''Vesle Åse Gåsepike'' (''Little Annie the Goose-Girl'') is a Norwegian

fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...

collected by

Peter Christen Asbjørnsen Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (15 January 18125 January 1885) was a Norwegian writer and scholar. He and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe were collectors of Norwegian folklore. They were so closely united in their lives' work that their folk tale collection ...

and

Jørgen Moe Jørgen Engebretsen Moe (22 April 1813–27 March 1882) was a Norwegian folklorist, bishop, poet, and author. He is best known for the ''Norske Folkeeventyr'', a collection of Norwegian folk tales which he edited in collaboration with Peter ...

in ''

Norske Folkeeventyr ''Norwegian Folktales'' ( no, Norske folkeeventyr) is a collection of Norwegian folktales and legends by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. It is also known as ''Asbjørnsen and Moe'', after the collectors. Asbjørnsen and Moe Asbj ...

''. It has also been translated as ''Little Lucy Goosey Girl'', and classified as Aarne-Thompson tale type 870A.

Synopsis

Little Aase (she is "Annie" or "Lucy" in English versions) worked for the king as a goose-girl. One day, she sat on the road to see the king's son. He warned her not to look to have him, and she declared that if she was to have him, she would. The Prince looked over all the pictures of princesses sent him, and chose one. He had a stone that knew everything and would answer questions, so Aase warned the princess that if there were anything about her that she didn't want the prince to know, she had best not step on the stone that lay beside the bed. The princess asked that Aase get into the bed, and then, when the prince was asleep, Aase would get out and the princess would get in. When Aase got in, the prince asked who stepped into his bed, and was told a maid, but when the princess and Aase had traded places, the princess got out in the morning, the prince asked who stepped out, and the stone said someone who has borne three babies. He sent her away, and sent for another princess. From his warning to Aase not to think to have him, to the princess's stepping out of bed, it went as with the first, except that this princess had borne six. He sent her away, and sent for a

third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * Second#Sexagesimal divisions of calendar time and day, 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (d ...

. But this time, when Aase was still in bed with him, he put a ring on her finger, too tight for her to get off again. When the third princess proved to have borne nine babies, he asked the stone the trick, and it told him how the princesses had all put Aase in their place. The prince went to find Aase. She had a rag tied about her finger, and although she claimed to have cut herself, he pulled it off and found the ring. So they wed, and Aase had the king's son after all.

Literary analogues

The tale is grouped under Aarne-Thompson tale type 870A "The Little Goose-Girl". It is similar to ''

Maid Maleen "Maid Maleen" (german: Jungfrau Maleen) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, number 198. It is Aarne–Thompson type 870, the entombed princess.D.L. Ashliman,The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales (Grimms' Fairy T ...

'' (type 870), in which the heroine also substitutes for a false bride who stands in no relationship to her, and takes her place. A ''

Gil Brenton "Gil Brenton" is Child ballad 5, Roud 22, existing in several variants. Synopsis A man (often described as a king or lord) has brought home a foreign woman to be his wife. In several variants, the bride is warned that if she is not a maiden (i ...

'',

Child ballad The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as '' ...

5, and its Scandavian variants, uses the same elements as this fairy tale to rather different effect. The hero, on learning that the pregnant bride has substituted a servant who is a maiden, then learns through her story or various tokens he gave her that he is the father of her child. The substitution of a maiden for the non-virgin bride is found earlier in many forms of the legend of

Tristan and Iseult Tristan and Iseult, also known as Tristan and Isolde and other names, is a medieval chivalric romance told in numerous variations since the 12th century. Based on a Celtic legend and possibly other sources, the tale is a tragedy about the illic ...

; Iseult, having lost her virginity to Tristan on the journey, substitutes her maid Brangwin.

Commentary

When

George Webbe Dasent Sir George Webbe Dasent, D. C. L. (1817–1896) was a British translator of folk tales and contributor to ''The Times''. Life Dasent was born 22 May 1817 at St. Vincent, British West Indies, the son of the attorney general, John Roche Dasent. Hi ...

made his translation of these tales, in his preface he forbade children to read the last two stories, of which this was one.

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...

cited this in his essay "

On Fairy-Stories "On Fairy-Stories" is an essay by J. R. R. Tolkien which discusses the fairy story as a literary form. It was written as a lecture entitled "Fairy Stories" for the Andrew Lang lecture at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, on 8 March 1939 ...

"; although he approved of Dasent's refusal to let prudery dictate his translation, Tolkien thought the command sprang from the belief that fairy tales were naturally children's literature.J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories" , ''The Tolkien Reader'', p. 43.

Footnotes

References

;translations * * {{Refend Norwegian fairy tales Norwegian folklore Fictional servants Female characters in fairy tales ATU 850-999 Asbjørnsen and Moe

Synopsis

Literary analogues

Commentary

See also

Footnotes

References