En Mercè-Mercè is a Catalan folktale published by author Antoni Maria Alcover in the compilation . It is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as ATU 314, "Goldener". It deals with a friendship between a king's son and a magic horse that are forced to flee for their lives due to the boy's own mother, and reach another kingdom, where the boy adopts another identity.
Although it differs from variants wherein a hero acquires golden hair, its starting sequence (persecution by the hero's stepmother) is considered by scholarship as an alternate opening to the same tale type.
Source According to Alcover, the tale was provided by a source named madò Maria Sastre, from Randa, and collected in 1930.
Summary A king and a queen suffer for not having children. One day, the king leaves on a hunt and decides to kill himself with a pistol, when a woman stops him. The king reveals his worries about his childlessness, and the woman produces a large apple, to be given half to his wife and half to his best friend (meaning his mare). The king does as instructed and nine months later, a prince is born to the queen, named Bernadet, and a foal to the mare. Some time later, the king departs for war and leaves his wife and his son alone. While he is away, a Turkish king comes and has an affair with the queen, who conspire to kill prince Bernadet and his dog: first, they cook two cakes, one poisoned and the other normal to be given to the prince, lying that they were a gift from the king. Bernadet comes from school and the horse calls for him to warn about the poisoned cakes, which he is to throw to his dog. The prince follows the horse's instructions and his dog eats it and dies, then he confronts his mother and the Turkish king about their attempt on him. Later on, the horse warns Bernadet that the couple placed animals on his bed to bite and kill him, so he is to sleep in another bed.
Failing both attempts, the Turkish king and the queen deduce the horse is helping Bernadet and set their sights on it: the queen is to feign illness and ask for the horse's fat as remedy. The horse summons Bernadet and reveals the queen's new ruse, so he is to ask for one last ride on the horse, ride around the castle three times, and hold on to the horse's body for the equine will carry him to safety in another kingdom. The Turkish king approaches Bernadet and tells him of the queen's illness and the need to sacrifice the horse, so Bernadet asks for a last ride on it. The Turkish king agrees and lets the prince ride it: he dons pricely garments, saddles the horse and rides away to another kingdom.
At a safe distance, the horse gives Bernardet a tuft of its hairs with a saddlebag with a tinderbox to burn the hairs and summon it in God's name, advises him to dress in shabby clothes and find work with the local king, and only answer "Mercè, mercè", then gallops away. The prince does as instructed and assumes the identity of the lowly Mercè-Mercè, who the local king hires as a new servant to the castle. However, the other servants cannot work with him, so Merce-Merce is moved to work as assistant to the gardener, who makes bouquets for the princesses and is paid pesetas for it, while Merce-Merce drives the water wheel on a mule.
One day, when the gardener is absent, the prince summons his horse and asks for bouquets for the princesses. The horse tells him to don his princely clothes, ride around the garden along the flowers and sing a song. He does exactly that, and the youngest princess watches the event from her window, admiring and falling in love with the gardener's assistant. Merce-Merce helps the gardener prepare bouquets for the princesses, delivers them and is paid handsomely by the princesses, then gives the gardener the money.
In time, the king decides to marry his three daughters and orders three golden pears made for them, so that they throw the fruits to their suitors of choice from an assemblage of noble suitors who are to pass in front of the castle. The elder two throws theirs to noble men, while the cadette withholds hers. The king questions the princess and she says none of the rich young men were to her liking, so he is to issue another decree for man of every rank and file to pass by her window. The king agrees, and a litany of men pass by her window; when she spots Merce-Merce, she throws him the pear, representing her choice. The king gives Merce-Merce a key for the boy to live in the castle, while he goes to deal with the princess later.
Some time later, war breaks out, and the king and his two sons-in-law are fighting in the war. The gardener sends Merce-Merce on a lame mule to help the king, and the prince summons his loyal horse, which he asks to summon a black horse as his mount and an army of riders on white horses to join him and to help the king. Merce-Merce rides into the battlefield with the magic army and helps his father-in-law to ward off the enemy army, then retreats to his lowly position. War breaks out a second time, and Merce-Merce summons his horse to ask for a white horse and an army of riders on black horses. The king and his sons-in-law return and gloat about their victory.
Later, the king becomes blind, and only water from the Bella Font can restore it. The sons-in-law depart ahead of him, and the gardener bids Merce-Merce to soon join if he wants to prove himself to the king. Merce-Merce summons his horse, which points him the way to Bella Font: throw some dust in the air and follow where the wind takes it, then walk past a sleeping giant towards a fountain, fill a bottle and return without spilling a drop. Merce-Merce rides the lame mule towards Bella Font, bottles some water, and rushes back, the giant following him. After missing the giant, Merce-Merce's mule is stuck in the mud, and his brothers-in-law meet him en route. They do not recognize Merce-Merce, who says he has the water from the Bella Font and spins a false story he caught it for his father. The brothers-in-law ask for some, and Merce-Merce barters it for the duo's golden pears. A deal is made, and the brothers-in-law return with the water and gloating they found the remedy.
