The Three Orange-Peris is a Turkish fairy tale first collected by Hungarian Turkologist Ignác Kúnos in the late 19th century. It is classified as tale type ATU 408, "The Love for Three Oranges", of the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index. As with The Three Oranges, the tale deals with a prince's search for a bride that lives inside a fruit, who is replaced by a false bride and goes through a cycle of incarnations, until she regains physical form again.
Sources The story was first published by folklorist Ignác Kúnos in Turkish as A három narancs-peri, which was translated to Hungarian as A három narancs-peri, and in German as Die Drei Orangen-Peris. The tale was also translated into English as The Three Orange-PerisKúnos, Ignácz. Turkish fairy tales and folk tales collected by Dr. Ignácz Kúnos. London, Lawrence and Bullen. 1896. pp. 12-30. and as The Orange Fairy in The Fir-Tree Fairy Book.
Summary A padishah suffers for not having children. One day, he takes his Vizir (or lala) with him on a trip, when a dervish appears to him, green-robed and yellow-slipped. He says he knows the padishah's ailment and gives him an apple, to be shared with the Sultana and for both to eat. The padishah does as he was instructed and the Sultana gives birth to a son after nine months and ten days. When he is fourteen years, he asks his father to build a marble palace with two springs, one with honey and the other with butter. It happens thus, and one day, an old woman comes with a pitcher to fill them from the springs. The prince throws a stone and tosses it at the woman's pitcher. The old woman returns with her pitchers on the following two days to fill them, and the prince again tosses a stone at her jugs, breaking them. For this, the woman tells the prince it is Allah's will to fall in love with the three Orange-peris.
The prince becomes ill with longing for the Orange-Peris and his father tries many methods to cure him. The prince finally admits he is in love with the Three Oranges and wants to seek them out. The padishah allows the prince to depart on the journey for the three oranges. He journeys on and meets a Dev-Mother (called Mother of Devils in an English translation), who welcomes him in after he explains the reason for his journey and turns him into a water har to hide her from her thirty sons, who devour people. Her thirty sons return home and sense a human's smell; the Mother of Devils make her sons promise not to hurt the human she is sheltering and restores the prince to human form. The prince explains the reason for his quest and the sons do not know, so they send him to their aunt, the Aunt of Devils.
The prince reaches the Aunt of Devils, who shelters him from her sixty man-eating sons, then restores him to human form after she makes her progeny promise not to devour him. Still not knowing where the location of the Three Oranges is, they send them to their grandaunt. Thus, the prince reaches the Grandaunt of Devils, who shelters him from her ninety man-eating sons. After they promise not to hurt him, the prince says he is after the Three Oranges, and the least of the devils says he can take him there. The youngest Dev takes the prince through a road until they reach a garden with a pond (or fountain) in it. The Dev-son takes the prince to the fountain where he sees the three oranges, and the Dev-son tells the prince "Shut your eyes, open your eyes" - and an orange appears on the water, which the prince seizes. The Dev-son repeats the command twice more and two other oranges appear on the water surface, which the prince also plucks.
The Dev-son advises the prince to only open the oranges near water, and they part ways. The prince makes a return home and decides to cut open the first fruit: out comes a lovely maiden who asks for water, but, since the prince has none with him, she vanishes. The prince walks a bit more and cuts open the second orange; out comes another maiden, more beautiful than the first one, who also asks for water. Since he has none with him, she vanishes. He then decides to withhold the third fruit when he comes near a large spring, from which he drinks. He cuts open the last fruit, and out comes the most beautiful of the three maidens, who asks for water and the prince gives her some.
On not vanishing, the prince guides the orange maiden up a tree near the spring, while he goes to a nearby town to bring a coach and a raiment. While he is away, a black-skinned Moor maidservant comes to fetch water and sees the orange maiden's visage in water, mistaking for her own. Believing herself to be beautiful, she breaks the pitchers and returns to her mistress to complain that she is too beautiful for such a menial job. Her mistress draws a mirror to the servant's face to see that she is the same dark-skinned servant as before, and the maidservant goes to draw water again. She breaks the pitchers again after seeing the maiden's visage in water, and returns to her mistress's house to be shown her true face in the mirror.
Lastly, when the maidservant starts to break the pitchers again, the orange maiden tells her from atop the tree not to do so, since the visage in water belongs to her. The Moor maidservant spots the orange maiden and bids her come down to rest a spell on her lap. The orange maiden does so, and the maidservant sticks a pin on her head, turning her into a bird that flies away, then she replaces the fruit maiden atop the tree. The prince returns with a carriage and spots the woman at the tree, now looking darker. The maidservant lies that the prince left her under the sun too much, and now her skin has darkened. The prince believes the words and takes the maidservant as his bride back home. The padishah and the court suspect that she is indeed a Moor servant, but the prince says she will return to her previous self after some rest.
