The Little Crab (, German: Der kleine Krebs) is a Modern Greek folktale translated and published by Greek folklorist from a source in Siteia, in 1938.Megas, Georgios A. Das Märchen von Amor und Psyche in der griechischen Volksüberlieferung. Πραγματειαι της Ακαδημιας Αθηνων, Volume 30. Athens: Grapheion Dēmosieumatōn tēs Akadēmias Athēnōn, 1971. p. 45.
The tale is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, in that a heroine marries a supernatural husband in animal shape, loses him, and has to seek him out. It is also classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type 425B, "Son of the Witch", thus distantly related to the Graeco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche.
Sources According to Megas, the tale was collected by M. Loudaki from a female teller named Urania Karantoni, from Seteios, Sitia, Crete."II. Kleine Beiträge (Georgios Megas. "Zur „Begegnung der Völker im Märchen"")". In: Fabula, vol. 15, 1974, p. 241.
Summary A widow lives with her three daughters, and they earn their living by gathering herbs in the mountains. One day, the youngest takes her basket next to a river and finds a little crab she takes with her to her house. The little crab comes out of the basket and lives with the woman until it grows larger and larger. One night, the widow has a dream about the crab ordering her to go to the king by sunset of the following day and ask for the king's daughter's hand in marriage for the crab. The woman wakes up and does not pay much attention to the contents of her dream. The following day, the crab appears to her and threatens to devour her if she does not go to the king's palace on the crab's orders.
After the threat, the widow goes to the palace and tells the king there is a crab in her house that wishes to marry the princess. The king then orders him to perform a task first: he has to build a palace unlike any other on Earth next to the king's. The crab summons all devils with a whistle and commands them to erect the palace. The next day, the king orders a second task: to build a garden with all types of trees and all birds that sing in the morning. The crab also fulfills the task. Lastly, the king orders the crab to have the sky above the city of golden colour. The next morning, the sky is indeed painted with golden colour. The king then concedes that the crab must be no ordinary person, and arranges his daughter's marriage to the crab. The husband-to-be arrives in a coach in the palace, and the princess, on seeing the crustacean, relents and marries him. She cries herself to sleep but wakes up when she sees a handsome youth next to her. She tries to push him away, but the youth explains he is the crab, changed to that shape by his mother so no maiden could marry him, and that she has to keep it secret, otherwise she must seek him out with three of iron shoes and with three iron canes. The princess promises him to keep his secret.
However, eight days after the wedding, still during the festivities, the populace mocks her for marrying a crab, but, on hearing this, she tells them the crab shell is only his disguise and points to a youth as her husband. The crab flies in the air and vanishes. The princess, then, goes after him wearing three pairs of iron shoes and walking with iron canes. She wears the iron apparel down, until she reaches a river. She stops to rest and wet some cookies on the river, but the stream is strong and carries her off to Drakäna's house, her mother-in-law.
The Drakäna takes her in and orders the princess to plant beans in the morning, harvest them in the afternoon, and cook her a meal after the Drakäna returns. The princess goes to cry near the river, where she hears a masculine voice asking for a kiss, but she declines the voice's offer. The son of the Drakäna, her husband, appears to her and advises her how to fulfill the task, and she must deny that she had help from her son, with the caveat that, if his mother mentions "your bitter death", the princess must reply with "my sweet death" (in reference to him).
The following day, the Drakäna says she wants the house swept and unswept, the meal cooked and uncooked, and the waterjugs filled and unfilled. The same mysterious voice asks the princess for a kiss, which she declines, but advises her how to fulfill the second task: she is to place a trash heap in the middle of the room and sprinkle a bit over the house; then, she is to place the pan in the oven and let it be; and fill the waterjugs to the half. The princess follows the instructions and fulfills the task, but the Drakäna insists she had help.
The following day, the Drakäna says her son is to be married, and gives the princess two heaps of dirty clothes to be washed with a single bar of soap, and a piece of bread to feed her dog and her donkey with. The voice appears again and asks for a kiss, which the princess refuses, but tells her to go up the mountain and shout for the Neraidas of the mountain to come and wash the clothes, since the Drakäna's son is getting married. The princess takes the dog and the donkey with her up the mountain and summons the Neraidas; they come and wash the clothes, and give food for both animals.
