"The White Wolf" (French: Le Loup Blanc) is a French-language fairy tale collected from Wallonia by authors Auguste Gittée and Jules Lemoine. It is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, wherein a human princess marries a prince under an animal curse, loses him and has to search for him.
Summary A king has three daughters. One day, before he goes on a journey, he asks his daughters what he can bring as presents for them. The first one asks for a diamond parure, the middle one for a golden parure, and the third asks for the singing leaf.
The king looks for the singing leaf, but cannot find it, until he sights a White Wolf in the woods. The White Wolf promises him the singing leaf, but demands, in return, the first of his daughters that greets the king when he goes home. It so happens and the third princess meets her father.
The king takes his daughter to the White Wolf and leaves her there. The wolf guides her to his underground quarters: a magnificent palace with rich furniture. They live like this for some time, until one day the wolf announces that her elder sister is getting married. She decides to pay her family a visit, and the wolf consents; when the ceremony ends, she just has to shout for him to come, and he will come to get her.
The princess attends her elder sister's marriage, and summons the white wolf to get her. Some time later, the princess's middle sister is getting married, and the princess attends it too. She stays a bit longer and tries to summon the white wolf to come get her, but he does not appear.
The princess wanders off until she meets an old sorceress. The princess tells her story and the sorceress gives her three nuts, for her to use in time of extreme need.
At last, the princess passes through an ivory gate into a village and sees the White Wolf and another fiancée coming out of a church. The princess follows them to a castle. She cracks open one of the nuts and produces a golden bracelet. She gives the bracelet to the White Wolf's second fiancée so she can spend an hour walking with the White Wolf in the garden.
The princess cannot jog his memory, and repeats the action twice: on the second night, she cracks open a second nut and finds a golden necklace, which she gives to the second fiancée, and on the third night, she finds a crown encrusted with pearls and gemstone. Only on the third occasion, the princess manages to talk to White Wolf, by repeating the command he taught her: "White Wolf, come fetch me". He regains his memory and departs with the princess back to their castle.Vierset, Auguste. "III. Psyche. A.-Variante nouvelle". In: Bulletin de Folklore 1 (1891): 201-202.
Analysis Tale type The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 425A, "The Animal as Bridegroom". in this tale type, the heroine is a human maiden who marries a prince that is cursed to become an animal of some sort. She betrays his trust and he disappears, prompting a quest for him.
Motifs In his study about Cupid and Psyche and other "animal bridegroom" tales, scholar surmised that the animal husband appears as a wolf in Germanic areas and in French language.Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. p. 229.
As part of her journey, the heroine meets the Sun, the Moon and the Wind and gains their help,Thompson, Stith (1977). The Folktale. University of California Press. pp. 97-98. . or she is helped by three old crones.Bamford, Karen. "Quest for the Vanished Husband/Lover, Motifs H1385.4 and H1385.5". In: Jane Garry and Hasan El-Shamy (eds.). Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature. A Handbook. Armonk / London: M.E. Sharpe, 2005. p. 254.
According to Hans-Jörg Uther, the main feature of tale type ATU 425A is "bribing the false bride for three nights with the husband". In fact, when he developed his revision of Aarne-Thompson's system, Uther remarked that an "essential" trait of the tale type ATU 425A was the "wife's quest and gifts" and "nights bought".
Variants Belgium According to , Lemoine reported that he collected another tale from adult tellers in Gilly whose details were "identical" to Le Loup Blanc, although the heroine bribed the false bride for a night in the prince's quarters, instead of going on a walk with him. In a second variant from Gilly, the heroine reaches an ivory bridge that is slippery, so she has to wear special shoes to cross it; on the other side of the bridge, the heroine cracks open the nut and produces a carriage pulled by beautiful horses.Vierset, Auguste. "III. Psyche. A.-Variante nouvelle". In: Bulletin de Folklore 1 (1891): 201.
