According to Daniel Aranda, the tale type develops the narrative in two eras: the tale of the calumniated wife as the first; and the adventures of the children as the second, wherein the mother becomes the
object of their quest. In the same vein, French folklorist Marie-Louise Thénèze noted that the narrative occurs across two generations: the first one, represented by the calumniated wife/mother (the "passive hero"), and the second one, with her children as the "true protagonists" or "active heroes".
The Persecuted Wife and Jealous Sisters noted that the mother of the wonder children may be persecuted by her own elder sisters, by a step-relative (step-sister or step-mother), or by her mother-in-law. French comparativist
Emmanuel Cosquin suggested that, in a hypothetical original form of the tale, the three sisters all wished to marry the king. German-Chilean philologist
Rodolfo Lenz, complementing Cosquin's study, remarked that the elder sisters promise practical things, like cooking a grand meal, weaving such a garment for the king, sewing a special piece of clothing, etc. Similarly, French ethnologist , in regards to a Kabylian variant, noted that the sisters' jealousy originated from their perceived infertility, and that their promises of grand feats of domestic chores were a matter of "capital importance" to them. Renato Aprile also remarked that in the "almost majority" of the variants, the three sisters are seamstresses. Ethnologist
Verrier Elwin commented that the motif of jealous queens, instead of jealous sisters, is present in a
polygamous context: the queens replace the youngest queen's child (children) with animals or objects and accuse the woman of infidelity. The queen is then banished and forced to work in a humiliating job. In other variants, the calumniated woman is
buried up to the torso or
immured as punishment for her false crime.
The Wonder Children The story of the birth of the wonderful children can be found in
Medieval author Johannes de Alta Silva's (), a Latin version of the
Seven Sages of Rome.
Dolopathos also comprises the
Knight of the Swan cycle of stories. This version of the tale preserves the motif of the wonder-children, which are born "with golden chains around their necks", the substitution for animals and the degradation of the mother, but merges with the fairy tale
The Six Swans, where brothers transformed into birds are rescued by the efforts of their sister, which is
Aarne-Thompson 451, "The boys or brothers transformed into birds". a lord encounters a mysterious woman (clearly a
swan maiden or
fairy) in the act of bathing, while clutching a gold necklace, they marry and she gives birth to a
septuplet, six boys and a girl, with golden chains about their necks. But her evil mother-in-law swaps the newborn with seven puppies. The servant with orders to kill the children in the forest just
abandons them under a tree. The young lord is told by his wicked mother that his bride gave birth to a litter of pups, and he punishes her by burying her up to the neck for seven years. Some time later, the young lord while hunting encounters the children in the forest, and the wicked mother's lie starts to unravel. The servant is sent out to search them, and finds the boys bathing in the form of swans, with their sister guarding their gold chains. The servant steals the boys' chains, preventing them from changing back to human form, and the chains are taken to a goldsmith to be melted down to make a goblet. The swan-boys land in the young lord's pond, and their sister, who can still transform back and forth into human shape by the magic of her chain, goes to the castle to obtain bread to her brothers. Eventually the young lord asks her story so the truth comes out. The goldsmith was actually unable to melt down the chains, and had kept them for himself. These are now restored back to the six boys, and they regain their powers, except one, whose chain the smith had damaged in the attempt. So he alone is stuck in swan form. The work goes on to say obliquely hints that this is the swan in the Swan Knight tale, more precisely, that this was the swan " ('that tugged by a gold chain an armed knight in a boat')." a rhyming story of the ATU 706 type (
The Maiden Without Hands). India-born author
Maive Stokes suggested, in her notes to the Indian version she collected, that the motif of the children's "silver chains
(sic)" of the
Dolopathos tale was parallel to the astronomical motifs on the children's bodies.
The mother's prediction French scholar Gédeon Huet commented on a motif of the
Dolopathos tale: near the beginning of the story, after she makes love to the human lord under the veil of night, the strange maiden (called
nympha in the Latin text) knows beforehand she will give birth to seven children, six boys and a girl. In Huet's opinion, this prediction can be attributed to her superhuman wisdom, since she is a
fée (a supernatural woman, in the more general sense). Huet also concluded that this detail about the fée's prediction must have originated from an earlier literary version. Professor Anne E. Duggan remarked that, in some tales of type 707, the mother (the third sister) predicts the number of children she will have, and the wonderful traits they will bear. In the same vein, Bulgarian researcher Vanya Mateeva called attention to the children's parentage: a man of noble birth and a woman of low social standing who, despite her humble status, is able to bear children with special birthmarks.
Fate of the Wonder Children When the jealous sisters or jealous co-wives replace the royal children for animals and objects, they either bury the children in the garden (the twins become trees) in some variants, or put the siblings in a box and cast it into the water (river, stream). Likewise, Emmanuel Cosquin listed that the motif of the "coffre flottant" ("The Floating Chest") shows parallels with mythological accounts: Muslim/Javanese
Raden Pakou, Assyro-Sumerian
king Sargon, Hindu epic hero
Karna. , in an article in
Revue des Études Juives, complements Cosquin's analysis with instances of the same motif in Moses's narrative, in different traditions.
