The Enchanted Pig: The Princess Who Crossed the World to Find Her Husband

Once upon a time, a king had three daughters whom he loved dearly. When war called him away from his kingdom, he entrusted them with the keys to his palace. They could enter every room except one at the back, in the right-hand corner. He warned them that disobeying this command would bring misfortune.

The Princesses promised to obey. For a while, they kept themselves occupied with sewing, reading and walks through the garden. But as the days passed, curiosity overcame their patience. The eldest wondered what their father could be hiding, and the second agreed that looking inside could do no harm. Only the youngest feared that their father must have had a good reason for forbidding the room.

Her sisters persuaded her to follow them. When the eldest unlocked the door, they found a bare room containing a table covered with a fine cloth and an enormous open book.

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The eldest turned a page and discovered that she would marry a prince from the East. The second read that her husband would come from the West. Both were delighted.

Then they made their youngest sister approach the book. Trembling, she read her own fate: she would marry a pig from the North.

The Princess was horrified. Her sisters laughed away her fears, insisting that such a marriage was impossible. Yet the prediction haunted her. She felt guilty for disobeying her father and gradually lost her appetite, her cheerfulness and her love of the garden.

When the King returned victorious from war, he soon noticed his youngest daughter’s unhappiness. After questioning his children, he discovered their disobedience. Though deeply distressed, he could not undo what had happened. He comforted them and hoped that the misfortune might somehow be avoided.

In time, the book’s first two predictions came true. A prince from the East married the eldest Princess, and a prince from the West won the hand of the second. Their weddings filled the palace with celebration, but each marriage made the youngest more certain that her own dreadful fate was approaching.

The Pig from the North

One day, an enormous pig arrived at the palace and greeted the King with the polished manners of a nobleman. He announced that he had come to marry the youngest Princess.

The King was astonished. He would have refused, but the palace and the surrounding streets were filled with pigs, leaving him little choice. The visitor demanded that the wedding take place within a week and insisted that the King swear to honour the agreement.

The King called his daughter and urged her to accept what could not be avoided. He suspected that the Pig had once been human and that magic was responsible for his appearance. If she treated him kindly and did as he asked, he believed that Heaven might eventually deliver her from her troubles.

The Princess agreed.

After the wedding, the couple travelled towards the Pig’s home in a thick forest. On the way, he stopped beside a bog, rolled in the mud until he was filthy, then returned to the carriage and demanded a kiss. Remembering her father’s advice, the Princess wiped his snout with her handkerchief and kissed him.

That night, she discovered something extraordinary. While she slept, the Pig became a man. Every morning, however, he returned to his animal form before she awoke. This continued night after night, and the Princess gradually grew fond of her husband, whose human nature was gentle and kind.

The Broken Thread

One day, an old woman passed the house. Lonely for human company, the Princess invited her in and explained her husband’s strange condition.

The woman claimed to understand magic and offered to help. She gave the Princess a thread and instructed her to tie it firmly around her husband’s left foot while he slept. If she succeeded without waking him, he would remain a man when morning came. She warned the Princess to keep the plan secret.

That night, the Princess crept beside her sleeping husband and began tying the thread around his foot. Just as she tightened the knot, it snapped. The thread was rotten.

Her husband awoke in distress. He told her that only three more days remained before the curse would have ended naturally. Her attempt to hasten his release had ruined everything, and now he would have to remain enchanted for three more years.

He vanished, leaving her alone with the knowledge that she had lost him through an act intended to help him. Before disappearing, he declared that they would not meet again until she had worn out three pairs of iron shoes and blunted a steel staff searching for him.

The Princess wept, but grief could not bring him back. She ordered the iron shoes and steel staff, then set out with determination to find her husband.

The Homes of the Moon, the Sun and the Wind

Her journey took her across vast distances, through forests, over difficult ground and across lands that seemed almost impossible for a human being to cross. At last, exhausted but still hopeful, she reached the house of the Moon.

The Moon’s mother welcomed her, cared for her and listened to her story. While staying there, the Princess gave birth to a baby. She asked whether the Moon could reveal her husband’s whereabouts, but the answer was no. Instead, the Moon’s mother advised her to travel east towards the house of the Sun.

Before the Princess left, her hostess gave her a roasted chicken and warned her to keep every bone. The bones, she said, might prove useful. The Princess thanked her, put on her second pair of iron shoes and continued her journey with her baby, staff and bundle of bones.

She crossed deserts and rocky mountains, struggled through swamps and climbed treacherous slopes until she reached the Sun’s palace. The Sun’s mother pitied her suffering and hid her from her son, who was often bad-tempered when he returned home.

The Princess wondered how the Sun, who brought light to the world, could be angry. His mother explained that he was cheerful in the morning, troubled by the evil he witnessed during the day, and sorrowful and angry by evening. When she asked him about the missing husband, he could offer no answer.