In another French-language variant from Wallonia, collected by Auguste Vierset with the title Gris-loup et Petite-cadette ("Grey Wolf and Little Youngest Sister"), a king has three daughters. Before he leaves on a journey, he asks what presents he can bring them: the first asks for a robe of gold and silver; the middle one for a cloak of gold and silver, and the youngest for a talking bird with golden head and silver neck. The king departs and cannot find the requested item, until he meets a wolf in the woods. The wolf promises to give the king the little bird in no time, but demands in exchange the first thing that greets him on his way home. The deal is made and the king returns home with the three objects, and is greeted first by his youngest daughter. The wolf appears after three days and takes the princess as his bride, taking her to his castle in the forest. After some time, the princess, feeling bored at her new home, asks the wolf to visit her family. The wolf thinks her family will want to know about her new life, but she assures him she will tell nothing. The wolf takes the princess to her father's castle, and after three days, they return. Some time later, the princess dreams her father died, and urges the wolf to take her back to her family. Once there, the sisters threaten the princess with guns. The princess reveals about the wolf: a man by night and a wolf by day. She senses something wrong with the wolf and goes back to this castle, but cannot find him. The princess wanders the world until she finds a hut. An old woman lets her in. The princess asks the old woman if she saw the wolf (named Gris-loup), and she is told he is to marry a king's daughter. Before the princess departs, the old woman gives her an apple, a nut and a hazelnut. The princess goes to a castle, where she finds work as a cleaning woman. On a grand dinner, the princess cracks open the nut and produces a gold and diamond wagon, and bribes the king's daughter for a night with the (now human) Gris-loup. She tries to make him remember, but fails. On the second day, she cuts open the apple in four pieces that become four horses decorated with gold and diamond. The third time, the princess cracks open the hazelnut and produces a little golden windmill. The princess gives it to the king's daughter and manages to wake Gris-loup up. At the end of the tale, Gris-loup, before the wedding guests, asks them a riddle: he had a key he lost; had a new one made, but found the previous one; which should he keep? The guests agree that he should keep the first key. And so Gris-loup stays with the princess, his first wife.Vierset, Auguste. "III. Psyche. A.-Variante nouvelle". In: Bulletin de Folklore 1 (1891): 193-201. According to author , the tale was collected in Saint-Hubert.
Netherlands In a Frisian language tale collected by Frisian writer with the title De wite wolf ("The White Wolf"), a king has three daughters: the eldest is expert at music; the second well-versed in poetry, and the third is good at gardening. When the king is ready to go on a journey, he asks what he can bring them: the elder daughters asks for a trumpet, the middle one for a book of poetry, and the youngest for a flower she has never seen. The king goes on a journey and finds the elders' gifts, but cannot seem to find the flower. One day, however, he sights a shining flower on a tree and goes to fetch it, when a white wolf appears all of a sudden to block his way. The white wolf talks to the king about letting him have the flower, in exchange for the first thing that greets him on his way back. The king takes the flower home and the youngest princess is the one to greet him. Days pass, and the white wolf appears at the castle to get the princess. The king tries to pass off a shepherdess and a gardener's daughter as the princess, but the white wolf discovers the ruse and returns to get the real one. The white wolf takes the princess to his lair in a mountain cave, but it looks more like a person's dwelling. After nightfall, the white wolf becomes human and explains he is human at night and wolf during the day, but she must never tell anyone the secret. They live like this for a while, until one day the princess reveals the secret to her sisters after much insistence. The princess then returns to the wolf's cave, but cannot find him, only a letter from the wolf about how she betrayed him and how he is still stuck in lupine form. The princess then returns home and tries to look for him everywhere, when she finds an old woman on the road (a good fairy), who tells her the wolf received from her the flower, and only a princess could save him from the curse. Later, the princess finds a dwarf who directs her to a Glass Mountain, and gives her a nut to throw at the mountain to open up a passage. She rides to the Glass Mountain and tosses the nut at it, then tries to climb it, but it is so slippery. The same old woman appears before her and gives her a paste to glue under the horseshoes so she can climb the mountain. Atop the mountain, she reaches a castle where the white wolf, in human form, is to be married to another girl. The princess tries to talk to him, but he does not recognize her. She leaves the castle and cries, but the old woman appears to her and gives her a pill to place in the white wolf's goblet, so he can recall his memories. The princess follows the woman's advice and manages to recover the white wolf. He calls off the wedding to his second bride, and leaves the castle, but turns into a wolf again. Still trapped under the curse, the white wolf tells the princess they will get married in a nearby church. They marry and the white wolf's curse is lifted forever. He explains he was cursed by an evil fairy. The now human white wolf and the princess return to her father's castle and live happily ever after.Poortinga, Ype. De ring fan it ljocht: Fryske folksforhalen. Bosch en Keuning, 1976. pp. 11-15 (text), 401 (classification).
France