Frog Princesses and Bear Princes

 One of you commented that it would be nice to see comparisons between enchanted bride and enchanted bridegroom tales. And at first I thought I’d do Frog Prince versus Frog Princess. Then I thought a little more about it, and, well. There’s not much to compare.

Both stories feature frog love interests. And that’s pretty much it?

I’ve found an Italian variant (https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type0402.html#schneller)  of The Frog Princess that includes the throwing-frog-at-wall element. In The Frog Prince, the princess throws the frog at the wall meaning to kill him, because she’s annoyed. In this story, the prince is startled by the frog hopping onto him in the middle of the night, feels horrible about it after, and really begins the relationship from that point. The throwing is the catalyst for transformation in The Frog Prince, and not in The Frog Princess.

(As an aside, there’s a German story (https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type0402.html#jungbauer) where the frog and the man definitely seem to be planning marriage, but after she’s transformed, she gives him her fancy estate, tells him to marry whoever he likes, and leaves. I thought that was interesting.)

So. The enchanted bridegroom story I really want to compare with The Frog Princess is East of the Sun and West of the Moon.

Specifically, we’re working with the Russian variant of The Frog Princess, which has a second half.

In East of the Sun and West of the Moon, the girl looks at her bedfellow’s face, which ruins her chances of breaking the spell, and he is whisked away to a land East of the Sun and West of the Moon to marry a troll princess. The girl goes on a quest to find him, enlisting help from three old women and the four winds. At the troll princess’ palace, she wins her prince back with her mad laundry skills. This story is far from the only one to follow this pattern; a girl often spoils a curse-breaking by doing something she was never told she shouldn’t do, usually LOOKING AT HER BOYFRIEND’S FACE, HOW DARE SHE, and then has to go on a difficult journey and complete strange tasks to win her guy back.

Before we get into the comparisons, a brief recap of the first half of the Russian version of The Frog Princess. Our man Ivan is forced by his father to marry a frog, due to an arrow landing near her in a very strange choose-your-bride-by-archery arrangement. His older brothers get to marry human women.

Ivan’s father the king sets up a competition between the three brides. Ivan tells his frog the tasks, then leaves. When he’s gone, she throws off her frog skin, becoming a beautiful young woman, and calls upon a horde of servants to complete the task. (Which, by the way, is why this isn't my favorite Frog Princess variant—other frogs complete the tasks themselves, and complete them as frogs, too.) The last task is to present herself at a ball for the king to judge her beauty, and she shows up as a beautiful human woman.

This is where the Russian story deviates from others. In other variants, we live happily ever after from here. In this version, Ivan runs home while the former frog is at the ball, finds her frog skin, and burns it.

In his defense, burning the skin is more often than not the correct move when dealing with enchanted love interests.

But in this case, if he’d let her keep the skin for a littler while longer, she’d have been freed, but now she must go to the palace of Koschei the Deathless, in a faraway land no one knows the road to.

Which makes this the only story I know of where the male protagonist screws up and has to go on a quest to rescue his animal bride.

He gets the help of an old man, an enchanted ball, and several wild animals. Instead of winning her back with laundry, Ivan has to kill Koschei the Deathless. Which, actually, is very similar to The Giant with No Heart is His Body. Koschei can only be killed by a magic needle, which is inside a hare, inside a trunk, in an oak tree that Koschei is always watching. His animal friends help Ivan get the needle, Ivan uses the needle to kill the bad guy, and he and the frog princess live happily ever after.

It's just so nice to see the male protagonist mess up and go on a quest about it. I feel like the girls have to do that pretty often, but the guys usually either do everything right, or don’t face any consequences for their actions. They go on a lot of quests, but they’re usually self-motivated, and the princess is a reward they pick up along the way. Except, I guess, for the Sweetheart Roland types—not Sweetheart Roland itself, but stories of that type, where the princess says ‘just don’t do this one thing,’ and he does—in Sweetheart Roland the consequence is amnesia, but it a lot of them the princess just vanishes, and he has to go and get her back. But I do like this version where, like, he wasn’t just being absolutely stupid about it.

