The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy

Author: Andrew Lang

Time Period: 1501 CE–1700 CE

Country or Culture: Romania

Genre: Fairy Tale

Overview

“The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy” is an intriguing fairy tale about a girl who cross-dresses in order to embark on a heroic quest. With the help of her faithful magic horse, the brave Fet-Fruners dresses and acts like a man to achieve astonishing deeds. Part of a long tradition of stories with cross-dressing women, this extraordinary Romanian tale nonetheless raises questions about gender that readers have only begun to explore in recent decades.

The story appears in The Violet Fairy Book, one of twelve anthologies of fairy tales that Scottish scholar Andrew Lang published between 1889 and 1910. Lang’s version of the story tells of a magician-emperor who is asked to send a son to serve a conquering ruler for ten years. Having three daughters and no sons, the magician-emperor sends his youngest daughter dressed as a man, because she alone succeeds at his tests of courage. With her father’s magic horse, Fet-Fruners embarks on a long series of adventures. She first defeats a genie and wins her horse’s younger sibling, named Sunlight, after outwitting the genie’s mother, who suspects she is actually female. She then discovers a golden curl, which belongs to the princess Iliane, whom Fet-Fruners’s new lord wishes to marry.

The rest of the story recounts how this new lord commands Fet-Fruners to fulfill various deeds. First, she must bring Iliane to the emperor, which entails defeating the mother of the genie. Then, Fet-Fruners must capture Iliane’s stud of mares, which she achieves by killing the genie who had first captured Iliane. Finally, when Iliane demands that the emperor deliver a flask of holy water from a church in Jordan, the emperor again commands Fet-Fruners to make the journey. After she steals the flask, Fet-Fruners actually becomes a man when a hermit curses her. When Fet-Fruners returns with the flask, the emperor names him his successor, but Iliane murders the emperor and declares her intention to marry Fet-Fruners, her true love. He agrees but first playfully affirms his masculine dominance over his betrothed.

Although stories of cross-dressing women are common in fairy tales and folklore, this tale departs from the typical model in numerous ways. The most intriguing difference is the story’s conclusion in which the heroine Fet-Fruners is transformed into a man, only to declare his role as “the man who wears the pants.” This ending seems to reestablish a traditional gendered hierarchy, but close analysis of gendered behavior throughout the story suggests that “The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy” actually challenges conventional gender norms to a remarkable degree. Specifically, attention to all the characters’ actions, not merely those of Fet-Fruners, and to the story’s broad historical context reveals how the tale subverts traditional norms of gendered identity and behavior in various ways. An analysis of gender roles thus offers two benefits because it reveals this story’s subtle messages and offers a general interpretive model for texts that present conflicting evidence.

Summary

The story begins by introducing an emperor who conquers many countries. Upon each victory, the emperor grants peace by asking that the leaders of the conquered nations send a son to serve their new master for ten years. A certain neighboring emperor is a great warrior, but when he eventually grows old and must submit to the more powerful ruler, he begins to despair because he has three daughters but no sons. Explaining the situation to his children, he laments that they know only how to “spin, sew, and weave” (Lang 321), but his oldest daughter immediately volunteers to serve. He reluctantly agrees, so the daughter departs dressed like a knight. However, her father is also a magician and tests her by changing himself into a wolf that attacks her along the journey. Frightened, she quickly returns to the castle, where her father affirms his initial doubts about her ability. The second daughter then attempts the deed but fails the same test, prompting her father’s reprimand.

“When her father saw her mounted and curveting about the court, he gave her much wise advice, as to how she was to behave like the young man she appeared to be, and also how to behave as the girl she really was. Then he gave her his blessing, and she touched her horse with the spur.”

Next, the youngest daughter obtains her father’s permission to undertake the journey. Unlike her sisters, she chooses her father’s old warhorse after the magic animal tells her how to rejuvenate him. With only “some boy’s clothes” (Lang 325) and a small amount of food and money, the princess departs. When her horse informs her of her father’s impending test, she courageously draws her sword when the animal appears, causing it to retreat. The father then tests the princess twice more, appearing to her as a lion, which the princess drives away, and then as a twelve-headed dragon. The princess fears the dragon, but her horse encourages her. After fighting the dragon for an hour, she finally cuts off one of its heads. At this, the dragon falls down and transforms back into her father, who lovingly congratulates his daughter on her victory. Reminding her to heed his counsel and that of her horse, he grants his blessing and departs.

