This year, my A to Z Blogging Challenge theme is Romance Tropes in Folklore! For each letter, I will pick a popular trope from romcom movies and romance novels, and see if I can find the same trope in folktales and legends. Because it's fun. Here we go.
THE TROPE
As far as romance tropes go, this is definitely a problematic one, and yet it is common. It deals with someone (usually a woman) falling in love with their kidnapper. Depending on how the story unfolds, it can be romantic, or downright creepy.
THE FOLKLORE
Women falling for their kidnappers is actually not an unusual occurrence in folklore. There are multiple folktale types that usually end this way. Sometimes it is less outright kidnapping and more "fulfilling the task and winning the woman to be gifted to someone else", but the woman still usually has no say in it.
THE STORIES
The fox (Scottish Traveller folktale)
This story features a prince named Brian who falls in love with a servant girl, and his father sends him on a series of errands. He befriends a clever (and magical) fox, who helps him every time he messes up. One of his tasks is to kidnap the well-guarded Sun Goddess to be handed over to a bunch of giants. However, they take a liking to each other, so the fox helps them both get away and get married in the end (servant girl forgotten).
The same tale type is better known in the Russian version of Tsarevits Ivan, the Firebird and the Grey Wolf. Here, the princess is frightened when kidnapped, but soon takes a liking to the hero.
Brave Rózsa (Hungarian Roma folktale)
A princess puts on men's clothes and sets out on a quest to regain her father's long-lost magic sword. She makes a deal with the knight that keeps the sword that she will deliver him the Fairy Queen in exchange. However, as she fulfills extra quests to win her, the queen falls in love with her, and eventually finds a way to marry the young kidnapper instead. (Also, due to a spell, the princess turns into a prince. In certain versions it is stated from the get-go that the hero prefers men's clothes.)
The son of the hunter (Greek folktale)
The son of a hunter is set impossible tasks by a king and his scheming vizier. One of them deals with bringing him a princess for a wife. The hero befriends a bunch of people with magic powers on the way, and wins the princess. By the time she is delivered to the king, she knows she wants to marry the young hero instead, so she turns king and vizier into a cat and a mouse.
Do you have favorite romance stories that feature this trope?
Do you like the folktale versions?
Don't forget to leave a link in the comments so I can visit you back!
Posts
Stockholm Syndrome before someone coined that expression? It is a bit of a weird trope, but not one without some reasonable psychological foundations. I like how the princess handles things in The Son of the Hunter.
ReplyDeletehttps://dacairns.com.au/blog/f/a-to-z-blogging-challenge-k
I never really thought about it before, but this is really a horrible trope.
ReplyDeleteIt's weird how in the stories, the girls fall for the kidnappers.
ReplyDeleteRishie.
www.aheartfullofsong.wordpress.com
All I can think of is the real life Patty Hearst kidnapping (wow, 50 years ago!) and how she ended up with Stockholm syndrome, a phrase only invented a couple of years before her experience. She never got back with her pre-kidnapping boyfriend, and married one of the police officers who was part of her parole security. Still a bit Stockholm-y to me.
ReplyDeleteI like the last one where she turns the schemers into animals and marries the man she wants to.
ReplyDeleteRonel visiting for K: My Languishing TBR: K
Two-Faced Kishi
Definitely one that's better in fiction than real life! But I do like the way it's handled in "The Blue Sword" by Robin McKinley.
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