If your wife says, just please don’t do this one thing, or you’ll lose me, and then you do the one thing, I don’t have a ton of sympathy for you.

If you start to get creeped out by the stranger in your bed, and try to look at his face, like, you’re in the right here! That’s a reasonable thing to do. No one ever told you not to. Granted, the bear said, ‘don’t be alone with your mom,” and she did, and the mom got into her head about the stranger in her bed, but, like. Looking was reasonable! It’s weird that she didn’t look earlier! I am on her side here.

If you discover that the frog you’ve married is actually a woman, and you’ve grown up with stories of people being freed from enchantment by the burning of an animal skin, finding her animal skin and burning it is reasonable! That is a logical solution to come up with. I like it when people mess up by just doing their best in weird situations, rather than by being stupid.

I am a little bummed that Ivan didn’t do any laundry, though. I feel like that could have added something to the story. Especially since we’ve already determined that his wife doesn’t do her own chores. Someone in this relationship should know how to do laundry.

The Black Bull of Norroway

 So despite having "Norway" in the title, this is a Scottish fairy tale. It does, however, have a lot in common with one of the best known Norwegian fairy tales around. Which is why I decided to talk about it today.

Our heroine is the youngest of three sisters, as our heroines often are. They all go to a washerwoman for a sort of mystical matchmaking session, and the oldest two go off with some men in nice carriages who come by her door, while our girl sees a black bull riding past, and because this is a weird sort of matchmaking gig, she gets dropped on the bull's back, and off they go.

They have a long journey, during which she eats out of his right ear and drinks out of his left, until they arrive at a castle, where apparently the bull's older brother lives. She's given a magic apple, and then they move onto another castle, where another brother lives, and give her a pear. In a third brother's castle she gets a magic plum. Then they ride on to a glen, and the bull leaves her there, with instructions not to move at all, while he goes to fight the Old One.

The bull tells her that if everything turns blue he's won, and if everything turns red, the Old One has. So she sits by herself in the glen, waiting, which isn't my idea of a good honeymoon, until everything turns blue. She's really excited, though I'm not sure why - it hasn't exactly been a fantastic marriage so far. Anyway, she's excited, so she moves around a little (just, like, uncrossing her legs), against the bull's express orders, and consequently, he's unable to find her again.

Our girl wanders long and far in search of him - again, not clear on the why. She doesn't owe him anything and we haven't seen them bonding in any way. Why not just go home?

But she wanders. She comes eventually to a glass hill, too slippery to climb, and meets a smith who promises to make her special glass-climbing cleats if she works for him for seven years. And she agrees, which, again, no clue why - she hasn't been given any indication that her missing bull is up the hill. And she walked around the entire base searching for a way up, so she could have just kept going.

After seven years she climbs the hill in her special shoes, and meets another washerwoman. This one is apparently a little less magical, and not a fantastic person.

She tells our girl about a knight who will marry whoever washes his dirty clothes. Which is where we really start getting "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" vibes - it's the return of the magic laundry. The washerwoman can't wash the clothes. Her daughter can't wash the clothes. But our girl falls madly in love with this knight - um, honey, what about the bull you've been doing all this work to find? - and she's able to wash his clothes, through the purity of her love or something, idk.

The washerwoman lies to the knight and tells him that her daughter washed the clothes, a wedding date is set, and our girl is devastated. She gets out her magic apple, finds a bunch of jewels inside, and gives them all to the washerwoman's daughter in exchange for a night with the knight before their wedding. The washerwoman drugs him, so he sleeps straight through her speech about the seven years of hard work she's put into bringing about their reunion, and, okay, when and how, exactly, did she figure out that her bull and the knight were the same person? Because this is literally the first time it's come up in the text. I mean, it was obvious to us, but it shouldn't have been obvious to her, right?

I'm so confused.

Things move forward predictably from here - she makes the same deal with the pear and the plum, eventually someone tells the knight about all the noise someone's making in his bedroom at night, and he doesn't take the drugged drink on the final night. He's reunited with our girl, and they burn the washerwoman and her daughter (details on this move not provided) and live happily ever after.