The Drakäna comes back and sees that the tasks have been fulfilled, and orders the princess to fill twelve sacks with feathers, for she wants twelve pillows for her son's wedding guests. The mysterious male voice advises the princess to go to the woods and shout at the birds that the Drakäna's son is dead, and they will give her their feathers; once she has enough feathers, she is to dismiss them by saying she lied about his death.
The last task done, the Drakäna plans another way to devour the human girl: she orders the princess to go beyond another mountain where her sister, the witch, lives, and get from there violins and drums for the upcoming wedding. The Drakäna's son tells the princess this is a trap, and advises her to proceed: on the streets, she is to pluck a fig full of worms from a fig tree, eat it and compliment the tree; drink from a muddy and dirty spring and compliment it; cut off a rag of her dress and give to a woman cleaning an oven with her breasts; enter the witch's house and, while she is distracted sharpening her teeth, the princess is to get the instruments and escape. The princess follows the instructions to the letter and gets the instruments while the witch is in the kitchen, but she quickly exits the kitchen and commands the woman at the oven, the spring and the fig tree to stop her, to no avail.
Finally, the Drakäna celebrates her son's wedding to another bride, and glues candles on the princess's fingers, so she illuminates the sleeping couple for the whole night, and burns to death while at it. The false bride enters the chamber and sees the princess. The Drakäna's son takes the candles from the princess's hands and places them on the false bride, who burns to death, while the pair escapes back to the princess's father's castle.Megas, Georgios A. Begegnung der Völker im Märchen, Griechenland - Deutschland. Gesellschaft zur Pflege des Märchengutes der Europäischen. Aschendorff, Münster, 1968. pp. 161-171 (Greek text), 171-182 (Tale nr. 19).
Analysis Tale type Georgios A. Megas classified the tale as tale type AaTh 425A."II. Kleine Beiträge (Georgios Megas. "Zur „Begegnung der Völker im Märchen"")". In: Fabula, vol. 15, 1974, pp. 241-242 (Tale nr. 19). Similarly, Greek folktale scholars Anna Angelopoulou and Aigle Brouskou, editors of the Greek Folktale Catalogue, classified the tale as type AaTh 425A.Angelopoulou, Anna; Brouskou, Aígle. "ΚΑΤΑΛΟΓΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΠΑΡΑΜΥΘΙΩΝ". Vol. 3: ΕΠΕΞΕΡΓΑΣΙΑ ΤΥΠΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΠΑΡΑΛΛΑΓΩΝ AT 300-499. Tome B. Athens: ΚΕΝΤΡΟ ΝΕΟΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΕΡΕΥΝΩΝ Ε.Ι.Ε, 1999. p. 712 (entry nr. 30). . In addition, the two folklorists follow Megas and treat subtype A as "Cupid and Psyche".Angelopoulou, Anna; Brouskou, Aígle. "ΚΑΤΑΛΟΓΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΠΑΡΑΜΥΘΙΩΝ". Vol. 3: ΕΠΕΞΕΡΓΑΣΙΑ ΤΥΠΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΠΑΡΑΛΛΑΓΩΝ AT 300-499. Athens: ΚΕΝΤΡΟ ΝΕΟΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΕΡΕΥΝΩΝ Ε.Ι.Ε, 1999. pp. 661 and foonote nr. 1, 697 (footnote nr. 1). .
The Greek folklorists follow , who, in his monograph, indexed type 425A as the "oldest" of the "Animal as Bridegroom" subtypes. In the international index, however, Megas's and Swahn's typing 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 Greek folklorist noted it was "traditional" in Greek variants of type 425A (see above) and 425D for the animal husband to be adopted and fulfill the king's tasks before marrying the princess.
Variants Greece According to Greek folktale scholars Anna Angelopoulou and Aigle Brouskou, editors of the Greek Folktale Catalogue, Greek variants of Greek type 425A (which corresponds to the international type ATU 425B) number 89 texts and were collected "mainly" from the Greek islands and Southern Greece.Angelopoulou, Anna; Brouskou, Aígle. "ΚΑΤΑΛΟΓΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΠΑΡΑΜΥΘΙΩΝ". Vol. 3: ΕΠΕΞΕΡΓΑΣΙΑ ΤΥΠΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΠΑΡΑΛΛΑΓΩΝ AT 300-499. Athens: ΚΕΝΤΡΟ ΝΕΟΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΕΡΕΥΝΩΝ Ε.Ι.Ε, 1999. pp. 768-769. .
The Crab (Kos)