The king falls ill again, this time from a confusion of mind and soul, and the doctors precribe lioness's milk as cure. The sons-in-law gallop ahead, and the gardener sends Merce-Merce after. The boy summons his horse and asks for directions of a nursing lioness: he is to ride south, enter a thick forest to find a lioness, remove a cub from its teats and fill the bottle with its milk, then rush back. It happens thus, and Merce-Merce fetches the lioness's milk, but on the road back his mule is again stuck in the mud. His brothers-in-law meet him en route, but do not recognize him, and ask for the milk. Merce-Merce makes a deal with them: the milk in exchange for branding their legs with a horseshoe. It happens thus, and the brothers-in-law bring back the milk.
Merce-Merce returns empty-handed and unlocks the room with the key the king gave him, in order to rest from an arrow wound caused by the king during the second war. By God's will, the wound seals up, and the third princess appears to him. Merce-Merce tells her to have her father summon the men in order to give the crown to those who have earned it, and he will know what to do. Later, the king issues a decree and knights and noblemen assemble at his castle, even the Turkish king. Merce-Merce doffs his lowly disguise, dons his princely clothes and rides on his horse towards the palace, to the princesses' astonishment.
The king asks the people who saved them, and Bernadet declares twice it was with his armies, then produces the arrowhead stuck in his thigh. The monarch asks again who brough the water from Bella Font, and Bernadet produces the two golden pears, proving he was the one to did it. Finally, he asks who brought the lioness's milk, and Bernadet points to his brothers-in-law, mentioning the marks on their thighs. The sons-in-law lower their trousers and show them the marks. The king makes Bernadet his heir and he explains his story: he is the son of a king whom his mother and the Turkish king tried to kill, so he fled and assumed the identity of Merce-Merce. In the crowd, his father goes to embrace his son, while his mother dies on the spot and the Turkish king tries to escape, but is captured and sentenced to be drawn and quartered. Bernadet and the third princess marry in a seven-day celebration.CAMARENA, JULIO; Maxime CHEVALIER (1995). Catálogo tipológico del cuento folklórico español. Vol. I: Cuentos maravillosos. Madrid: Castalia. pp. 488-502.
Analysis Tale type
The tale was classified as Catalan type AaTh 532, No ho sé ("I Don't Know"): the hero is menaced by his mother, escapes with his talking horse and is instructed to always utter "No ho sé"; the king's sons-in-law are sent for a remedy for the king, which the hero finds and trades with them for a precious object; at the end of the tale, the hero reveals to the king he was the one who brought him the remedy, and becomes king after his father-in-law.Oriol, Carme; Josep M. Pujol (2003). Índex tipològic de la rondalla catalana. Barcelona: Departament de Cultura de la Generalitat de Catalunya. Centre de Promoció de la Cultura Popular i Tradicional Catalana. p. 153. The Spanish Folktale Catalogue, by scholars Julio Camarena and Maxime Chevalier (1995), classified it as type 532, "[EL MUCHACHO QUE A TODO RESPONDÍA <NO SÉ>]" ("The youth who always answered "I Don't Know""), as the only entry in Spain.CAMARENA, JULIO; Maxime CHEVALIER (1995). Catálogo tipológico del cuento folklórico español. Vol. I: Cuentos maravillosos. Madrid: Gredos. p. 502.
The Catalan type corresponds, in the international Aarne-Thompson Index (henceforth, AaTh), as tale type AaTh 532, "I Don't Know (The Helpful Horse)".Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. p. 191. However, folklorist Stith Thompson, in his work The Folktale, doubted the existence of the story as an independent tale type, since, barring a different introduction, its main narrative becomes "the same as in the Goldener tale [tale type 314]". This prompted him to suppose the tale type was a "variety" of "Goldener".
A similar notion is shared by Greek folklorists Anna Angelopoulou, Marianthi Kapanoglou and Emmanuela Katrinaki, editors of the Greek Folktale Catalogue: although they classified the Greek variants under type 532 (Greek: Ο Μπιλμέμ), they still recognized that they should be indexed as type 314 (Greek: Ο Κασίδης), since their only difference seems to lie in the introductory episodes.Angelopoulou, Anna; Kapanoglou, Marianthi; Katrinaki, Emmanuela. "ΚΑΤΑΛΟΓΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΠΑΡΑΜΥΘΙΩΝ-4: ΕΠΕΞΕΡΓΑΣΙΑ ΤΥΠΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΠΑΡΑΛΛΑΓΩΝ AT 500-559". Athena: ΚΕΝΤΡΟ ΝΕΟΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΩΝ ΕΡΕΥΝΩΝ, 2004. pp. 15, 389-390. (In Greek). The Hungarian Folktale Catalogue (MNK) also took notice of the great similarity between types 532 and 314, which difficulted a specific classification into one or the other.Dömötör Ákos (szerk.). Magyar népmesekatalógus 2. Budapest, MTA Néprajzi Kutató Csoport, 1988. A magyar tündérmesék katalógusa (AaTh 300-749). p. 306.
Furthermore, German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther, in his 2004 revision of the international tale type index (henceforth, ATU), subsumed type AaTh 532 under a new tale type, ATU 314, "Goldener", due to "its similar structure and content".
Introductory episodes