This story...this story is just...wow.

I have so many unanswered questions. There are so many plotholes. This is such a mess.

Why are we choosing husbands based on who (or what) walks past a washerwoman's door first? Why does the bull have to fight an Old One? What does that even mean? Why can't he find her again if she moves at all, and for how many hours or days was she expected to hold completely still? Why did he have to leave her in the middle of nowhere, instead of one of the THREE castles we just visited?

Why did she feel the need to go after him instead of just going home? Why was she so determined to climb the glass hill, when she's fully capable of walking around it, and we have no evidence that the bull is even up there? If shoes that can climb that hill are worth seven years of labor, why are the washerwoman and her daughter just chilling up there? They can't possibly be getting a lot of business.

How did the knight get up there? Why is his clothing magically dirty? Is it from his fight with the Old One? Has our girl actually met him as the knight, or just heard about him? How does she know who he is? When does she figure out who he is? Why are we, the audience, not kept up to date about this discovery?

I just - it's a mess. I give up.

Prince, Bear, Brother?

 So there’s a particular detail of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” that’s always stood out to me, but I’ve never seen anyone address it before. This is the line in question, from right after our girl first sees the prince:

So the evil troll who enchanted him. Is also his evil stepmother? Which. Just. It raises so many questions. Especially as the next few lines go on to clarify that the princess in question is his stepmother’s daughter. Meaning she’s his stepsister.

(Also. Gotta love the fact that he takes the time in the middle of this little panic attack to mention just how long his bride-to-be's nose is. BTW, an ell seems to vary in length from 18 inches to 50+ inches depending on time and location. Anyway, three of them is longer than any nose should be.)

Why did this prince’s father marry a troll? And, if he married the troll, why would she need his son to marry her daughter? She’s already the queen, right?

I guess we can probably assume the prince’s father/the troll queen’s husband is dead by now. I mean, if he’s not, I have some serious doubts about his parenting. Good dads do not let their new wives turn their children into bears—that’s just irresponsible.

So we’ve got a dead king and an enchanted prince. Which would presumably leave the troll queen and her daughter in control of the kingdom. Except they don’t seem to be in that kingdom? They’re hanging out in the land east of the sun west of the moon, which seems to be a troll land, and therefore not the kingdom that the dead king and the enchanted prince are from.

Unless maybe they’re only the king (prince consort?) and prince by virtue of having married into a troll royal family?

But none of this really explains why the troll stepmother wants her stepson to marry her daughter.  It could be to maintain her hold on the kingdom he’d inherit, assuming he has a kingdom of his own. Except she’s not currently even living in that kingdom. And she already turned the dude into a bear, which you’d think would leave her in charge by default, as the regent or something? Unless he has a brother or uncle or someone who would be next in line.

I’m rambling. The point is, I don’t really understand why this troll lady turned her stepson into a bear, or why she wants him to marry his stepsister.

Which. That’s another thing. How old were these two when their parents got married? What kind of relationship do they have? Does this troll girl even want to marry her brother-ish person? Did these kids grow up together? Exactly how weird is this situation?

I have no conclusions today. I only have questions. I’m just kind of surprised that in all of the retellings, essays, blog posts, etc. I’ve read about this story over the past 20-ish years, no one has addressed this potential relationship. I guess I will someday—an “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” retelling is way, way down somewhere on my project list. (If you’re wondering how long it’s been on my to-do list for, it seemed reasonable to name my main character “Siri” when I started.) In the meantime, if you can think of anything that touches on this element, let me know.

White Bears

So the other day I was flipping through my Kay Nielsen-illustrated “East of the Sun and West of the Moon” collection with my mom, because she’d never seen the illustrations before, and they’re some of my favorites. And we weren’t actually reading the stories this time; we were just there to look at pretty pictures. 

The book starts with the titular “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” and therefore some illustrations of white bears. And then we keep going through a few more pages, and suddenly there’s another illustration of a white bear, and at this point I’m thinking “oh, right, ‘White Bear King Valemon.’ Huh. It’s kinda strange that there would be two Norwegian enchanted bridegroom stories where the bridegroom is specifically a white bear.”

