Origins of the hero Jean de l'Ours in most cases is the child of a mother and a bear. However, in some versions his origins are less clearly defined, i.e. his mother is already pregnant before being captured, and then gives birth to him, though he is nevertheless born a half-bear, half-human (Cosquin's version above). Professor Michael Meraklis cited that the episode of a lion or bear stealing a human woman and the hero born of this "living arrangement" must preserve "the original form of the tale", since it harks back to the ancient and primitive notion that humans and animals could freely interact in a mythical shared past. In the same vein, by analysing Central Asian, Caucasian and Siberian variants of the animal-born hero, Russian scholarship concluded that the bear represents a
totem or ancestor figure and the encounter of the human (a married woman or a married man) with the animal happens in the forest, a
locus for the totem/ancestor. In addition, Karelian scholarship recognizes that the animal as an abductor of women shows very ancient character - a possible totemic remembrance - and the bear appears the most in Russian,
Karelian,
Vepsian and
Ingrian variants of tale type 650A, "Ivan, The Bear's Ear". By comparing Romanian variants of type 301 to international tales, French philologist
Jean Boutière, in his doctoral thesis, surmised that "much more often (especially in the West)", the hero is born of a union between a woman and a bear, but elsewhere, "notably in the East", the hero is the son of a mare, a she-donkey or even of a cow. On the other hand, ethnologue saw two different types of the ''Bear's Son
narrative: one Eurasian, which follows the usual narrative very closely, and an American (Indigenous), "belong[ing] ... to British Columbia, the adjacent Yukon and southern Alaska", also known as The Girl Who Married the Bear
or The Bear Mother''. ranging to 10,000 pounds (Carnoy ed.) in a version from Provence. The cane's weight can even be 100,000 pounds, in a cognate tale from
Brittany called "Yves of the iron stick", but this tale gives no bear-associated origins for the hero, and belongs in a group characterized by Delarue as being in the "periphery", to be distinguished from the main group of French tales that includes the representative example (Soldiers' version). There are other examples where the hero is "John Iron-Stick", named after his cane (e.g.,
Jean Bâton de Fer, from a manuscript collection of tales from
Nièvres,) but this tale also lacks the bear-origins opening. From Brittany, there is also
Jean au bâton de fer, where the hero is in the mother's womb for 3 years. as well as a version given in both translation and in the
Breton language original,
Jean a la Bar de Fer aka
Iann he vaz houarn. Other times, the cane is not iron, but an
oak trunk of an equally imposing size.
The companions of the hero The strong hero meets two (or more) equally strong companions in his travels: a man whose name is related to a type of tree ("Pine-twister") and another with abilities related to rock or stone ("Cliff-breaker"). According to Romanian scholar Petru Caraman (
ro), in variants from Eastern Europe and from
Slavic languages, they may be known as "Dughina", "Dubyna", "Vernidub", "Vertodub" or "Vyrvidub", and "Goryńa", "Vernigora", "Vertogor" or "Valigora". The pair of heroic brothers
Waligora and Wydrzudab, from Polish legend, also belong to the same semantic field. In Western Europe, they correspond to French heroes "Tord-Chêne" and "Appuie-Montagne" (or "Liebois" and "Tranchemontagne") and German "Baumdreher" and "Steinzerreiber". English scholar
A. H. Wratislaw translated
Vertogor as ‘Overturn-hill’ and
Vertodub as ‘Overturn-oak’. Fellow British scholar
William Ralston Shedden-Ralston translated
Vertodub as "Tree-extractor" and
Vertogor as "Mountain leveller" - both derived from
Russian vertyet’, 'to twirl';
dub, 'tree' or 'oak', and
gora, 'mountain'. He also compared Vertodub to German Baumdreher (or Holzkrummacher) and Vertogor to his counterpart Steinzerreiber (or Felsenkripperer). These characters also exist in
Romance languages variants.
George Calinescu and indicated two counterparts in
Romanian tales:
Sfarma-Piâtra and
Strimba-Lemne. In
Portuguese, they are known as "Arrinca-pinheiros" ("Tears-out-pines") and "Abaixa-montes" ("Smashes-hills"); in more modern and less folksy Portuguese the former is called "Arranca-Pinheiros". In tales from
Bashkirs, the central character (a supernaturally powerful man) meets two or more companions: a man named Tau-Batyr (or Gora-Batyr, from Russian
gora, 'mountain'), strong enough to move mountains, and another called Urman-Batyr or Imyan-Batyr (or Les-Batyr, from Russian
les, 'forest'), strong enough to carry oak trees.
The perils of the castle The hero's adversary at the "haunted" castle is typically a dwarf (or little man) who might be capable of becoming a giant, or just a giant, or it may be the devil in some instances. In the underworld, hordes of devils (or a devil) as enemies are a commonplace, but the devil(s) can be the hero's informant or both. After tabulating the variants he collected in the
Philippines for a general overview of the narrative, professor
Dean Fansler noted that the event of the hero fighting the dwarf or devil who beat his companions "occur[red] in nearly all the folk-tales of the 'John the Bear' type".
