by Maria Tatar
KING PIG
Italy
Contrary to the notion that stories about animal grooms revive memories of a time when animals were revered as deities or totemic beasts, this Italian tale invites us to feel gratitude that we were not born “brute beasts.” The story appears in The Facetious Nights of Straparola, a collection with a frame narrative set in Murano, Italy, with a group of Venetians, mainly women but also some men, telling stories to while away the time.
Fair ladies, if we were to spend a thousand years giving thanks to our Creator for having made us in the form of humans and not of brute beasts, we could still not be grateful enough. This reflection calls to mind the story of one who was born a pig, but afterward became a comely youth. Nevertheless, to his dying day he was known to the people over whom he ruled as King Pig.
You must know, dear ladies, that Galeotto, King of Anglia, was a man highly blessed in worldly wealth, as well as in his wife, Ersilia, the daughter of Matthias, King of Hungary, a princess who, in virtue and beauty, outshone all the other ladies of the time. And Galeotto was a wise king, ruling his land so that no one ever complained about him. Although they had been married several years, the couple had no children, and for that reason were much aggrieved. While Ersilia was walking one day in her gardens she suddenly felt weary, and, catching sight of a spot covered with fresh green grass, she walked over to it and sat down. Overcome by fatigue and soothed by the sweet singing of the birds in the green foliage, she fell asleep.
While she was sleeping, it happened that three fairies who did not think much of humans walked by. When they beheld the sleeping queen, they stopped, and, gazing upon her beauty, took counsel together how they might bless her and yet at the same time also curse her. Together they agreed to a crafty plan, and the first cried out, “I command that no man shall be able to harm her, and that, the next time she lies with her husband, she will be with child and bear a son who shall not have his equal in all the world for beauty.” Then the second said, “I command that no one shall ever have the power to offend her and that the prince who shall be born of her shall be gifted with every virtue under the sun.” And the third said, “And I command that she shall be the wisest among women, but that the son whom she conceives shall be born in the skin of a pig, with a pig’s ways and manners, and in this state he shall be constrained to remain until he shall have taken a woman to wife three times.”
As soon as the three fairies had flown away, Ersilia woke up, and right away she stood up and returned to the palace, taking with her the flowers she had picked. Not many days passed before she knew herself to be with child, and when the time of her delivery arrived, she gave birth to a son with members like those of a pig and not of a human being. When tidings of this prodigy came to the ears of the king, he was greatly saddened. Bearing in mind how good and wise his queen was, he often felt moved to put this offspring of hers to death and cast it into the sea so that she might be spared the shame of having given birth to him. But when he debated in his mind and considered that this son, whatever he looked like, was of his own begetting, he put aside the cruel purpose which he had been harboring, and, seized with pity and grief, he made up his mind that the son should be brought up and nurtured like a rational being and not as a brute beast. The child, therefore, being nursed with the greatest care, would often be brought to the queen, and he would put his little snout and his little hooves in his mother’s lap. Moved by natural affection, she would caress him by stroking his bristly back with her hand and embracing and kissing him as if he were a human child. Then he would wiggle his tail and give other signs to show that he was aware of his mother’s affection.
As he grew older, the piglet began to speak like a human being and to wander about in the city, but whenever he saw any mud or dirt he would immediately wallow in it, after the manner of pigs, and then return home covered with filth. Then, when he approached the king and queen, he would rub himself against their beautiful garments, defiling them with all manner of dirt. But because he was their son, they endured it without complaint.
One day the pig came home covered in mud and filth, as was his wont, and he lay down on his mother’s beautiful robe, and grunted, “Mother, I wish to get married.” When the queen heard this, she replied, “Don’t talk such foolishness. What maid would ever take you for a husband, and do you think that any nobleman or knight would give his daughter to someone as dirty and unsavory as you?” But the pig kept on grunting that he must have a wife of one sort or another. The queen, not knowing how to manage him in this matter, asked the king what they should do in this time of crisis: “Our son wishes to marry, but where can we find someone who would be willing to take him as a husband?” Every day the pig would return to his mother with the same demand: “I must have a wife, and I won’t leave you in peace until you arrange a marriage with a certain young woman I saw today. I find her very attractive.”
It happened that the young woman he had in mind was the daughter of a poor woman who had three girls, each one of them very lovely. When the queen heard this, she summoned the poor woman and her eldest daughter, and said, “Good mother, you are poor and burdened with children. If you will agree to what I propose, you will be rich. I have a son who is, as you see, in the form of a pig, and I would like him to marry your eldest daughter. Do not focus your thoughts too hard about him, but turn your attention to the king and me, and remember that your daughter will inherit this entire kingdom when the king and I are gone.”
When the young girl heard what the queen had to say, she was deeply upset and blushed for shame. She then said that she had no intention of accepting the queen’s proposition. But the poor mother pleaded so urgently with her to give in that at last she yielded.