Meanwhile, on the padishah's castle gardens, the Orange Bird perches on a tree and asks the gardener how fares the prince and his black bride. The gardener says they are alright, and the Orange Bird curses the tree it is perched on to wither. The bird returns on the next days and keeps asking about the prince and his false bride, and cursing the trees to wither. One day, the prince goes for a walk in the garden to avoid dealing with the black bride, and notices that the trees have withered, then complains to the gardener. The gardener mentions the incident with the Orange Bird, and the prince orders him to place bird-lime to capture the bird the next time it appears. It happens thus, and the prince catches and cages the bird, taking it to the castle.
The black servant realizes the Orange Bird is the true Orange Peri, feigns illness and bribes the physicians to prescribe the meat of such a bird. The prince notices her has such bird, and orders the cooks to kill the Orange Bird and cook it. It happens thus, and the Orange Bird is given to the false bride to eat. However, a feather of the Orange Bird falls to the floor and lodges between two planks. One day, a woman that teaches the inmates of the harem to read and write is walking down the stairs and notices the dazzling feathers, which she brings home with her. While the woman is away, the feather turns into the Orange Maiden, does chores around the house like cooking the meal and cleaning, then returns to the feathery form. The woman returns home and notices that the house is tidy and clean. On the second day, the woman goes away again, and the Orange Maiden leaves the feather, does the chores around the house, then returns to her inert form.
After two days, the woman decides to investigate, leaves her door ajar and sees the Orange Maiden. The woman quickly grabs hold of the fairy and asks for explanations. The Orange Maiden tells the woman everything about the prince and how the black maidservant killed her twice. The woman promises to set everything right. Thus, she invites the prince for a meal in her house. When the Orange Maiden goes to serve the coffee with the cups, the prince sees the Orange Maiden's face and swoons at her beauty. The prince regains his consciousness and asks the woman who is this maiden, and if she can give her to him. The woman admits that the Orange Maiden belonged to him once, takes her by the hand and reunites the prince with his bride, then bids him take good care of the Orange Peri this time. The prince reunites with his true bride, executes the maidservant, and marries the Orange Peri in a forty day and forty night celebration.Гордлевскiй, В. А.. "Обзоръ турецкихъ сказокъ по сборник Куноша". In В честь Миллера Всеволода Федоровича. Юбилейный сборник, изданный его учениками и почитателями. Под ред. Н.Я. Янчука. Мoskva: типо-лит. А.В. Васильева, 1900. Vol. XXII pp. 185-218 [192-193 (summary for tale nr. 24)]. (In Russian)Kúnos, Ignácz. Turkish fairy tales and folk tales collected by Dr. Ignácz Kúnos. London, Lawrence and Bullen. 1896. pp. 12-30.Kúnos, Ignaz. Forty-four Turkish Fairy Tales. George G. Harrap & Co. London. 1913. pp. 19-30.
Analysis Tale type The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 408, "The Three Oranges".Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. pp. 135-137. In an article in Enzyklopädie des Märchens, scholar Christine Shojaei Kawan separated the tale type into six sections, and stated that parts 3 to 5 represented the "core" of the story: Accessed 2023-06-20.
A prince is cursed by an old woman to seek the fruit princess; The prince finds helpers that guide him to the princess's location; The prince finds the fruits (usually three), releases the maidens inside, but only the third survives; The prince leaves the princess up a tree near a spring or stream, and a slave or servant sees the princess's reflection in the water; The slave or servant replaces the princess (transformation sequence); The fruit princess and the prince reunite, and the false bride is punished.
In the Typen türkischer Volksmärchen ("Turkish Folktale Catalogue"), by Wolfram Eberhard and Pertev Naili Boratav, tale type ATU 408 corresponds to Turkish type TTV 89, "Der drei Zitronen-Mädchen" ("The Three Citron Maidens").Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî. Typen türkischer Volksmärchen. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1953. pp. 98-103 (tale type), 421 (table of correspondences) (In German). Alternatively, it may also be known as Üç Turunçlar ("Three Citruses" or "Three Sour Oranges").Koçak Macun, Büşra. (2016). "Erzurum Halk Masallarından Üç Turunçlar Masalı'nın Vladimir Propp'un Yapısal Anl" [Investigation of Fairy Tale Name is Three Sour Oranges That is Folk Tale from Erzurum by Using Vladimir Propper’s Structural Narrative Analysis Methods]. In: Turkish Studies volume 11., issue 15 (Summer/2016): 327-346. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7827/TurkishStudies.9542 The Turkish Catalogue registered 40 variants,Eberhard, Wolfram; Boratav, Pertev Nailî. Typen türkischer Volksmärchen. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1953. pp. 98-99 (section "Belege"). being the third "most frequent folktale" after types AT 707 and AT 883A.Dov Neuman (Noy). "Reviewed Work: Typen Tuerkischer Volksmaerchen by Wolfram Eberhard, Pertev Naili Boratav". In: Midwest Folklore 4, no. 4 (1954): 257. Accessed April 12, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4317494.
Motifs The maiden's appearance