"Udea and her Seven Brothers" is a Northern African (Libyan) fairy tale collected by Hans Stumme in Märchen und Gedichte aus der Stadt Tripolis. Scottish novelist Andrew Lang included it in The Grey Fairy Book.Lang, Andrew. The Gray Fairy Book. New York: Longmans, Green, 1905. pp. 153-167.
The tale is classified, in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, as type ATU 451, "The Maiden Who Seeks her Brothers" (formerly as tale type AaTh 451A, "The Sister Seeking her Nine Brothers"), and ATU 709A, "The Sister of Nine Brothers". Variants of the first tale type exist in both Europe (Baltic countries and surrounding areas) and North Africa (among the Berbers), although the antagonist differs per region: in Europe, the heroine is substituted by a magic being, while in North Africa the heroine and a black woman change races.
Translations The original name, as published by Stumme, is Ḫurrâft udḝxä, mtẵllfet essbḝxä. Stumme translated it as Die Geschichte von Udêa, die ihren sieben Brüder in die Fremde wandern liess ("The Story of Udea, who exiled her Brothers into the Wilderness"). It can otherwise be known as Udea und ihre sieben Brüder.
Synopsis A man and wife had seven sons. One day, the sons set out hunting and told their aunt that if their mother had a daughter, to wave a white handkerchief, and they would return at once; but if a son, a sickle, and they would keep on. It was a daughter, but the aunt wished to be rid of the boys, so she waved a sickle. The daughter, Udea, grew up not knowing about her brothers. One day, an older child taunted her for driving her brothers away, who were forever roaming the world; she questioned her mother and set out to find them. Her mother gave her a camel, some food, a cowrie shell about the camel's neck as a charm, an African, Barka, and his wife to take care of her. On the second day, Barka told Udea to get off the camel so that his wife could ride in her place. The mother was close by and told Barka to leave Udea alone. On the third day, Barka again told Udea to let his wife ride the camel in her place, but the mother was now too far away to hear and command Barka. Udea called out for her mother to no avail and Barka threw the girl to the ground. The wife climbed onto the camel and Udea walked on the ground, her bare feet cut up because of the stones on her path.
One day, they passed a caravan, where they were told of the castle where the brothers lived. Barka let Udea ride the camel to the castle, but smeared her with pitch, so that her brothers would not recognize her. However, they accepted her without question. Her tears of joy left white marks on her face. One alarmed brother took a cloth and rubbed the mark until the pitch was gone. The brother asked her who had painted her skin black, to which she would not answer, in fear of Barka's anger. She finally relented, describing the treatment she received during her travels. The seven brothers were outraged and beheaded both Barka and his wife.
The brothers went hunting for seven days, instructing Udea to lock herself in the castle with only the cat who grew up in the house. She would follow the cat's advice in all matters and eat nothing that the cat did not eat. They returned, and found her well. The brothers then told her of the castle elves and pigeons, who could be called to fetch the brothers in case Udea was in any danger. The pigeons had seven days' worth of food and water left by the brothers during each hunting trip; Udea asked why they did not have her feed the pigeons daily, because the food they had laid out was old after seven days. They agreed and told her any kindness towards the pigeons would be considered a kindness towards themselves.
On the brothers' third hunting trip, Udea was cleaning the castle and, forgetting her instructions for a moment, found a bean and ate it. The cat demanded half. Udea said she could not, because she had already eaten it, and offered one hundred other beans. The cat only wanted the bean that Udea had eaten. To punish the girl, the cat put out the fire in the kitchen. With no way of cooking, Udea climbed up the castle, saw a fire in the distance and left to find its source. She asked for a lump of burning coal from the elderly man tending the fire, but he was in fact a "man-eater" (cannibal) and demanded a strip of blood from her ear to her thumb in return. She bled all the way home, and did not notice the raven that had followed her back until she came upon the castle door. Startled, she cursed the raven, hoping to startle it as well. It asked why she would wish harm to one that had done her a favor. It flew off, along with the dirt it had used to cover her trail of blood. The man-eater followed this path to the castle and broke six doors in six nights, intending to attack and eat Udea. On the last day, with only one door in place, she sent a letter to her brothers with the help of the castle pigeons. The brothers immediately came home and trapped the man-eater in a burning pit.
As the man-eater burned, only one of his fingernails was left behind. It was blown towards and stabbed Udea under her own fingernail. She collapsed, lifeless. Her brothers put her on a bier and the bier on a camel, and set it off to their mother. They ordered the camel to avoid capture and stop only when someone said, "string." During the journey, three men chased after the camel, but only when one said that his sandal string was broken did it stop. The man took Udea's hand and attempted to pull off her ring. This motion freed the man-eater's fingernail from her hand, and she woke up full of life. The camel returned her to her joyful brothers, and all the siblings set out to see their parents once again.
On the fourth day of their reunion, the eldest brother told their parents of their aunt's treachery and the adventures they had encountered.
