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Bridesman Sun and Bride Bridekins
Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić (1874-1938) was a Croatian writer, she started writing poetry, diaries and essays, but one of her most popular book was Tales of Long Ago, published in 1916, being praised as the best Croatian writer for children. This collection has as sources of inspiration Slavic mithology and Christian philosophy and is considered to be the best collection of fairy tales in Croatian literature. The first edition of this book consisted of six stories, including Bridesman Sun and Bride Bridekis.
Summary:
Bridesman Sun and Bride Bridekins
The story starts by showing us the context, the family of the hero, namely a miller and his wife who were very greedy, this means that anyone who had to grind their corn, had to leave one measure in payment for every two that the miller had ground.
One day, just about Yuletide, came to the miller an old woman called Mother Muggish who could turn herself into any mortal thing and she could do both good and bad. This woman had a bag of corn to be ground, but the miller didn’t want to grind her corn without dividind the flour into two parts. The woman tried to explain him that she needed all the measure for the Yuletide cake for her grandson, the Sun, but the miller wouldn’t consent to grind for less than one half, so the poor woman went away.
But the miller had a daughter called Bride Bridekins who had a heart of gold. When she was born fairies foretold that at her wedding the Sun should be bridesman. The girl wanted to help the old woman and decided to grind the corn for free, when her parents would leave the mill. Thus, the miller’s daughter ground the corn of Mother Muggish who promised to help her whenever she needed.
From that day, nothing would prosper in the mill without Bride Bridekins, that’s why her parents became jealous of their daughter and, therefore, the girl wanted to get away from there. Mother Muggish offered to help her to find the princess’ key and then, to become her first lady-in-waiting. The girl agreed that offer and the Muggish turned herself into a quail and Bride Bridekins followed her to the meadow in front of the Emperor’s castle where gallant and noble dames were searching the key. There, the beautiful girl was noticed by a boy called Oleg the Warden who was admired by the princess too. When Bride Bridekins found the key she made up her mind to disobey Muggish’s commands and decided to give it to that boy and let the princess to be him true love. Unexpectedly, Oleg the Warden changed his mind and asked Bride Bridekins to be his true love. Thus, they ran away and arrived in the Barren Marches, where they settled their wedding. But the proud princess wanted to take revenge and attacked them with the Emperor’s army. When she was about to destroy them, even though Mother Muggish didn’t want to help them, the Sun was that who saved them and helped them to get married. ‘And such a wedding as they had, and such songs as were sung that day in the Barren Marches you will not find again in a hundred years, nor throughout nine empires’.
According to the Aarne-Thomson-Uther Index I consider that the tale belongs to Tales of Magic
According to Propp’s functions we have:
a) Initial situation
b) Interdiction- there is a rule: the miller don’t grind corn for free except the Emperor in order to gain his favour
c) The miller’s daughter breaks the rule
d) Departure- the hero leaves home
e) Donor: the hero is helped by Mother Muggish
f) Transference: the hero is taken to another place
g) Struggle- the hero is attached by the princess
h) Victory- the villain is defeated
i) Recognition- the hero is recognized
j) Wedding- the hero is married.
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