The Sun’s mother therefore sent the Princess to seek the Wind. She gave her another roasted chicken and repeated the warning about preserving the bones. The Princess discarded her worn-out shoes and set off in her third pair.

The journey to the Wind’s home was even more terrible. She crossed burning mountains of flint, untouched forests and icy fields, nearly perishing from exhaustion. At last, she reached a vast cave where the Wind lived. His mother took pity on her and offered her shelter.

The following morning, she revealed that the Princess’s husband lived in a forest so dense that no axe had ever opened a path through it. He had built himself a rough dwelling from tree trunks and lived there alone, avoiding other people.

After giving the Princess another chicken and reminding her to save the bones, the Wind’s mother directed her along the Milky Way towards the forest.

The Princess thanked her and continued, driven by her longing to see her husband again. Before long, her third pair of iron shoes fell apart. She threw them away and walked barefoot, enduring thorns, mud and stones.

At last, she reached a green meadow beside the forest. The birds singing among the trees reminded her of her absent husband, and she wept before gathering her strength and entering the woods.

For three days and three nights, she searched through the dense forest. Exhausted, hungry and close to despair, she finally discovered a strange house hidden in a thicket. It had no windows, and its only door was high in the roof. There were no steps or ladders to help her reach it.

Then she remembered the chicken bones she had carried across the world.

The Ladder of Bones and the Prince’s Return

The Princess took out the bones and began joining them together. To her amazement, they held fast. She arranged them into two long supports and added the remaining bones across them to make the rungs of a ladder.

Near the top, she discovered that she had run out of bones. Without one final rung, she could not reach the door. Desperate to complete the ladder, she cut off her little finger and placed it in the gap. It held just like the bones, allowing her to climb into the house with her baby.

Inside, she found food and a place to rest. She fed herself, laid her child in a trough and waited.

When her husband returned, he was alarmed by the strange ladder and the finger at its top. Fearing another enchantment, he nearly turned away. Then he transformed himself into a dove and flew into the house without touching the ladder.

There he saw a woman rocking a child. The hardships of the journey had changed her, but he recognised the love and sacrifice behind her presence. Overwhelmed by affection and pity, he suddenly became a man.

The Princess rose in fear because she did not recognise him at first. When he explained who he was, her joy overwhelmed every memory of suffering. They embraced, and she told him everything she had endured to find him.

The prince then revealed the truth. He was the son of a king who had been fighting dragons that threatened his country. After he killed the youngest dragon, its mother, a witch, cursed him and turned him into a pig. The same witch had disguised herself as the old woman who gave the Princess the thread. Her trick had prevented the curse from ending when it should have.

Now the couple had found each other again, and the prince asked that they leave their painful past behind.

The next morning, they travelled to his father’s kingdom. The royal family welcomed them with great joy, and the palace celebrated their return with three days and three nights of feasting.

Afterwards, the couple visited the Princess’s father. The old King was overjoyed to see his daughter alive and well. When she recounted her adventures, he reminded her that he had suspected the Pig was not what he appeared to be.

Since the King had grown old and had no heirs, he placed the Princess and her husband on his throne. Having endured hardship and learned the cost of suffering, they ruled wisely and happily. And, as the tale concludes, if they have not died, they are still living and ruling to this day.

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Moral

Do not judge others by their outward appearance, and do not mistake a difficult beginning for an unhappy ending. Love, patience and perseverance can carry people through great hardship, while good intentions must sometimes be guided by wisdom and care.

Knowledge Check

1. Why did the three Princesses enter the forbidden room?

They became curious about what their father had forbidden them to see and allowed their curiosity to overcome his warning.

2. What did the book predict for the youngest Princess?

It predicted that she would marry a pig from the North.

3. Why did the Princess’s attempt to free her husband fail?

The thread supplied by the disguised witch broke as she tied it around his foot. Her husband explained that the curse would otherwise have ended naturally three days later.

4. Whom did the Princess visit while searching for her husband?

She visited the homes of the Moon, the Sun and the Wind, whose mothers offered shelter and helped her continue her search.

5. How did the Princess reach her husband’s house?

She joined the saved chicken bones to make a ladder and used her little finger to complete the final rung.

6. Who had turned the prince into a pig?

The mother of the young dragon he had killed, a witch who later disguised herself as the old woman and tricked the Princess with the thread.

7. What happens at the end of the tale?

The couple reunite, return to the prince’s kingdom and then visit the Princess’s father, who gives them his throne.

Source

Lang, Andrew, editor. The Red Fairy Book. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1890. “The Enchanted Pig.” The tale was translated into German by Mite Kremnitz in Rumänische Märchen (1882) before its appearance in Lang’s collection.

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