The animal foster parent for Jacobs's ''Europa's Fairy Book'' (1916). After the stepmother or queen's sisters abandon the babies in the forest, in several variants the twins or triplets are reared by a wild animal. This motif also appears in versions of the tale of the
Knight of the Swan: the nympha's children are suckled by a hind (in the
Dolopathos), or by a "fair white goat" in the
Beatrix redaction. The episode recalls similar mythological stories about half-human, half-divine sons abandoned in the woods and suckled by a female animal. Such stories have been dramatized in Ancient Greek plays of
Euripides and
Sophocles. This episode also happens in myths about the childhood of some gods (e.g,
Zeus and fairy or she-goat
Amalthea,
Telephus,
Dionysus). Professor Giulia Pedrucci suggests that the unusual breastfeeding by the female animal (such as a cow, a hind, a deer, or a she-wolf) sets the hero apart from the "normal" and "civilized" world and puts them on a road to achieve a great destiny, since many of these heroes and gods become founders of dynasties and/or kings.
Astronomical signs on bodies The motif of astronomical signs on the children's bodies has been compared to a similar motif in Russian fairy tales and healing incantations, as in the formula "a red star or sun in the front, a moon on the back of the neck and a body covered with stars". However, Western scholars interpret the motif as a sign of royalty or an indicative of the children's noble birth. 19th-century India-born author
Maive Stokes noted that the motif of children born with stars, moon or a sun in some part of their bodies occurred to heroes and heroines of both Asian and European fairy tales. Likewise, according to Swedish scholar Waldemar Liungman, a "common motif" of the wonder children "in the Orient" is them having golden hair or a star or moon on their forehead. Apart from the astronomical motifs, scholarship points another sign that marks the extraordinary children: a metallic colour on some body part. In the East Slavic tale type SUS 707, the wonderful children are described as having arms of gold up to the elbow and legs of silver up to the knee. According to Russian folklorist
S. Y. Neklyudov, in tales from the
Mongolic peoples, the children show a golden chest, often combined with a silver backside. Barbara Walker noted that the colour of the children's hair (golden or silver) also serves to distinguish them, and, according to Christine Goldberg, their adoptive parents may sell their metallic hair. In a late 19th century article, Finnish folklorist
Antti Aarne noted that Finnish variants "always" ("всегда") begin with the three sisters, and the youngest promising to bear children with marvellous qualities: golden hands and silver feet, or with astral birthmarks (moon on the forehead and sun on the
crown). Similarly, according to Karelian scholarship, in
Karelian variants of tale type 707 the wonder children may be described as being born with hands of gold and legs of silver, sometimes in conjunction with astral birthmarks on their bodies (the
Sun, the
moon,
stars and the
Ursa Major constellation). In that regard, Karelian researchers argue that the astral birthmarks are reminiscent of pagan times, since, in mythology, such traits are attributes of deities. In addition, Bulgarian researcher Vanya Mateeva draws a parallel between the folkloric notion of a person's fate written on the front and the children's luminous or astral birthmarks on their foreheads, which seem to predict a grand destiny for them. In a later study, Khemlet argues that variants of later tradition gradually lose the
fantasy elements and a more realistic narrative emerges, with the fantastical becoming unreal and with more development of the characters' psychological state.
The Three Treasures Folklorist Christine Goldberg, in the entry of the tale type in
Enzyklopädie des Märchens, based on historical and geographical evidence, concluded that the
quest for the treasures was a later development of the narrative, inserted into the tale type. Professor Don Beecher is also of the notion that the quest for the objects was an addition to the "ancient tale" of the accused queen.
Richard MacGillivray Dawkins stated that "as a rule there are three quests" and the third item is "almost always ... a magical speaking bird". In other variants, according to scholar
Hasan El-Shamy, the quest objects include "the dancing plant, the singing object and the truth-speaking bird". The
Brothers Grimm, in their notes to the German tale
The Three Little Birds, equated the Golden Water of the
Arabian tale with the Dancing Water of the
Italian tale, and related both to the mythic quest for the Water of Life. Czech scholar remarked that, in this tale type, after the heroine quests for the speaking bird, the singing tree and the water of life, she uses the water as remedy to restore her brothers after they are petrified for failing the quest. In regards to Lithuanian variants where the object of the quest is the "yellow water" or "golden water", Lithuanian scholarship suggests that the color of the water evokes a sun or dawn motif. ;The Speaking Bird In some variants from Middle Eastern, Arab or Armenian sources, the Speaking Bird may be named
Hazaran Bulbul,
Bülbülhesar or some variation thereof. It has been noted that the name refers to the Persian nightingale (
Pycnonotus hæmorrhous), whose complete name is
Bulbul-i-hazár-dástán ("Bird of a Thousand Tales"). According to
August Leskien, the word
bülbül comes from
Persian and means "
nightingale".
Hazar also comes from Persian and means "a thousand". In this context, he speculated,
hazar is an abbreviation of an expression that means "a thousand stories" or "a thousand voices". In another translation, the name is
Hazaran, meaning "bird of a thousand songs". On the other hand, according to Barbara K. Walker, "Hazaran" refers to an
Iranian location famed for its breed of nightingales. ;The Singing Tree According to Bulgarian folklorist , in Bulgarian variants, the tree belongs to a woman named Dunya-Guzeli, and may be described as a
poplar, a
willow or a
broom. The tree is also able to produce sounds and many sorts of music. Italian folklorist Stanislao Prato suggested that the tree that sings (or produces sounds) could be equated to the "Tree of Immortality" that appears in literature, for instance, in Chinese tales and poetry. ==Variations==