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Sweetheart Roland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sweetheart Roland is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, number 56.
It combines several Aarne-Thompson types: type 1119, Ogres Kill Their Own Children; type 313C, the girl helps the hero flee; and type 884, the forgotten fiancée. Others of the second type include The Master Maid, The Water Nixie, Nix Nought Nothing, and Foundling-Bird. Others of the third type include The Twelve Huntsmen and The True Bride. The Two Kings' Children, like this one, combines the 313C and the 884 types.
A witch had a daughter, whom she loved, and a stepdaughter she hated. Her daughter wanted the stepsister's apron, and her mother promised she would have it: she would chop off her stepsister's head in the night, and the daughter was to make sure she lay by the wall, and her stepsister in the front of the bed. The stepdaughter overheard this and, after her stepsister slept, shifted their places. The witch cut off her own daughter's head, and the stepdaughter rose and went to her sweetheart Roland, telling what had happened, and that they had to flee.
Roland said they must take her silver wand. The stepsister went back to take it, and leave three drops of blood. When, in the morning, the witch called, the drops of blood answered her, but when she could not see her daughter where she heard the voice, she went into the bedroom and saw her dead daughter. Raging, she set out after them in many league boots.
The girl turned herself into a duck, and Roland into a pond, and the witch was unable to lure the duck to her, and had to return home that night. The girl and Roland went on, and when, the next day, the witch caught them again, she turned Roland into a fiddler and herself into a flower in a brier-hedge. The witch asked permission to pick the flower, and got it, but when she crawled into the hedge, Roland played his fiddle, which forced her to dance until the thorns tore her to death.
Roland went to his father to arrange for the wedding, and the girl remained as a red boundary-stone, but a woman made Roland forget her. Sad, the girl turned herself into a flower, thinking that someone would trample her. A shepherd picked her and took her home. He found that whenever he left, all the housework was done in his absence. At the advice of a wisewoman, he threw a white cloth when he saw something move in the morning, and this revealed the girl. She agreed to keep house for him.
At Roland's wedding, all the girls about sang, as was the custom, and Roland recognized his true love and married her instead of his new bride.