"Graciosa and Percinet" () is a French literary fairy tale by Madame d'Aulnoy. Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book.Lang, Andrew. The Red Fairy Book. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1890. pp. 158-174.
Although the tale has a literary origin, being penned by d'Aulnoy, scholars recognize in the narrative motifs and elements from the Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche and, by extension, of the Animal as Bridegroom cycle of stories. Accessed 28 February 2025.
Synopsis A king and queen had a beautiful and virtuous daughter, Graciosa (), and within their royal court there was an ugly duchess, Duchess Grognon, who hated her. One day, the queen died. The king grieved so much that his doctors ordered him to hunt. Weary, he stopped at the duchess's castle and discovered how rich she was. He agreed to marry her for her substantial dowry, even though she demanded control of her stepdaughter.
The princess was reasoned into behaving well by her nurse. A handsome young page, Percinet, appeared. He was a rich young prince with a fairy gift, and he was in her service. He gave her a horse to ride to greet the duchess. It made the duchess's look ugly, and she demanded it, and that Percinet led it as he led it for Graciosa. Nevertheless, the horse ran away, and her disarray made her look even uglier. The duchess had Graciosa beaten with rods, except that the rods were turned into peacock feathers, and she suffered no harm.
The wedding went on, and the king arranged a tournament to flatter the queen. The king's knights overthrew all the challengers, for all the ugliness of the queen, until a young challenger overthrew them and showed the portrait of the princess as the most beautiful woman in the world. The queen then had Graciosa abandoned in the woods. Percinet rescued her, but Graciosa, out of Filial piety, asks to be return to her father. Even when Percinet showed her how the queen had claimed her dead and buried a log of wood in her place, Graciosa still insisted. He told her that she would never see his castle again until she was buried.
The king was glad to see her, but when the queen returned and insisted, he seemed convinced that Graciosa was an imposter, not wishing to lose access to his new queen's seemingly-endless riches. The queen imprisoned Graciosa, and with the aid of a wicked fairy, set her to disentangle a skein, on pain of her life. Graciosa thought Percinet would not aid her, but finally in despair called on him, and he disentangled it. The outraged queen set her to sort a room filled with feathers, and Percinet did that as well. Then the queen set her to bring a box to her own castle, and forbade her to open it. Curiosity got the better of her, and Graciosa freed a swarm of little men and women whom she could not get back in. Percinet helped her. The servants would not admit Graciosa, but gave her a letter telling they would not let her in.
The queen suggested that they lift a stone in the garden, which covered a well, on the grounds she had heard it covered a treasure. When it was up, she pushed Graciosa in, and dropped the stone. Percinet and his mother rescued her, and this time, Graciosa agreed to marry him.
Excerpt "Once upon a time there was a king and a queen who had an only daughter. Her beauty, her sweet temper, and her wit, which were incomparable, caused them to name her Gracieuse. She was the sole joy of her mother, who sent her every day a beautiful new dress, either of gold brocade, or of velvet, or of satin. She was always magnificently attired, without being in the least proud, or vain of her fine clothes. She passed the morning in the company of learned persons, who taught her all sorts of sciences, and in the afternoon she worked beside the queen. At luncheon time they served up to her basins full of sugar-plums, and more than twenty pots of preserves; so that she was universally considered the happiest princess in the world!"
Analysis Tale type This literary tale can be classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband".Aulnoy, Madame d', Marie-Catherine; Jasmin, Nadine; Robert, Raymonde. Contes des fées: suivis des Contes nouveaux, ou, Les fées à la mode. Champion, 2004. pp. 1083, 1111. . Scholar Jacques Barchilon stated that the tale was one of the occurrences of the Animal as Bridegroom cycle of stories (types ATU 425, ATU 425A, ATU 425B and ATU 425C) in d'Aulnoy's works.
French scholars Paul Delarue and Marie-Louise Thèneze, establishers of the French folktale catalogue, follow 's classification:"Dans l'analyse de ce conte-type, nous nous alignons sur la décomposition en éléments faite par Jan-Ojvind Swahn dans sa récente monographie". Delarue, Paul. Le conte populaire français: catalogue raisonné des versions de France et des pays de langue française d'outre-mer: Canada, Louisiane, îlots français des États-Unis, Antilles françaises, Haïti, Ile Maurice, La Réunion. Érasme, 1957. p. 84. French type 425A (or sous-type A) follows Cupid and Psyche with the tasks; type 425B is the one with the gifts and the three nights.Delarue, Paul. Le conte populaire français: catalogue raisonné des versions de France et des pays de langue française d'outre-mer: Canada, Louisiane, îlots français des États-Unis, Antilles françaises, Haïti, Ile Maurice, La Réunion. Érasme, 1957. pp. 88-90, 113, 114. In the international index, however, Swahn's typing A is indexed as type ATU 425B, "The Son of the Witch".Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Third Printing. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1973 . p. 142 (footnote nr. 1).
