he won’t take it now. It is important to note that at this point, neither he nor his servant have even touched this bird. The bird is TOTALLY FINE.
Like, when Beauty’s dad gets her the rose, he’s already picked it when the Beast freaks out. This seems like a clear no harm, no foul situation. But the lion disagrees.
He says he’ll only spare the father’s life in exchange for the first thing that greets him when he gets home.
As we just discussed for The Girl Without Hands, the first thing that greets you is ALWAYS YOUR KID.
But this dad is genre-savvy! He says “no, my youngest daughter is usually the first one to greet me.”
Unfortunately, his servant is super scared of the lion, and convinces him that maybe the dog or cat will come greet him, and they should take the deal and go home.
Dude. You were SO CLOSE to not making the classic fairy tale father’s mistake.
So they take the lark home. The youngest daughter greets them. She’s remarkably chill about the whole situation, and goes off to meet the lion.
Now this lion is, naturally, an enchanted prince. In fact, he has with him a whole pride of enchanted lions, and all of them turn back into people at night.
And here we have the second major deviation from the fairy tale basics, after the dad’s brief moment of clarity: this is in no way a secret. The lion is totally open about his identity and the nature of the curse. She knows exactly who and what she’s sharing a bed with each night, and has fully consented to this arrangement. It’s amazing. It’s unheard of. This lion is my new favorite enchanted bridegroom.
(Btw she and all the lions just become nocturnal so she can hang with her husband in his human form during their waking hours.)
Some time passes, and her oldest sister is getting married. She goes to the wedding, along with a guard of lions, but her husband stays home. And in yet another subversion, her entire family including her sisters is happy to see her, is happy that she’s happy, doesn’t feel the need to launch an unwanted rescue, and makes no attempt to make her stay home longer than she told the lion she would.
This story just keeps on not doing what I expect. I love it.
When the girl’s second sister is getting married, she convinces her husband to come along, even though if he is touched by a ray from a burning light, he’ll be turned into a dove for seven years. The girl, the lion, and their baby go to the wedding. Yes, they have a baby now. Yes, this is the first we’re hearing of it.
Of course, at some point in the wedding, despite their best efforts, the lion is hit by torchlight. Although actually this appears to be a nighttime wedding—possibly because the bride wanted her brother-in-law to attend in his natural form?—so I guess the prince gets hit by torchlight, really.
He turns into a dove. He tells his wife that he must fly around the world for seven years, but every seven steps he’ll drop a feather and a drop of blood, so she can follow him.
Now. I’m thinking about the size of a dove, the length of a step, and how many times our girl might take seven of them in the course of seven years. And I’m thinking we’re gonna have a bald bird long before the time is up.
She follows the dove. No mention is made of the baby—maybe she left him with her dad and sisters?
The seven years are up, finally. And the dove just…disappears. No more dove. No feather, no blood, no lion, no prince. We got nothing.
She climbs up to the sun to ask if he’s seen anything. No explanation of what she climbed on to reach the sun. The sun has no info, but does kindly give her a small chest.
She asks the moon. No info, but here, have an egg.
She asks the night wind, who directs her to the east, west, and south winds. Yes, the four winds in this world are night, east, south, west. No north. And we’ve deviated from the pattern for this story type two more times—she’s been given two helpful gifts instead of the usual three, and it’s the south wind, not the north, that helps her.
The south wind informs her that her husband is at the Red Sea, he’s a lion again, and he’s fighting a serpent that’s actually an enchanted princess.
And then the night wind offers some more info, which makes no sense because he JUST SAID he didn’t know anything, that’s why they called the other three winds, but whatever. He tells her she’ll find some reeds at the Red Sea. She should cut the eleventh one, and use it to strike the serpent. This will allow the lion to overcome the serpent, and they’ll both regain their human forms. She should grab her husband, and a griffin will be hanging around to take them home.
Oh, and here’s our third gift, a little late in the game—a nut, which will grow into a tree that the griffin can rest on, otherwise he’ll be too tired to make the flight, and they’ll fall into the sea.
So she goes to the Red Sea—herself, none of the winds give her a lift—and everything goes as planned until the lion and the serpent are both human again. The recently-serpentine princess grabs the prince and climbs up on the griffin before our girl can. The griffin flies away with some random snake girl and OUR prince. Not cool.
There are no more magical helpers, here. No sun, no moon, no wind. Our girl just walks, and walks, and walks, until she reaches a castle where her husband and this new princess are living together. She is, of course, just in time for the wedding in a couple days.
She opens up the sun’s chest, finding a dress as bright as the sun. She puts it on and goes into the castle. The princess wants the dress for her wedding, and our girl offers to give it to her in exchange for a night with her lion prince. The princess agrees, but the prince is drugged. So, you know. The usual.
The second day she cracks the egg, revealing a hen and twelve chicks, all made of gold. The princess wants them. Same deal.
Now this prince is quicker on the draw than most, and has figured things out and avoided the drugged food already by the second night. He’s been bewitched to forget his wife, but remembers as soon as he hears her voice. They sneak out and find the griffin, who flies them home, resting for a while halfway through on the tree that grew out of the night wind’s nut.
Back home they reunite with their kid—the one they abandoned for seven years—and live happily ever after.
This is just…this is a lot. I’m still processing.
I really love the subversion of expectations, with the father’s self-awareness and the Beast’s honesty. I feel like both of those details add so much to the story. And the complete lack of family tension, too.
The baby. The baby. Look, if I didn’t have any kids, I would totally follow my husband around for seven years to free him from a curse. But if we had a child? I’d stay home with a child. And if I was an enchanted bridegroom? I would rather my wife take care of our kid than abandon him for my sake. Plus, like, there’s no indication that she needs to follow him? All he said was he’d have to fly around the world as a dove for seven years. The whole serpent princess situation kind of comes out of nowhere. Could she have just stayed at home with the kid, and when his seven years as a dove were up, he could rejoin them?
The serpent princess. Where did she even come from? How did our dove go from right above his wife to all the way over in the Red Sea? How did he wind up being a lion again? Who turned this princess into a serpent, and why? Why were they fighting? Why did she kidnap him?
Who turned our prince into a lion and a dove in the first place and why? Are they in any way affiliated with the princess, or whoever cursed her?
What ever happened to the singing, springing lark? What happened to all the other lions who were cursed with the prince? (Did they go on to befriend a boy with a blue belt?) (We still don’t know what happened to those lions in the end, either.)
I just have. So many questions. But overall this story was a great time.
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