The Pretty Little Calf

"The Pretty Little Calf" is a Chinese fairy tale collected by Wolfram Eberhard in "Folktales of China".^[1]

Synopsis[]

An official without children leaves home to take a new post. His first wife promised him gold on his return; the second, silver; the third, a son. He was pleased with the third wife, but the other wives were jealous. When she bore a son, they claimed she had borne a lump of flesh; the first wife threw the baby into a pond, but he floated, and so the second wife had him wrapped in straw and grass and fed to a water buffalo. When the official returned, his first wife gave him gold, the second silver, but when he heard that his third wife had borne a horrid lump of flesh, he sentenced her to grind rice in a mill.

The water buffalo gave birth to a beautiful calf with a hide like gold. It was fond of its master, who always gave it some of his food. One day, the official said that if it understood human speech, it should bring the dumplings he gave it to its mother. The calf brought them not to the water buffalo but to the repudiated wife. The first two wives realized that it was the son. They claimed to be ill; the first wife said she needed to eat the calf's liver, and the second, that she needed the calf's skin. The official let the calf loose in the woods and bought another to kill.

A woman named Huang had announced she would throw a coloured ball from her house, and whoever caught it would be her husband. The calf caught it on its horn. Miss Huang realized that she had to marry it. She hung the wedding robes on its horns, and it ran off. She chased it and found a young man in wedding robes by a pond; he told her to come. She said she had to find her calf, and he told her that he was the transformed calf. He went back to his father and told him the truth. The official was ready to kill his first two wives; his son persuaded him to pardon them, but he had his son bring back his mother from the mill.

Commentary[]

Analysis[]

The calumniated wife is a common motif.^[2] Many European fairy tales feature the woman who claims that she will give a man a child, and the enemy who removes the child, but the enemies are usually the woman's sisters, who did not make such a claim and so are jealous, or her mother-in-law. Closely related to this tale are "The Boys with the Golden Stars" and "A String of Pearls Twined with Golden Flowers", in both of which the promised children are killed and return in other forms, although, unlike this one, they return in a wide variety of forms because the enemy continually discovers their new forms and kills them. In "A String of Pearls Twined with Golden Flowers", her enemy is more similar to this tale, as the villain is the husband's old favorite, whereas in "The Boys with the Golden Stars", it is her mother-in-law. More commonly, European tales feature the children being abandoned: "The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird", "The Tale of Tsar Saltan", "The Three Little Birds", "The Wicked Sisters", "Ancilotto, King of Provino" and "Princess Belle-Etoile"

Some of the story's motif has similarities with stories from "One Thousand and One Nights", namely "Tale of the Trader" and the "Jinni".

The marital transformation also figures in European tales, such as "Hans My Hedgehog", "The Pig King" and "The Donkey".

Variants[]

Scholarship points that in a compilation of Buddhist teachings, titled Shijia rulai shidi xiuxing ji, there exists a story about a king whose third wive gives birth to a boy, and his jealous co-wives replace the baby with a skinned cat and even try to kill him, to no avail. Finally, they give the baby to a cow that eats it, and lie to their husband the third wive gave birth to a monster. The cow gives birth to a calf (a golden calf in many versions), to which the king takes a liking to, to the horror of the two co-wives. They feign some illness and persuade the king to kill it as cure for them, but the royal butcher spares it life, killing another animal in its place. The calf escapes to another kingdom (Korea), grows up and marries a princess. The calf regains human shape and rescues his mother. ^[3] This tale can also be known as The Golden Calf, The Calf with the Golden Horns and Silver Hooves or The Marriage of the Calf.^[4]

According to scholarship, the Buddhist tale of the birth of the Golden Calf "became wide-spread in Korea".^[5] The tale is also known as Kŭmu t’aejajŏn (金牛太子傳; "The Life of Prince Golden Calf"); Kŭmsongajijŏn (금송아지전; "Story of the Golden Calf"),^[6][7][8] 환생한 송아지 신랑 ("The Reincarnated Calf as a Groom") and 금우태자전 ("Crown Prince Geumwoo").^[9]

Other tales about Prince Golden Calf are attested in historical literature of Taiwan, Manchuria and Mongolia. They contain very similar plot structures: birth of hero by third wive or concubine, the attempts on the young prince by the other wives, his rebirth as a golden-horned and silver-hooved calf (with some difference between versions), his escape to another kingdom, his marriage to a human princess; his transformation to human and eventual return to his homeland.^[10][11]

According to scholarship, in the Mongolian version of Prince Golden Calf, the third queen gives birth to a boy with golden chest and silver backside. When the two jealous queens give the boy for the cow to eat it, the cow gives birth to a similarly coloured calf. The calf regains human form, returns to his father's palace and denounces the queens' deceit.^[12]

References[]

Sources[]

• Eberhard, Wolfram. Folktales of China. University of Chicago Press.