When the pig came home, all covered with dirt as usual, his mother said to him, “My son, we have found for you the wife you desire.” And then she had the bride brought in, who by this time had been dressed up in regal attire. She presented the young woman to the pig prince. When he saw how lovely and desirable she was, he was filled with joy. All foul and dirty as he was, he leaped up and down around her, trying with all his might to show his affection by pawing and nuzzling her. But when she saw that he was soiling her beautiful dress, she shoved him aside. The pig asked, “Why are you pushing me away? Wasn’t I the one who had these garments made for you?” She answered him with disdain, “No, neither you nor any one else in this kingdom of hogs has done that for me.”
When it was time to retire, the young girl said to herself, “Whatever am I going to do with this foul beast? Tonight, while he is asleep, I will kill him.”
The pig prince was not far off and heard those words, but said nothing. When the two retired to their chamber he climbed into the bed, stinking and dirty as he was, and defiled the sumptuous bed with his filthy hooves and snout. He lay down next to his wife, who did not take long to fall asleep. Then he struck her with his sharp hooves and drove them into her breast so that he killed her.
The next morning the queen went to visit her daughter-in-law, and to her great distress found that the pig had killed her. When the pig returned from wandering about in the city, he replied to the queen’s bitter reproaches by telling her that he had only treated his wife as she was planning to treat him, and then he withdrew in a dark mood.
Not many days passed before the pig prince began to plead with the queen again, asking her to let him marry one of the other sisters. Even though the queen refused to listen to his request, he kept on insisting and threatened to destroy everything in sight if he were not allowed to remarry.
The queen learned about his threats, and she went to the king and told him everything. He said that it might be wiser to kill their ill-fated offspring before he made some real mischief in the city. But the queen still had tender maternal feelings for her child, and she loved him very dearly despite what he had done. She could not bear the thought of being separated from him. And so she summoned the poor woman to the
palace again, this time with her second daughter. She talked with the child for a long time, pleading with her to marry her son. Finally, the girl agreed to take the pig prince for a husband. But her fate was no better than her sister’s, for the bridegroom killed her, as he had killed his other bride, and then fled swiftly from the palace.
When he returned, as dirty as ever and smelling so foul that no one would go near him, the king and queen railed at him for having committed such an atrocity, but this time too he insisted that, had he not killed her, she would have killed him.
As before, not much time passed before the pig began to plead with his mother again to let him marry the youngest sister, who was more beautiful than either of the two others. When the queen refused his request, he became more insistent than ever. He began threatening the queen’s own life—in terms violent and bloodthirsty—unless the young girl was given to him as a wife. The queen, when she heard his cruel and reprehensible words, was heartbroken. She felt that she was going to lose her mind. But putting all other considerations aside, she summoned the poor woman and her third daughter, who was named Meldina, and said the following to her: “Meldina, my child, I would be ever so pleased if you agreed to take the pig prince as your husband. Don’t pay much mind to him, and just pay attention to his father and me. If you are patient and wise, you have a chance at becoming the happiest woman in the world.”
Meldina turned to the queen with a grateful smile on her face and said that she was quite willing to do as she had asked. She thanked her humbly for seeing fit to choose her as a daughterin-law. After all, she had nothing in the world, and it was a stroke of good fortune that a poor girl like her should become the daughter-in-law of a powerful sovereign. The queen, when she heard these kind, modest words, could not hold back tears of joy. But all the same she feared that Meldina might meet the same terrible fate as her sisters.
The new bride wore jewels and was dressed in regal fashion. She was waiting for the bridegroom. When the pig prince came in, he was dirtier and filthier than ever. What did she do but spread out the skirt of her gown and ask him to lie down by her side. The queen told her to push him away, but Meldina would not comply and said, “There are three wise maxims, gracious queen, which I remember having once heard. The first tells us that it is foolish to search for something that can’t be found. The second tells us to believe only those things that bear the marks of sense and reason. The third tells us that you should hold on to and cherish any rare and precious treasures that come into your possession.”
When the young woman had finished speaking, the pig prince, who had been wide awake and heard everything she said, got up and then kissed her on the face and neck and shoulders and chest with his tongue. She was not at all backward in returning his caresses, and soon he was fired with a warm love for her. When the time came to retire for the night, the bride went to bed and awaited her unseemly spouse. As soon as he climbed into bed, she raised the sheets and told him to come lie next to her and put his head upon the pillow. She covered him carefully with the blankets and drew the curtains so that he would not feel cold.
In the morning, the pig got up and ranged abroad to pasture, as was his wont. Not much later the queen entered the bride’s chamber, expecting to find that she had met with the same fate as her sisters. But then she saw her lying in the bed, muddy as it was, looking entirely pleased and contented. And she thanked the Lord that her son had at last found a spouse who suited him.
A few days later, when the pig prince was talking casually with his wife, he decided to take her into his confidence. “Meldina, my beloved wife,” he said, “if I can be completely sure that you can keep a secret, I will tell you one that I have, something I have kept hidden for many years. I know that you are wise and discreet and that you love me truly. And because of that I want to share my secret with you.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” Meldina said, “for I promise never to reveal it to anyone without your consent.”