The princess then goes forth and reaches the mountains, “which hold up the roof of the world” (Lang 329), where she finds two genies who have been fighting for two years. Each genie asks for the help of the princess, whom they call Fet-Fruners, and they offer a reward. Fet-Fruners’s horse advises her to defend the genie offering the horse named Sunlight, who is his younger sibling, so the girl kills the opposing genie. She then follows the first genie to his house, where he plans to deliver the new horse. However, the genie’s mother suspects that Fet-Fruners is female and attempts to reveal the girl’s true sex through three tests. The first two tests involve magic flowers, which will wither only when held by a man. Alerted by her horse, Fet-Fruners evades the first test and is clever enough to outwit the genie on the second test. She is asked in the third test to choose a piece of weaponry, which she does successfully. She then announces her departure, and although the genie’s mother is not convinced that Fet-Fruners is male, she has no choice but to allow her to leave. Fet-Fruners departs with Sunlight after bidding farewell to her first magic horse, who asks to return home and advises her to obey his brother. A few miles later, Fet-Fruners discovers a golden curl lying on the road. When she consults Sunlight about whether to take it, the horse declares that she will repent either way, so she should take it. Fet-Fruners places the curl around her neck “for safety” (332).

Fet-Fruners finally arrives at the palace of her new lord and is welcomed by his pages. Quickly establishing herself as an excellent cook, Fet-Fruners earns the emperor’s respect, but when she is discovered to possess the golden curl, the pages tell the emperor that Fet-Fruners knows the golden-haired Iliane, whom the emperor desires for his wife. The emperor commands Fet-Fruners to either fetch Iliane or lose her head. Sunlight informs Fet-Fruners that a genie has captured Iliane, who has declared that she will only marry him if he presents the “whole stud of mares which belong to her” (Lang 334). As instructed by Sunlight, Fet-Fruners asks the emperor for twenty ships loaded with precious cargo. She reaches the palace of Iliane and gains entrance by impressing the slaves and Iliane herself with a tiny pair of bejeweled golden slippers. In this way, Fet-Fruners persuades Iliane to board her ship, and they set sail as Iliane admires the treasures around her. When Iliane realizes that she has been tricked, she secretly rejoices but pretends to lament her fortune.

Arriving at the emperor’s shores, Fet-Fruners and Iliane discover that the captor genie’s mother has pursued them. They quickly mount Sunlight and flee as the horse advises them to throw a rock, brush, and finally Iliane’s ring behind them to create obstacles for their pursuer. Defeating the genie’s mother, Fet-Fruners delivers Iliane to the emperor, but because Iliane does not wish to marry him, she sets him the task of capturing her stud of mares. When the emperor commands Fet-Fruners to carry out this deed or lose her head, she initially complains that he has asked too much, but the emperor insists. Once again, Sunlight instructs Fet-Fruners on how to achieve the deed and declares, “The emperor’s desires will be his undoing” (339). To capture the stud, Fet-Fruners defeats in a fierce sword fight the genie who had first captured Iliane, while Sunlight battles one of the resistant mares. They gather the stud and bring them to the emperor, who immediately commands Fet-Fruners to milk the mares so that he and Iliane may bathe in the milk, which will keep them young forever. Fet-Fruners laments yet another task assigned but suddenly finds heavy rain falling. The rain rises to the horses’ knees and immediately turns to ice, immobilizing the animals and allowing Fet-Fruners to milk them easily.

Having evaded the emperor’s marriage requests as long as possible, Iliane sets him a final task of obtaining a flask of holy water from a church beyond the river Jordan. Once again, the emperor assigns the deed to Fet-Fruners. With the help of Sunlight, Fet-Fruners steals the flask, which is guarded by nuns, but when the nuns hear Sunlight’s hooves, a hermit curses the thief with a spell that causes its victim to change sex. The spell thus changes Fet-Fruners into a man. Delighted at his sex change, he presents the flask to the emperor, who declares Fet-Fruners as his successor. Iliane, however, is angered at the emperor’s endangerment of Fet-Fruners. She invites the emperor to bathe with her in the mares’ milk and then has one of the animals breathe burning air onto him, which immediately incinerates him. Iliane then declares that because Fet-Fruners is the true hero, he “and none other, shall be my husband” (344). Fet-Fruners agrees to marry her but concludes the story with a promise: “But know that in our house, it will be the cock who sings and not the hen!” (344).

Bibliography

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Garber, Marjorie. Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety. New York: Harper, 1993. Print.

Lang, Andrew, ed. The Violet Fairy Book. New York: Dover, 1966. Print.

Poole, Josephine. Joan of Arc. New York: Knopf, 1998. Print.

Warner, Marina. Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism. New York: Knopf, 1981. Print.

Zipes, Jack. Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.