And then I flip to the next page, and, granted, at this time I haven’t read “White Bear King Valemon” in a few years, but the next illustration was not at all consistent with what I remembered. So I went back a few pages to discover that this set of white bear illustrations was actually for “The Blue Belt,” and this collection didn’t even include “White Bear King Valemon.”

So let’s talk today about the enchanted bridegroom subset “white bears in Norway.”

Now, the reason I'd forgotten about the white bear bit of "The Blue Belt" is that it's largely inconsequential, just another crazy element in a story packed with crazy. The main character is never actually turned into a bear, but does convincingly disguise himself as one to meet the princess he loves in secret, allowing him to collect insider information to win her hand. The main thing about this story is that, as irrelevant as his white bear disguise is to the plot as a whole, it has resulted in a couple of fantastic illustrations that can easily be used for bear-based enchanted bridegroom stories. But primarily we're here to talk about "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" and "White Bear King Valemon," which are very similar but also completely distinct stories. You can read all about "East-West" here, and this post will be mainly running through how "King Valemon" is different and why we care.

So first off, this is another of those stories where youngest kid is best kid and therefore wins, and specifically the kind of story where it's not something you really want to win - in this case, the right to be kidnapped by a polar bear. All three sisters are princesses, and the bear deemed the older two unworthy to be kidnapped, possibly because they had brains in their heads, which our girl does not seem to.

Bear whisks girl away to palace, joins her in bed at night in human form. And, okay. Remember how in "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," the girl and the enchanted bear have to share a bed for a year, and we really don't know exactly what all they're doing in that bed?

In "White Bear King Valemon," we know exactly what they're doing, and it's exactly what you think. She lives with the bear for three years, and in that time she has three babies. All of whom the bear whisks away immediately. Which, dude, yikes.

I mean, ambiguous bed-sharing with a stranger for one year is already a little, um...well. But getting knocked up by a stranger? Three times? And having all the babies kidnapped by the same white bear who kidnapped you? Who you may or may not have gathered by now is also the stranger who knocked you up? (My money's on not gathering that, because our girl doesn't strike me as the brightest, so far.) Again, yikes. I'm just, like, I'm at a loss for words. "Yikes" is all I've got, guys.

Why does she keep having sex with this man? Does she have a choice? Is this consensual? Why isn't she questioning this man about what on earth is going on here? Why is she not having an enormous fight with the bear and demanding her children back? Why is she allowing herself to become pregnant again when she knows that the baby is going to be taken away by the bear? What does she even think the bear is doing with the babies? 

There comes a time when you just have to say, okay, either the sex stops or we explore period-appropriate alternatives to birth control, because I refuse to bring another child into this world to be eaten by a bear.

After three years and three stolen babies, the girl convinces the bear to let her visit home. Where her mom does the whole "You're doing what? With who? You haven't even seen his face?" bit, only she's even more justified in her concern than the East-West mom, because her daughter is reproducing​ with this man and then allowing her grandbabies to be taken away and possibly eaten by a talking bear​. Like, yes, mom, you tell her; she should absolutely be gathering more information about this situation. There is a time and a place to go with the flow, and that is not​ here and now, sweetheart.

So she goes back with the white bear and lights her little candle, and he wakes up when the tallow drips on him and acts like this is some great betrayal, and not the sensible thing she should have done two and a half years ago when she realized she was pregnant the first time.

He is, like in East-West, just one month from the curse being broken, and I would like to just take a moment to say that is not fair, the troll who cursed him is not playing by the rules, everyone knows the time frame in situations like this is a year and a day, what is this slightly over three years crap?

Bear switches from hot guy back to bear and runs off to where he's supposed to meet the troll or whatever, idk - the girl grabs his fur and tries to go with him, but falls off in the forest somewhere.

