King Kojata (Russian fairy tale)

Author: Andrew Lang

Time Period: 1851 CE–1900 CE

Country or Culture: Russia

Genre: Fairy Tale

PLOT SUMMARY

King Kojata lives a happy life with his queen, and the couple’s only grievance is that they have been unable to produce an heir. One day, while King Kojata is touring his land, he grows thirsty. He comes to a spring with a jug floating in it, but when he tries to grab the jug, it eludes him. The king decides to drink straight from the spring, but when he lowers his head, a creature grabs his beard and refuses to let go. The creature says he will only release the king if he promises to give the creature something that will be waiting for him when he returns home.

Unable to fathom what the creature could mean, the king agrees to his condition. When he returns home, he is shocked to discover that his queen has given birth to a son, Prince Milan. Realizing that he will have to give away his son, King Kojata keeps his promise a secret. Years go by, and the prince grows into a young man. One day, while he is in the woods, an old man appears before the prince and tells him about the deal his father had made. The prince returns home and tells his father what the old man said. The king finally admits the truth, and determined to make good on the promise, the prince sets out to find the creature.

Eventually, the prince comes to a lake where he finds clothes strewn along the shore and thirty ducks swimming. The prince takes one set of clothes and hides in the bushes. When the ducks come ashore, they change into women and clothe themselves, but the thirtieth duck remains in the water until the prince returns her clothing to her. She explains that she is Hyacinthia, the youngest daughter of the creature, and that she will help the prince in his dealings with her father.

After Prince Milan arrives in the creature’s underground realm, the creature assigns him the seemingly impossible task of building a marble palace in one night and warns that the prince will lose his head if he does not comply. The despairing prince goes to his room, and Hyacinthia comes to him in the form of a bee. She promises she will build the palace for him, and miraculously, she does. The creature then demands that the prince pick out his youngest daughter from the rest of his identical brood. Hyacinthia aids the prince by placing a fly on her cheek so that she can be identified. The prince is then ordered to make the creature a pair of boots. The prince and the young woman have no shoemaking skills, so they flee.

The creature’s servants chase after them, so Hyacinthia first turns herself into a river and the prince into a bridge and then transforms them into a thick forest with many paths. The servants become lost and turn back. The creature himself then gives chase, so Hyacinthia, knowing her father will not be able to pass a church, turns herself into a church and the prince into a monk. Disguised as the monk, the prince tells the creature that they had passed by, so he turns back.

Prince Milan and Hyacinthia come to a city. The prince insists on visiting the city’s king and queen, but the young woman warns him not to kiss their child, for if he does so he will forget her. He kisses the child anyway, and the heartbroken Hyacinthia turns herself into a flower in the hope of being trampled. An old man picks her, however, and takes her home. Eventually, she turns back into a young woman and tells the old man about her predicament. He explains that the prince is about to marry, so Hyacinthia puts two doves inside the wedding cake. The doves cause the prince to remember everything that had happened, and he runs to meet Hyacinthia. Together, they return to King Kojata’s kingdom.

SIGNIFICANCE

“King Kojata” is a Russian fairy tale made popular by Scottish writer and anthropologist Andrew Lang, who published the tale in his 1892 collection The Green Fairy Book. Lang later published a shorter variant titled “The Unlooked-For Prince” in his 1900 collection The Grey Fairy Book. There is also a Polish variant known by the title “Prince Unexpected,” which was collected by scholar Albert Henry Wratislaw in his book Sixty Folk-Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources (1889).

The fairy tale contains several motifs found throughout world mythology and folklore, including that of a child who is unwittingly promised by one of the parents in exchange for something else. As in the case of King Kojata, the parent is often deceived into promising away his or her child. Another prevalent recurring motif found in this fairy tale is the transformation chase, in which a character shape-shifts in order to evade a pursuer, typically taking on several different forms during a single chase. In this story, it is Hyacinthia who transforms herself and the prince to elude the creature and his servants. Other variations of the transformation chase include shape-shifting in order to lift a curse, dodge a spell, or become powerful enough to defeat a foe. Hyacinthia also shape-shifts so that she can sneak away to the prince’s room and aid him in accomplishing his tasks.

Hyacinthia is particularly interesting in that she fills a traditional fairy-tale role yet, unlike female characters in many beloved stories, is not particularly weak or submissive. Traditionally, women in fairy tales were often depicted as fragile damsels in distress or as evil witches. This female character, however, performs more heroics than the prince does. The prince cannot accomplish his impossible tasks without her, and she again saves his life during the transformation chase. Hyacinthia acts as the prince’s romantic interest and magical helper, but at the same time, she is also the true hero of the story.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Vintage, 2010. Print.

Bottigheimer, Ruth B. Fairy Tales: A New History. New York: State U of New York P, 2009. Print.

Haase, Donald, ed. Fairy Tales and Feminism: New Approaches. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2004. Print.

Lang, Andrew, ed. “King Kojata.” The Green Fairy Book. London: Longmans, 1899. 202–15. Print.

---, ed. “The Unlooked-For Prince.” The Grey Fairy Book. London: Longmans, 1900. 300–308. Print.