KidLit Forum

The Silent Princess
By Dr. Ignác Kúnos/ Dr. Ignaz Künos
Illustrations by Willy Pogany

Ignác Kúnos was a Hungarian linguist, turkologist, and folklorist. He was not a fairy tale writer; he just observed and studied the Turkish folklore and collected fairy tales and folk tales that were published in Hungarian and other European languages.

The Silent Princess was published in English in 1913, in his volume Forty-four Turkish Fairy Tales. The story was also published by Andrew Lang in his volume, inspired from this story, which appeared in the volume Türkische Volksmärchen aus Stambul, 1905. But the story, having the same title, is written in a different manner, with simpler words.

The author kept in the story the Turkish words, he did not translate them, and at the end of the book there is like a Glossary, named simply “Meaning of Turkish words used in the text”.
“HERE was once a Padishah who had a son…”
“The Shahzada … threw his ball at the old woman's jug and broke it.”
“he gave his permission and appointed his lala to accompany the young Prince on his journey.”

In Propp’s vision, each tale has a sequence of functions. In the summary of the tale I identified these functions, in the order of the facts.

0. Initial situation. The little Prince, a Padishah’s son, broke a woman’s jugs, three times, while playing with his golden ball. Very angry, the woman curses him to fall in love with the Silent Princess. As years were passing, he began to think more and more to the words of that woman and this made him suffer.
1. Absentation. No doctor could find the cure, until one day when the boy reveals to his father the fact he was cursed and asks permission to go and search for the Princess. The Padishah agreed, and appointed his lala (Court chamberlain) to accompany the young Prince on his journey.
11. Departure. The prince traveled for six months and arrived at the summit of a glittering mountain, which “brilliance came from the brilliance of the Princess’ countenance, even though she wore a sevenfold veil”.
They find out that that they are on the mountain of the Silent Princess, and that many men had lost their lives in vain attempts to elicit a word from the Princess. After another six months they arrived in a village, at another summit of a mountain that was blood-red. He was informed that that “three months' journey distant lived the Silent Princess, whose red lips reflected their hue on the mountain before.” Here, the prince wanted to rest and make inquiries.
10. Beginning Counter-action. When they reached at the third mountain, thy observed that it was built entirely from skulls and there were a lot of mourners, who tried to warn him about the situation. The Prince should first get the permission of the sultan to see the princess. But as he had no plan of how to make her speak, he decided to wait.
14. Receipt of a magical agent. While walking into the public market, he bought a nightingale, which could talk.
15. Guidance. It offered to help the Prince. The bird advised him to take her with him and place her under a lamp-stand. And when the Princess wouldn’t speak a word, he must address to the lamp-stand. The prince obeyed. The princess didn’t speak a word, so he spoke to the lamp-stand, and the nightingale said she would tell him a story about a king who set three wooers to learn something, and the cleverest shall have his daughter. “The first learnt how to go a six months' journey in an hour, the second, how to make himself invisible, the third how to bring the dead to life again. All three arrived back simultaneously at the spring. He who could make himself invisible said the Padishah's daughter was very ill and would die in two hours; the other said he would prepare a medicine that would restore her to life again; the third volunteered to deliver the medicine. Quicker than lightning he was at the palace, in the chamber where the Princess lay dead. Hardly had the medicine touched her lips than she sat up as well as ever she had been”. The prince and the nightingale argued whether the second or the third had done the better, until the princess burst out that it would have been useless without the first, who should have her.
A slave ran to inform the sultan, but the Princess protested, saying that she was the victim of a ruse and he should be considered victorious only after making her speak three times. She destroyed the lamp stand.
The next night, the nightingale was hidden on a stand by the wall and the Prince talked to it. The nightingale told the story of a woman who had refused her pretenders for many years, until she discovered a white hair in her head and decided to pick one. She put them to test. She told the first pretender that “my father is dead, and I have buried him in the garden; but his spirit appears to torment me. If you love me wrap yourself in the winding-sheet and go and lie for three hours in the grave; then my father's spirit will haunt me no more.” He accepted. For the second pretender “she repeated the story of her father's death and burial, and giving him a large stone, told him to go to the grave, and when the ghost appeared, to hit him with it”. The third got another task: “my father is dead and buried in the garden. One of his enemies is a sorcerer; he is now lying in wait to carry off the body; as you may see he has already opened the grave with that intention. If you can bring me the corpse out of the grave all will be well; if not, I am lost”. Again, the nightingale and the prince argued whether the second or third pretender had done the best, until the Princess said it was the first.
The third night, the nightingale was put behind the door, and told the prince the story of a carpenter, a tailor, and a softa (student of religious law) who lived in the same house. The carpenter formed an image of a charming woman from a piece of wood; the tailor dressed it; the softa prayed to Allah that she become a living woman. The nightingale and the Prince argued again. The carpenter or the tailor should have the right to marry the woman? The princess said that the softa should have her.
18. Victory. The Prince had won, her veils fell, and she agreed to marry the Prince.
20. Return. The Prince wished his marriage to take place in his father’s palace.
31. Wedding. Great was the rejoicing when he arrived home with his bride. The wedding lasted for forty days and forty nights. They sent for the woman whose jugs he had been broken, and she became the nurse of their children.

According to the ATU (Aarne-Thompson-Uther) classification, this tale is a tale of magic, because we have here a lot of magical elements. First, the bird can talk. The nightingale talks to the prince and helps him to make the Princess speak. The Princes is also like an enchanted Princess; she wears a sevenfold veil and she never speaks to anyone. The one who could make her speak would become her husband. The glittering mountain, which is at a nine months’ journey distance from the Princess takes its brilliance from her face, although her face is covered with the veil. The same thing happens with the blood-red mountain, which is at a three months’ journey distance from the Princess and takes its color from the reflection of her lips. There is an entire mountain made from the skulls of those who had tried to make the Princess talk.

I identified in the tale four types of characters, after Propp’s classification:
1. the hero, who, thanks to a curse, sets out on a journey to find the silent princess and marry her;
2. the Princes, who has to be earned, by making her speak;
3. her father, who is the only one who can give permission to the hero to see the Princess
4. the magical helper, a nightingale, which can speak and offers to help the hero to fulfill his mission. It teaches the Princess what to do in order to win the Princess.