Now that he was sure of his wife’s discretion and fidelity, he stood up and shook off from his body the foul and dirty skin of a pig, and stood revealed as a handsome and well-proportioned young man. That night he slept soundly in the arms of his beloved wife. But he warned her to remain silent about the miracle she had witnessed, for the time had not yet come for complete liberation from his misery.
When he left the bed, he put the dirty pig’s hide on again. I leave it to your imagination to consider how great was Meldina’s joy when she discovered that, instead of a pig, she now had a handsome and gallant young prince as husband. Not much later, it turned out that she was with child, and, when the time came, she gave birth to a handsome and comely boy. The joy of the king and queen was unbounded, especially when they saw that the newborn child had the form of a human being and not that of a beast.
The burden of the strange and dark secret that her husband had shared with her weighed heavily on Meldina, and one day she went to her mother-in-law and said, “Gracious queen, when I married your son I believed that I had married a beast, but now I find that you have given me the comeliest, the worthiest, and the most gallant young man ever born as my husband. You must know that when he comes into my chamber to lie by my side, he casts off his dirty hide and leaves it on the ground and changes into a graceful, handsome youth. No one could ever believe this miracle unless they saw it with their own eyes.”
When the queen heard those words she was sure that her daughter-in-law must be jesting, but Meldina insisted that what she said was true. And when the queen asked to witness with her own eyes the truth of this matter, Meldina replied, “Come to my chamber tonight, just as we are falling asleep. I will keep the door open, and you will discover that what I have told you is the truth.”
That same night, when the time came, and everyone else had gone to sleep, the queen had some torches lit and went, accompanied by the king, to the chamber of her son. When she walked in, she saw the pig’s skin lying on the floor in the corner of the room. Then she went over to the bedside and found Meldina lying in the arms of a handsome young man. When the king and queen set eyes on the two of them, their delight was very great, and the king ordered the pig’s hide to be torn to shreds before anyone left the chamber, thus lifting the curse.* The king and queen nearly died from the shock and joy of finding that their son had become human.
And King Galeotto, when he saw that he had so fine a son and a grandchild as well, put aside his diadem and his royal robes and passed the crown on to his son, who was made king with great pomp. Ever afterward he was known as King Pig. To the great joy of the people in the land, the young king began his reign, and he lived long and happily with Meldina, his beloved wife.
THE FROG KING, OR IRON HEINRICH
Germany
The Brothers Grimm made this story the first in their nineteenth-century collection. Some variant forms of the tale feature a princess who admits the frog to her chamber despite his revolting appearance, but most give us a princess who is perfectly capable of committing acts rivaling the cold-blooded violence of dashing a creature against a wall. Scottish and Gaelic versions of “The Frog King” show the princess beheading her suitor. A Polish variant replaces the frog with a snake and recounts in lavish detail the princess’s act of tearing the creature in two. A more tame Lithuanian text requires the burning of the snake’s skin before the prince is freed from his reptilian state. Acts committed in the heat of passion as much as acts of heartfelt compassion have the power to disenchant. Although the princess of “The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich” is self-absorbed, ungrateful, and cruel, in the end she does as well for herself as all of the modest, obedient, and charitable Beauties in other animal-groom tales.
In the olden days, when wishing could still help you, there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful. But the youngest was so beautiful that even the sun, which had seen so much, was filled with wonder when it shone upon her face. There was a dark, vast forest near t
he king’s castle, and in that forest, beneath an old linden tree, was a well. When the weather was really hot, the king’s daughter would go out into the woods and sit down at the edge of the cool well. And if she was ever bored, she would just take out her golden ball, throw it up in the air, and catch it again. That was her favorite toy.
One day it happened that the golden ball didn’t land in the princess’s hands when she reached up to catch it, but fell down on the ground and rolled right into the water. The princess followed it with her eyes, but the ball was gone, and the well was so very deep that you couldn’t see the bottom of it. She began to weep and cried louder and louder, unable to stop herself. While she was wailing, a voice called out to her: “What’s going on, princess? Stones would be moved to pity if they could hear you.”
She turned around to see where the voice was coming from and saw a frog, which had stuck its big old ugly head out of the water.
“Oh, it’s you, you old splasher,” she said. “I’m crying because my golden ball has fallen into the well.”
“You can be quiet and stop crying,” said the frog. “I can help you, but what will you give me if I fetch your toy?”
“Whatever you want, dear frog,” she said. “My dresses, my pearls and jewels, even the golden crown I’m wearing.”
The frog said, “I don’t want your dresses, your pearls and jewels, or your golden crown. But if you promise to cherish me and let me be your companion and playmate, and let me sit beside you at the table and eat from your little golden plate, drink from your little cup, and sleep in your little bed, if you promise me that, I will crawl down into the well and bring back your golden ball.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I’ll give you anything you want as long as you get my ball back.” But to herself she thought, “What nonsense that stupid frog is talking! He’s down there in the water croaking away with all the other frogs. How could anyone want him for a companion?”
