"The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate" is an Indian

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 ...

, included by

Andrew Lang Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 – 20 July 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University ...

in ''

The Brown Fairy Book ''The Langs' Fairy Books'' are a series of 25 collections of true and fictional stories for children published between 1889 and 1913 by Andrew Lang and his wife, Leonora Blanche Alleyne. The best known books of the series are the 12 collections ...

''.

Synopsis

A king with a daughter once was lost while hunting and met a hermit, who

prophesied In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a ''prophet'') by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or pret ...

that his daughter would marry a slave woman's son, who belonged to the king of the north. As soon as he left the forest, he sent an offer to the king of the north for the slave woman and her son. The other king made him a present of them. He took them into the forest and cut off the woman's head, and

left Left may refer to: Music * ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relative direction opposite of right * L ...

the child there. A widow who raised goats found that her best nanny-goat returned without a drop of milk. She followed the animal when it went to the child, and thought she had at last a son to look after her in her old age. When the boy was grown, a peddler's donkey started to eat his mother's cabbages, and so he beat it and drove it out. The tale was borne to the peddler, with added claims that the boy had threatened to kill the peddler. The peddler complained to the king, who sent men to seize the boy. The old woman pleaded for his life, because she needed him to support her. The king, not believing that so old a woman could have so young a son, demanded to know where she had gotten him, and hearing the story, knew who the child was. The king let him off if he joined the army. When the army life did not kill him, though he was sent on the most dangerous missions, and he proved a good soldier, he was enrolled in the king's bodyguard and saved him from an assassin. The king was obliged to make him an attendant, and in his missions for the king, he was continually attacked but always escaped. Finally, the king sent him with a message to a distant governor, who had charge of the princess. The mischievous princess was up and about while the rest of the castle slept in the heat of the day and found that the message was to kill the bearer of it. She substituted a letter ordering the governor to marry him to the princess. The king, on receiving the news, abandoned his efforts to harm the boy.

Analysis

Folklorist Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...

Stith Thompson Stith Thompson (March 7, 1885 – January 10, 1976) was an American folklorist: he has been described as "America's most important folklorist". He is the "Thompson" of the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index, which indexes folktales by type, and the ...

mentions in his seminal work ''The Folktale'' that the tale of the boy predestined to marry a princess can be found in the literary history of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, such is its antiquity. The tale has several variants found across cultures about a poor boy that is "protected by Fate".Čechová, Mariana; Klimková, Simona. ''Studi Slavistici''; Florence Vol. 16, (2019): 77-89. DOI:10.13128/Studi_Slavis-7474

References

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Synopsis

Analysis

See also

References

Further reading