Rescue of the princesses in the underworld Folklorist William Bernard McCarthy, who published many variants of the tale type collected from American storytellers, noted that in all versions the rescue of the princesses from the underworld seemed to be a central part of the story. Likewise, Robert Barakat emphasized that the tale type AT 301 can be decomposed into 6 episodes, two of which "the stolen princesses" (episode nr. 3) and "the rescue of the maidens" (episode nr. 4). for
Les Légendes de France (1883).
Further adventures in the underworld In many variants, the hero is alerted by the princesses or discovers by himself two animals (goats or rams), one of a white color and the other of a black color. The white animal can take him to the surface, the black one will lead him further into the underworld. Either because he forgets this piece of information, or he is desperate to find an exit, he climbs onto the black animal and descends further into the strange underground realm. Often, it leads him to another kingdom, where a dragon has blocked all water sources and demands as ransom the sacrifice of a maiden (tale type ATU 300, "The
Dragonslayer"). French comparativist
Emmanuel Cosquin noted, in a monograph, the occurrence of the black and white animals in Greek, Turkish, Armenian tales, and in a story told by
Hanna Diyab in 1709 to
Antoine Galland. He noted that the event of the escape flight on the giant bird occurred as the closing episode of the second underworld. Professor Michael Meraklis remarked that this episode is "usual" in Greek variants, and also happens "in many Anatolian versions". This episode also appears in "some Jewish versions", which is confirmed by scholar Heda Jason's analysis of the Jewish Oriental tale corpus. Similarly, Swedish scholar located the motif of the hero's descent into the second underworld on the goat or other animal in countries around the Black Sea and among the Arabs. Further studies by professors and Joseph Szövérffy indicate that this narrative also appears in Eastern Europe and Asia. A geographical analysis by Joseph Szövérffy pointed that this incident appears in Balkanic, Turkish and Caucasian variants. In addition, a pattern of migration seems to indicate that this motif spread from the Balkans in one route and into North Africa from another. Comparativist limits the incidence of the two rams motif around the Mediterranean area, "but not beyond the
Maghreb, the Middle
Volga and
Pamir." Scholar
Jiří Polívka listed other occurrences of the motif across European tales. Professor Raluca Nicolae interpreted this occurrence as alternance of a night and day cycle.
Escape from the Underworld: the flight on the eagle's back The escape frequently involves a ride on the back of a giant bird, usually an eagle (as in the Soldier's version), sometimes a
Roc. Versions also exist where the bird is a legendary avian creature, such as the Persian
Simurgh, the Azeri
Zumrud, the Turkish
Zümrütü Anka, the
Arabian bird
Anqa, the
Georgian Paskunji or a
griffin. In American variants of the tale type, the hero is carried on the wings of a
buzzard. In the tale types AaTh 301, AaTh 301A and AaTh 301B, the hero, in the underworld, rescues the bird chicks of a tree nest and their father, in gratitude, takes him back to the surface. According to professor Nemanja Radulović, "this episode can be considered as the stable part of these tale-types". In that regard, professor Amar Annus suggests that both motifs ("the slaying of a dragon and the hero’s journey on an eagle’s back") were combined into "one coherent narrative" that "may have existed orally in ancient
Mesopotamia". On his way to the upper/surface world, the hero is advised by the eagle to bring him huge amounts of meat and drink to feed it on the arduous journey back. Eventually, the hero runs out of meat to feed his avian saviour and decides to rip pieces of his own flesh, to give the eagle energy to finish the journey. According to Hungarian scholarship, the motif of a hero feeding parts of his own flesh to the animal that transports him to the upper world is "found in the entire folk tale repertoire of
Eurasia", in connection to the tale type
ATU 301, "The Three Stolen Princesses". In regards to the journey on the eagle's back, folklorist scholarship recognizes its similarities with the tale of
Etana helping an eagle, a tale type later classified as ATU 537, "The Eagle as helper: hero carried on the wings of a helpful eagle". In her analysis of Armenian tale
The Son of the Gray Horse, Professor Susie Hoogasian-Villa cited two Romani variants, one from Bukovina, where the hero of unusual birth is carried by the eagle, and one Welsh, where a dwarf takes the hero to the surface world. Mythologist
Mircea Eliade pointed that the motif can also be found in
Siberian
shamanism, and tales from Siberian folklore attest the transport of the hero by the eagle or another bird species from the depths of Hell to the world's surface. The geographical distribution of tale type ATU 301 with the presence of this motif seems to be spread along "
Europe, large parts of
Central Asia and the
Middle East,
China (Miao),
Canada and
South America". In the same vein,
Bernard Sergent suggested that the motif of a hero feeding parts of his own flesh to the eagle he uses to escape the underworld may actually show considerable antiquity. He suggested this motif, numbered B322.1 in
Stith Thompson's
Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, is the most ancient part of the tale type, being traceable to the
Paleolithic.
Fate of the unfaithful companions The ungrateful companions suffer various fates: either disappear, are punished, or forgiven depending on the version. ==Pyrenees==