She does her best to catch up with him on foot, and on the way she meets three little girls, living with three old women, and each of these girls gives her a gift; these gifts are what she will trade to the troll for three nights with the white bear - well, with King Valemon, now that his bear-curse is over. He's drugged on the first two nights, and they can finally talk on the third, just like in East-West. But instead of Fun With Laundry, in this story they make a trap door for the troll to fall through when she's walking down the aisle. Which. Lame.

With the troll handled, King Valemon takes our girl home, but on the way we stop to collect the three little girls who helped her. Because those are their kids, who he, get this, "had taken so they could aid in her quest." The quest that didn't exist yet at the time, because he hadn't been taken by the troll yet, and had no reason yet to suspect that she would look at his face - I mean, the girl was having babies with him and not bothering about the face, so I would have considered it a safe bet that she would continue not bothering, and taking the babies was definitely overkill.

Also, like. She lived with him for three years and had three babies. After three years, she visits her parents, and then she looks at him with the candle; this all seems to happen pretty quickly. Which means the oldest girl might, maybe, possibly be as old as three, but probably she's younger. We should have an age range of infant to toddler here. And yet all three are described as little girls, not babies, and all three seem able to effectively communicate. So that's a bit of a plot hole. Gotta love timeline inconsistency. 

In conclusion: "East of the Sun, West of the Moon"? Beautiful, meaningful story, perfect, magnificent, 25 out of ten. "White Bear King Valemon?" Garbage story full of garbage characters who make garbage decisions, not worth the paper it's printed on, only redeeming feature is mom not putting up with her daughter's absolute idiocy.

West of the Moon

We left our hero (like a year ago, I’m so sorry guys) alone in the middle of nowhere after her bear roommate/super cute nighttime visitor was swept away by his evil troll mother. A brief recap: if she had slept with mystery man for one more month without curiosity, the spell would have broken and he wouldn’t have had to be a bear anymore. However, her mom convinced her that maybe she should KNOW WHO SHE WAS SLEEPING WITH, so she lit a candle and checked him out in the middle of the night. Now he has to marry his evil troll stepmother’s evil troll daughter, in a land that lies east of the sun and west of the moon.

She decides she’d better go there and rescue him—maybe because she feels guilty, maybe because he’s super cute, maybe both. Astronomy is no help here, so she chooses a direction at random, walking until she meets a little old lady.

The little old lady doesn’t know how to get east of the sun and west of the moon, but she gives our girl directions to a second little old lady, a loaner horse so she can get there faster, and a golden apple. (She always gives her a golden something; the specifics vary but this set seems to be the most common.)

The second little old lady also can’t help us get to the troll palace, but she can help with another horse, directions to another old lady, and a golden carding comb. Old lady number three gives her a golden spinning wheel and sends her to the east wind, and can we all just pause and take a moment to consider the difficulty of lugging around a whole entire spinning wheel made out of solid gold? This poor girl.

The east wind can’t help. The west wind can’t help. The south wind can’t help. Finally she gets to the north wind, who once blew a single leaf east of the sun and west of the moon. He knows where it is, and he’s up for a challenge—our girl is significantly heavier than a leaf, but he manages it with great difficulty.

Girl positions herself outside step-sister troll’s window with the golden apple. Troll expresses interest in the apple, and they make a deal—apple in exchange for one night with the troll’s future husband/stepbrother.

Now it may seem odd that she’s so unconcerned by who he spends his nights with, but troll girl’s got this—boy’s all drugged up. Same thing happens the second night, in exchange for the carding comb. Fortunately, our former bear has some friends among the trolls. Which makes sense since they are his step family. Apparently trolls just don’t care about sorta-kinda-almost incest?

Friends let dude know about his nighttime visitor who’s been sitting by his bed and crying while he sleeps for the last two nights. And about the drugging. He doesn’t take the spiked drink on the third night—the spinning wheel night—and he and our girl make a plan.

(Side-note: the text specifies that his friends are Christians. That’s important in a way we’ll get to shortly.)

Tomorrow is the wedding. And before things get going, our bear-dude issues a condition for marrying the troll.

Sure, whatever, says troll-mom. We got magic, we can meet conditions, no big.

Dude whips out the nightshirt our girl spilled candlewax all over. Wash this.

