The Glass Mountain (fairy tale)

"The Glass Mountain" (Szklanna Góra) is a Polish story fairy tale, translated from the original Polish into German as Der Glasberg.[1] The tale was also compiled by Hermann Kletke and sourced as from Poland.[2]

This article is about the fairy tale. For other uses, see Glass Mountain.

Andrew Lang included a translation into English in The Yellow Fairy Book. Further publications followed suit, keeping the name.[3][4]

The name also appears as a mythical location in a different story, Old Rinkrank, one of the original Brothers Grimm fairytales, "Glassberg" or "Glasberg" in the original German.

The tale is classified as Aarne–Thompson type 530, "The Princess on the Glass Hill".[5]

Synopsis

The Polish story begins with: On a glass mountain grew a tree with golden apples. An apple would let the picker into the golden castle where an enchanted princess lived. Many knights had tried and failed, so that many bodies lay about the mountain.

A knight in golden armor tried. One day, he made it halfway up and calmly went down again. The second day, he tried for the top, and was climbing steadily when an eagle attacked him. He and his horse fell to their deaths.

A schoolboy killed a lynx and climbed with its claws attached to his feet and hands. Weary, he rested on the slope. The eagle thought he was carrion and flew down to eat him. The boy grabbed it, and it, trying to shake him off, carried him the rest of the way. He cut off its feet and fell into the apple tree. The peels of the apples cured his wounds, and he picked more, to let him into the castle. He married the princess.

The blood of the eagle restored to life everyone who had died trying to climb the mountain.

Origin

John Th. Honti speculated that the fairy tale has its roots in an 11th-century BCE Egyptian story, the "Tale of the Predestined Prince".[6] Other scholars have asserted the tale comes from India.

Analysis

The tale type is said to be one of the most frequent in Polish tradition,[7] with several variants grouped under the banner Szklanna Góra (The Glass Mountain).[8][9][10]

Polish ethnographer Oskar Kolberg, in his extensive collection of Polish folktales, compiled several variants: O trzech braciach rycerzach ("About three knightly brothers"),[11] O głupim kominiarzu,[12] O głupim z trzech braci ("About the foolish of the three brothers"),[13] Klechda.[14]

In a Masurian (Poland) tale, Der Ritt in das vierte Stockwerk ("The Ride to the Fourth Floor"), the youngest son of a farmer holds a vigil on his father's grave, receives a magical horse and tries to beat the King's challenge: to find the princess in the fourth floor of the castle.[15]

References
  1. Wójcicki, Kazimierz Władysław; and Friedrich Heinrich Lewestan. Polnische Volkssagen Und Märchen. Berlin: Schlesingersche Buch- und Musikhandlung, 1839. pp. 115-119.
  2. Kletke, Hermann. Märchensaal: Märchen aller völker für Jung und Alt. Zweiter Band. Berlin: C. Reimarus. 1845. pp. 106-108.
  3. Wonder-World: a Collection of Fairy Tales, Old And New. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1875. pp. 150-154.
  4. Byrde, Elsie. The Polish Fairy Book. London: T. Fisher Unwin LTD. 1925. pp. 179-183.
  5. Zipes, Jack (2019). "Speaking the Truth with Folk and Fairy Tales: The Power of the Powerless". The Journal of American Folklore. 132 (525): 243–259. doi:10.5406/jamerfolk.132.525.0243. JSTOR 10.5406/jamerfolk.132.525.0243.
  6. John Th., Honti (June 1936). "Celtic Studies and European Folk-Tale Research". Béaloideas. 6 (1): 33–39. doi:10.2307/20521905. JSTOR 20521905.
  7. Folktales and Fairy Tales: Traditions and Texts from around the World - Volume 3. Edited by Anne E. Duggan and Donald Haase with Helen J. Callow. 2nd edition. Greenwood Press. 2016. p. 935. ISBN 978-1-61069-253-3
  8. Wójcicki, Kazimierz Władysław. Klechdy: starożytne podania i powieści ludu polskiego i Rusi. Tom II. w Warszawie: w Drukarni Piotra Baryckiego. 1837. pp. 34-43.
  9. Kolberg, Oskar. Lud: Jego zwyczaje, sposób życia, mowa, podania, przysłowia, obrzędy, gusła, zabawy, pieśni, muzyka i tańce. Serya XIV. Kraków: w drukarni Dr. Ludwika Gumplowicza. 1881. pp. 3-7.
  10. "O szklannéj górze". In: Kolberg, Oskar. Lud: Jego zwyczaje, sposób życia, mowa, podania, przysłowia, obrzędy, gusła, zabawy, pieśni, muzyka i tańce. Serya III. Kraków: 1862. pp. 127-129.
  11. Kolberg, Oskar. Lud: jego zwyczaje, sposób życia, mowa, podania, przysłowia, obrzędy, gusła, zabawy, pieśni, muzyka i tańce. Serya 8. Kraków: 1875. pp. 1-3.
  12. Kolberg, Oskar. Lud: jego zwyczaje, sposób życia, mowa, podania, przysłowia, obrzędy, gusła, zabawy, pieśni, muzyka i tańce. Serya 8. Kraków: 1875. pp. 3-5.
  13. Kolberg, Oskar. Lud: jego zwyczaje, sposób życia, mowa, podania, przysłowia, obrzędy, gusła, zabawy, pieśni, muzyka i tańce. Serya 8. Kraków: 1875. pp. 5-6.
  14. Kolberg, Oskar. Lud: Jego zwyczaje, sposób życia, mowa, podania, przysłowia, obrzędy, gusła, zabawy, pieśni, muzyka i tańce. Serya I. Kraków: 1865. pp. 274-276.
  15. Töppen, Max. Aberglauben aus Masuren mit einem Anhange: enthaltend: Masurische Sagen und Märchen. Danzig: Verlag von B. Vertling. 1867. pp. 148-150.

Further reading
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