Analysis Tale type American folklorist D. L. Ashliman classified the tale in the Aarne-Thompson Index as type AaTh 451, "The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers"Ashliman, D. L. A Guide to Folktales in the English Language: Based on the Aarne-Thompson Classification System. Bibliographies and Indexes in World Literature, vol. 11. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1987. p. 95. . - thus, "distantly related" to the European tales The Twelve Brothers, The Six Swans and The Seven Ravens.Stephens, John; McCallum, Robyn. Retelling Stories, Framing Culture: Traditional Story and Metanarratives in Children's Literature. New York and London: Garland Publishing (Taylor and Francis Group), 1998. p. 228. . However, folklorist Hasan M. El-Shamy indexes it under a more precise type, AaTh 451A, "The Sister Seeking her Nine Brothers".El-Shamy, Hasan. Types of the Folktale in the Arab World: A Demographically Oriented Tale-Type Index. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. p. 226. The tale type is also one of many types listed in the international index that deal with a brother-sister relationship.El-Shamy, Hasan. "Sister and Brother, Motif P253". In: Jane Garry and Hasan El-Shamy (eds.). Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature. A Handbook. Armonk / London: M.E. Sharpe, 2005. p. 350.
As for the second part of the story, the narrative sequence (sister as brothers' housekeeper; fetching fire from ogre; sister dying and brothers carrying her body) is classified in the revised edition of the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index (post-2004) as type ATU 709A, "The Sister of Nine Brothers".Uther, Hans-Jörg. The types of International Folktales. A Classification and Bibliography, based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. Volume 1: Animal tales, tales of magic, religious tales, and realistic tales, with an introduction. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia-Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2004. p. 384. . This subtype is, thus, related to type ATU 709, "Snow White".Artese, Charlotte. Shakespeare and the Folktale: An Anthology of Stories. Princeton University Press, 2019. p. 250. .
Motifs According to professor John R. Maier, the name of the heroine (Udea, Wudei'a and other spellings) is a linguistic pun related to the destiny of her brothers: her name is related to the word wada'a "sends away", which is what happens to the heroine's brothers as soon as she is born.Maier, John R. Desert Songs: Western Images of Morocco and Moroccan Images of the West. SUNY Press, 1996. p. 231. .
The heroine's replacement In type AaTh 451A, the sister is replaced by the false sister by changing races with the antagonist, a motif classified in the Motif-Index of Folk-Literature as D30, "Transformation to person of different race",El-Shamy, Hasan. Types of the Folktale in the Arab World: A Demographically Oriented Tale-Type Index. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. p. 226. while, in the Lithuanian tales, the sister is replaced by a fairy by making her take a bath in a lake. In addition, according to French researcher , in Maghrebian versions there is the "recurring motif" of the hostile black slave that forces the heroine to take a bath in the "fountain for black ones", while the slave takes a bath in the other fountain to whiten her skin and trick the heroine's brothers.
Variants Europe Variants of tale type AaTh 451A, "The Sister Seeking her Nine Brothers", also exist in European tradition, with a very similar narrative: the sister wants to visit her brothers, but a fairy or other creature steals her garments and passes herself off as the sister. The real one is forced to graze the horses and laments her story in the form of a song. The brothers listen to it and punish the false sister.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 . pp. 154-155.
Lithuanian folklorist Bronislava Kerbelytė, in Enzyklopädie des Märchens, locates type AaTh 451A as an oikotype that appears "mainly" in the Baltic region.Bronislava Kerbelyte. "Litauer". In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens. Band 8 Klerus - Maggio edited by Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen et al. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2011. p. 1115. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110809213.fm Estonian folklorist argues that, despite some variants being found among the Mordvins, the Maris and the Russians, the tale type is predominantly found among the Baltic-Finnic and Baltic peoples.Salve, Kristi. "Etnilise ajaloo kajastusi eesti muinasjuturepertuaaris (läänemere-balti suhted)" [Reflections of Ethnic History in the Estonian Folk Tale Repertoire (Balto-Finnic and Baltic Relations)]. In: Võim & Kultuur 2: Koostanud Mare Kõiva. Tartu: EKM Teaduskirjastus, 2018. pp. 343, 470. . Others restrict the narrative to Karelia and surrounding regions in Finland and Russia."VI. Besprechungen [The Maiden Who Rose from the Sea and Other Finnish Folktales. Review by Hans-Hermann Bartens]". In: Fabula 35, no. 1-2 (1994): 160. https://doi.org/10.1515/fabl.1994.35.1-2.128
Finland In regards to similar Finnish tales, Finnish scholarship groups them in the Finnish Catalogue as type AT 533, "Syöjätär ja yhdeksän veljen sisar", "The Witch (or Ogress) and the Sister of Nine Brothers" or "The False Sister" (in Juha Pentikäinen's work):Pentikäinen, Juha. Oral Repertoire and World View. An Anthropological Study of Marina Takalo's Life History. Folklore Fellows Communications. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1978. pp. 271, 284-285. the heroine is on the way to her brothers' house, but meets a creature who assumes her form and passes herself off as the heroine to the brothers.Rausmaa, Pirkko-Liisa. Suomalaiset kansansadut: Ihmesadut. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1988. pp. 491-492. .Virtanen, Leea; Dubois, Thomas Andrew. Finnish Folklore. Finnish Literature Society, 2000. p. 195. .