Turns out trolls really, really suck at laundry. Troll bride can’t do it. Troll mom can’t do it. All the other fancy, royal trolls can’t do it. They scrub and scrub and scrub, and the wax stain just gets bigger.

Now some versions of this story make a point of telling us that the trolls can’t wash clothes because they aren’t Christians. Which I think is just, like, really fascinating. I’ve been thinking about this thing—trolls can’t do laundry—for so long.

I’ve considered a few options. Maybe this was a well established fact about trolls at the time, forgotten by history. Maybe these privileged, royal trolls were so far removed from the daily lives of normal, working trolls that things like chores were beyond their comprehension. But my best guess is that we have a Nothing But the Blood of Jesus situation on our hands here. You know, like, “What can wash my sins away? Nothing but the blood of Jesus”? There’s this big thing in hymns and stuff where stain=sin, and this particular wax stain is essentially a physical representation of our heroine’s mistake. Thus, she can wash out her own stain, because though she sinned, this journey is an indication of her repentance, and the Lord is with her now. The trolls cannot wash out the sin, because they are wicked and do not know God.

(Thus far my research supports the theory that 95% of ridiculous fairy tale occurrences in fairy tales recorded in largely Christian areas after the rise of Christianity can be explained by something I learned in Sunday School. See also: Prince Lindworm.)

So. The troll bride fails to meet the conditions set for the marriage, and all of the trolls are so upset about this that they literally explode.  And everyone else lives happily ever after!

East of the Sun

(Repost in Preparation for Part II next week)

There is a peasant in the woods, and his family is large and he is poor and his children are terribly ill.

One day, a large white bear comes up to him in the woods and says, “Hey, man, if you give me your youngest daughter I’ll give you a ton of money and your crops will prosper and your kids will be healthy.”

And the father is all like, “Excuse me? We do not just give people away. Especially to talking forest creatures. She’s a person, not a pair of spare boots.”

He pauses, considering the general financial situation of his family.

“I’ll ask her if she’s interested.”

Initially, our girl is not wildly enthusiastic about this opportunity, and hey, who could blame her? But things are pretty bad at home, and if she can help, well.

The bear comes back and she climbs on his back, and they travel far and far and far away, to a beautiful castle in the snow. And the bear goes off to do bear things, and the girl goes to the fancy bedroom provided. Night falls. Sleep falls.

And then, the door opens. And then, some dude gets into bed with her. And our girl, she just rolls with it. Like, okay, I’m in a magic castle with a talking bear, hundreds of miles away from everyone and everything I’ve ever known, and now there’s a strange man in my bed. Whatever.

I dunno. Maybe she’s thinking, well hey, at least it’s not the bear. Maybe she’s just too freaked out to react. Who knows?

But this keeps happening. Night after night after night. And she keeps letting it. Are they lying there in awkward silence? Are they talking? Are they sleeping? Are they having sex?

I mean, okay, they’re definitely having sex, because that’s just how fairy tales work—they never spell it out, but the implication is always there.

Anyway. Most of a year goes by. Girl gets homesick. Talks to bear. The bear is a pretty cool bear, because he’s like, “Yeah, sure, but you can only visit for a month. And also, um, please don’t talk to your mom alone?”

Now me, I’d think that last bit was a little sketchy. But our girl figures it’s a pretty good deal.

Her mom, on the other hand, her mom agrees with me. Sketchy. And of course, she manages to get her daughter alone eventually. And then she finds out about how her daughter is spending her nights.

In a move that will eternally villainize her, as it has countless other concerned fairy tale parents, mom objects.

“You’re sleeping with a strange man every night? You’ve never even seen his face? Are you even using protection? Did you listen to none of my lectures about safe sex and stranger danger? This is not okay. This is really not okay. Here. I’m gonna give you a candle and some matches. And the next time this creep shows up in your bedroom, you’re going to wait until he falls asleep, and then you’re going to light the candle and figure out what you’re dealing with.”

So when she gets back to the castle with the bear, our girl listens to her mom and lights her candle.