Motifs The tasks of princess Graciosa have been compared to those of princess Psyche, the heroine of the Cupid and Psyche myth.Dunlop, Colin John. History of Prose Fiction. Vol. I. London: George Bell and Sons. 1896. pp. 110-112.Leavy, Barbara Fass. “The Animal Groom”. In: Search of the Swan Maiden: A Narrative on Folklore and Gender. NYU Press, 1994. pp. 130-131. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qg995.7. Accessed 13 Mar. 2023.
Variants France In a variant from Lorraine collected by comparativist Emmanuel Cosquin with the title Firosette, the titular Firosette loves a human girl named Julie, but his mother, a fairy, wants to marry him to another woman. Firosette's mother tells Julie she will go to church and orders her to empty a well using a sieve. Firosette appears to help her and uses his magic wand to accomplish the task. The next day, Firosette's mother orders her to take a letter to her sister, who lives in Effincourt. Firosette advises Julie that his aunt will offer her a box of laces and ribbons, and she will get the finest one; Julie will choose one, but not wear it; instead, she will tie it around a bush. Julie does that and the bush burns up. Lastly, Firosette's fairy mother marries him to another bride, and forces Julie to hold ten candles between her toes, while in the couple's bedroom. Firosette convinces his bride to change places with Julie. After it happens, Firosette's mother asks from afar if she is ready; her son answers yes, and his mother curses the person who is holding the candles to become food so she can eat it. Firosette's mother realizes her mistake and drops dead.Cosquin, Emmanuel. Contes populaires de Lorraine comparés avec les contes des autres provinces de France et des pays étrangers, et précedés d'un essai sur l'origine et la propagation des contes populaires européens. Tome II. Paris: Vieweg. 1887. pp. 234-236.Tegethoff, Ernst. Französische Volksmärchen. Zweiter Band. Aus neueren Sammlungen. Jena: Eugen Diederichs. 1923. pp. 54-56. Cosquin and German scholar noted the partial resemblance of this tale to the second part of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, especially Venus's tasks.Cosquin, Emmanuel. Contes populaires de Lorraine comparés avec les contes des autres provinces de France et des pays étrangers, et précedés d'un essai sur l'origine et la propagation des contes populaires européens. Tome II. Paris: Vieweg. 1887. p. 236.Tegethoff, Ernst. Französische Volksmärchen. Zweiter Band. Aus neueren Sammlungen. Jena: Eugen Diederichs. 1923. pp. 326-327.
In a tale from Finistère, Lower Brittany, collected by François-Marie Luzel with the title Les Morgans de l’île d’Ouessant ("The Morgens of Ouessant Island") or Mona and the Morgan,Classic folk tales from around the world. London: Leopard, 1996. pp. 128-129. a human girl named Mona Kerbili is so beautiful she is compared sometimes to a Morgan (a type of aquatic creature in Breton folklore). Because of this, when she is asked about who she wants to marry, Mona says she won't marry a simple fisherman, but a prince, or even a Morgan himself. An old Morgan - the king - hears her wish and takes her to his underwater palace, intenting on marrying her. However, the son of the Morgan king falls in love with the human girl and wants to marry her, but his father denies him, and tells his son can choose any Morganezed girl in their underwater realm. The Morgan prince is forced to marry a Morganezed girl, while the human girl, Mona, is forced to stay in the palace and prepare the meal for their return from the church. As the retinue march to church, the Morgan prince feigns he forgot his wedding ring back at the palace, and goes back there. He helps Mona with the chores and returns to his marriage ceremony. That same night, after the wedding, the Morgan king forces Mona to hold a candle in her hands until it melts away completely, after which she is to die. After some time, the Morgan prince asks his bride to replace the human girl holding the candle. He hears his father's voice asking if the candle has already melted. He answers "yes": his father enters the room and decapitates the Morganezed bride. The next morning, the Morgan prince tells his father he has sadly become a widowed man overnight, and asks for his permission to marry the human girl, the "daughter of the land". Admitting defeat, the Morgan king lets his son marry the human girl. The tale then continues by delving into their married life, until the human girl longs for her land home and decides to visit her human family.Luzel, François-Marie. Contes populaires de Basse-Bretagne. Tome II. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1887. pp. 257-268. French scholar Paul Sébillot republished the tale with the title Le Morgan et la Fille de la Terre ("The morgan and the daughter of the land"), and it was first published in the newspaper Revue de France, in 1874.Sébillot, Paul. Contes des provinces de France. Paris: Cerf, 1884. pp. 81-90 (text for tale XII), 90 (source).