A String of Pearls Twined With Golden Flowers - Commentary

Commentary

The opening sequence, of a woman promising to bear fabulous children and their kidnapping, is a common fairy tale motif, but in most such tales -- Ancilotto, King of Provino, The Three Little Birds, The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird, The Wicked Sisters -- the children are abandoned, rather than murdered. The villains are overwhelmingly the heroine's jealous sisters, or her mother-in-law, rather than a rival as in this tale.

The transformation chase described here is found in another Romanian tale of this type, The Boys with the Golden Stars. Even in this tale, however, the villain of the piece is the mother-in-law. The Chinese The Pretty Little Calf has the child murdered and restored in animal form; only the transformation to and from the title calf occurs, but it is more closely related to this tale in the villains, who are the first and second wife, the heroine being an official's third wife. This is all.