And this guy she’s been sleeping with for eleven months? Turns out he’s really, really cute. Like, record-shatteringly cute. Like, my-mom-would-totally-understand cute. Like, I-am-physically-incapable-of-looking-away-from-his-beautiful-face-and-my-candle-is-dripping-onto-his-nightshirt cute.

Then the hot wax gets to him, and the cute guy wakes up.

Turns out our boy is the enchanted talking bear, and he just had to get through one more month of sleeping with this girl while providing no information about himself, and the spell would have been broken and he could be a person full time again.

But now the girl, having exactly zero information about what was going on and what was expected of her, has screwed up. So he has to go to a land east of the sun and west of the moon to marry his evil troll stepmother’s evil troll daughter.

Stepmom comes, boy and castle disappear, girl is left alone in the snow. End Part One.

East of the Sun

There is a peasant in the woods, and his family is large and he is poor and his children are terribly ill.

One day, a large white bear comes up to him in the woods and says, “Hey, man, if you give me your youngest daughter I’ll give you a ton of money and your crops will prosper and your kids will be healthy.”

And the father is all like, “Excuse me? We do not just give people away. Especially to talking forest creatures. She’s a person, not a pair of spare boots.”

He pauses, considering the general financial situation of his family.

“I’ll ask her if she’s interested.”

Initially, our girl is not wildly enthusiastic about this opportunity, and hey, who could blame her? But things are pretty bad at home, and if she can help, well.

The bear comes back and she climbs on his back, and they travel far and far and far away, to a beautiful castle in the snow. And the bear goes off to do bear things, and the girl goes to the fancy bedroom provided. Night falls. Sleep falls.

And then, the door opens. And then, some dude gets into bed with her. And our girl, she just rolls with it. Like, okay, I’m in a magic castle with a talking bear, hundreds of miles away from everyone and everything I’ve ever known, and now there’s a strange man in my bed. Whatever.

I dunno. Maybe she’s thinking, well hey, at least it’s not the bear. Maybe she’s just too freaked out to react. Who knows?

But this keeps happening. Night after night after night. And she keeps letting it. Are they lying there in awkward silence? Are they talking? Are they sleeping? Are they having sex?

I mean, okay, they’re definitely having sex, because that’s just how fairy tales work—they never spell it out, but the implication is always there.

Anyway. Most of a year goes by. Girl gets homesick. Talks to bear. The bear is a pretty cool bear, because he’s like, “Yeah, sure, but you can only visit for a month. And also, um, please don’t talk to your mom alone?”

Now me, I’d think that last bit was a little sketchy. But our girl figures it’s a pretty good deal.

Her mom, on the other hand, her mom agrees with me. Sketchy. And of course, she manages to get her daughter alone eventually. And then she finds out about how her daughter is spending her nights.

In a move that will eternally villainize her, as it has countless other concerned fairy tale parents, mom objects.

“You’re sleeping with a strange man every night? You’ve never even seen his face? Are you even using protection? Did you listen to none of my lectures about safe sex and stranger danger? This is not okay. This is really not okay. Here. I’m gonna give you a candle and some matches. And the next time this creep shows up in your bedroom, you’re going to wait until he falls asleep, and then you’re going to light the candle and figure out what you’re dealing with.”

So when she gets back to the castle with the bear, our girl listens to her mom and lights her candle.

And this guy she’s been sleeping with for eleven months? Turns out he’s really, really cute. Like, record-shatteringly cute. Like, my-mom-would-totally-understand cute. Like, I-am-physically-incapable-of-looking-away-from-his-beautiful-face-and-my-candle-is-dripping-onto-his-nightshirt cute.

Then the hot wax gets to him, and the cute guy wakes up.

Turns out our boy is the enchanted talking bear, and he just had to get through one more month of sleeping with this girl while providing no information about himself, and the spell would have been broken and he could be a person full time again.

But now the girl, having exactly zero information about what was going on and what was expected of her, has screwed up. So he has to go to a land east of the sun and west of the moon to marry his evil troll stepmother’s evil troll daughter.

Stepmom comes, boy and castle disappear, girl is left alone in the snow. End Part One.