The Goat's Ears of the Emperor Trojan ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, У цара Тројана козје уши, U cara Trojana kozje uši, separator=" / ") is a South Slavic

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

published by Serbian author

Vuk Karadžić Vuk Stefanović Karadžić ( sr-Cyrl, Вук Стефановић Караџић, ; 6 November 1787 (26 October OS)7 February 1864) was a Serbian philologist, anthropologist and linguist. He was one of the most important reformers of the moder ...

in 1870.

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 folkloristics, collector of folklore, folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectur ...

included it in ''

The Violet Fairy Book ''The Langs' Fairy Books'' are a series of 25 collections of true and fictional children's literature, stories for children published between 1889 in literature, 1889 and 1913 in literature, 1913 by Andrew Lang and Leonora Blanche Alleyne, a marr ...

''. It was translated from a German version of Vuk Karadžić's ''Serbian Fairy Tales''. The tale was also translated by John Naake as ''The Emperor Trojan's Goat's Ears'' and published in ''Slavonic Fairy Tales''. The incident appears as part of the legends of

Midas Midas (; ) was a king of Phrygia with whom many myths became associated, as well as two later members of the Phrygian royal house. His father was Gordias, and his mother was Cybele. The most famous King Midas is popularly remembered in Greek m ...

in classical times, but not all of the legend appears in the fairy tale.

Synopsis

The emperor Trojan had goat's ears, but kept this fact a secret from the populace. Every day, he had a new barber whom he would ask if he noticed anything strange; when the man answered that he had goat's ears, he was put to death. One day, an apprentice went, and said that he saw nothing strange, so he remained as the emperor's barber. The apprentice found his secret troubling him. His master advised him to tell him, the master, or his pastor, or to whisper it into a hole in the ground. The apprentice dug a hole, whispered into it that the emperor had goat's ears, and filled it up again. An elder tree grew there, someone cut a branch and made a flute, but the only thing the flute would play was "The Emperor Trojan has goat's ears." The news spread, and the emperor discovered it and wormed the secret out of the apprentice. He had the last branch cut and found the flute made from it was the same. He spared the apprentice's life but did not keep him on as his barber.

Translations

Another translation of the tale indicated its origin as

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

and titled it ''The Emperor Has Goat’s Ears''.

Analysis

Tale type

The tale is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 782, "

and the Donkey's Ears". The type is characterized by a figure of authority (e.g., a king) having strange physical traits (an animal's ears) which his personal servants take notice and lose their lives because of it. The talking reeds are responsible for revealing the king's shameful secret.

Predecessors

French scholar Marie-Louise Teneze pointed to a mediaeval and Celtic origin for the tale type. The tale type also appears in Irish manuscripts of the 10th and 14th century, with horse-eared characters (namely, Labhraidh Loingseach and King Mark of Cornwall), but its legends are presumed to be much older.

Distribution

As cited by Zeljko Jovanovic, Croatian folklorist

Maja Bošković-Stulli Maja Bošković-Stulli (9 November 1922 – 14 August 2012) was a Croatian slavicist and folklorist, literary historian, writer, publisher and an academic, noted for her extensive research of Croatian oral literature. Early life Bošković-St ...

located variants from four continents, in "Korea, Tibet, India, Israel, Egypt, Russia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Chile, Argentina, Cuba and the Dominican Republic". The ass's ears seem to be the more prevalent secret, but variants also exist with horse's ears, horse's head, or some animal horn. According to

Jurjen van der Kooi Jurjen van der Kooi ( Hurdegaryp, 22 December 1943 – Drachten, 4 September 2018) was a Dutch university lecturer and folklorist from Frisia. He was widely recognized as an authority in the field of folk tales from Frisia, Northern Netherlands a ...

, variants of the tale type can be found in Southern and Southeastern Europe, North Africa and South America. In the Islamic cultural area, the kingly character is named Iskander and has two horns. In the 19th century, German philologist Bernhard Schmidt noted that the story of Midas's ears could be found in

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, of or about Wales * Welsh language, spoken in Wales * Welsh people, an ethnic group native to Wales Places * Welsh, Arkansas, U.S. * Welsh, Louisiana, U.S. * Welsh, Ohio, U.S. * Welsh Basin, during t ...

, Irish and

Breton Breton most often refers to: *anything associated with Brittany, and generally **Breton people **Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany ** Breton (horse), a breed **Gale ...

sagas, as well as in Servia and in Mongolia. Further studies show that variants of the tale type exist in Central Asia and India, as well as in an Ancient

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

n written source (the ''

Samguk yusa ''Samguk yusa'' (; ) or ''Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms'' is a collection of legends, folktales, and historical accounts relating to the Three Kingdoms of Korea (Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla), as well as to other periods and states before, d ...

''), about King

Gyeongmun of Silla Gyeongmun (846–875), personal name Kim Ŭng-nyŏm, was the 48th ruler of the Korean kingdom of Silla.Il-yeon: ''Samguk Yusa: Legends and History of the Three Kingdoms of Ancient Korea'', translated by Tae-Hung Ha and Grafton K. Mintz. Boo ...

Variants

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

n variant was collected with the name "" ("Tsar Troyan - Goat's Ears"). Croatian folklorist Maja Bošković-Stulli noted that in Serbo-Croatian territory there exist "no homogeneous redaction", but many "local" versions of Midas's legend.Bošković-Stulli, Maja. “Regional Variations in Folktales.” In: ''Journal of the Folklore Institute'' 3, no. 3 (1966): 300. https://doi.org/10.2307/3813803.

Notes and references

External links

''The Goat's Ears of the Emperor Trojan''Multimedia site on the fairy tale

The original text of the tale
in the

Wikisource Wikisource is an online wiki-based digital library of free-content source text, textual sources operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole; it is also the name for each instance of that project, one f ...

The Emperor Trojan's Goat's Ears
by John Naake at Wikisource

by D. L. Ashliman {{DEFAULTSORT:Goat's Ears of the Emperor Trojan, The Goat's Ears of the Emperor Trojan Fictional Serbian people ATU 750-849