Sabzqaba (Persian: "سبزقبا") is an Iranian fairy tale, published by author Moniro Ravanipour, about a maiden that marries the spirit in a tree, loses him, and finds him at his mother's house, where she is forced to perform tasks for her mother-in-law.

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.

Summary In this tale, a couple has no children. One day, the wife goes to the spring to fetch water and sees a tree with a green trunk, which she promises to deliver her daughter to if one is born to her. So it happens, and the woman forgets her promise. One day, when the girl is playing with other children, the girl hears a voice coming from the tree, which tells the girl to remind her mother of the promise. The girl goes home and tells her mother about the voice in the tree. The woman, remembering her vow, prepares her daughter and takes her to the green trunk, despite the girl's pleas. The girl is left near the green trunk, in tears, when, suddenly, the trunk opens up, revealing an emerald palace inside it, and a youth comes out of it. He introduces himself as her husband and makes her promise not to tell anyone about this secret. Life goes on for her: during the day, she sits by the tree trunk, and at night, it opens up for her.

She is asked about it by her friends, even her mother, who, one day, begins to cry for her daughter's fate. Moved by her mother's tears, the girl reveals her husband's secret, then goes to the tree trunk to wait for her husband. Realizing he will not appear, she remembers his words: if she told anyone about him, she would have to search for him for seven years in iron garments and iron shoes. She begins her quest and walks over seven mountains, until she wears down the seventh pair of shoes near a spring, and she stops to rest for a moment. She then sees a woman fetching water, and discovers that she is her husband's, Sabzqaba, servant. The girl secretly drops her ring in the woman's jar, which she brings to Sabzqaba. The youth recognizes the ring and brings his wife inside, but warns her his family is made of demons and will devour her, so he turns her into a pin and places it around his neck. Despite his magic, his demoness mother still senses a human nearby. Sabzqaba changes his wife back into a human, and introduces her as a servant he found for them.

Still playing with her husband's charade, the girl is forced to fulfill tasks for the demoness: first, she is to separate a mixed heap of grains (peas, beans and rice) in the barn, which her husband helps her do; next, she is to empty a pond with her eyelashes. Over the impossibility of this task, she sits down and weeps, but Sabzqaba appears to her and chants a spell: water comes out of the pond and waters the yard. Thirdly, the demoness orders the girl to take a box ("جعبه", in the original) to the demoness's sister and trade for a thing, and warns her the box is not to be opened. On the way there, the girl opens the box; dancers ("رقاص") leap out of it, begin playing the tar ("تار") and the tombak ("تنبک") drum and start to dance. Sabzqaba appears to his wife and commands the dancers back into the box, then advises the girl how to proceed: open a closed door and close an open one; exchange the fodder for animals (grass for a horse, bone for a dog); enter his aunt's house and compliment a pool of pus and blood, give her the box and flee. It happens so: the girl escapes back to the demoness's house, despite the aunt commanding the pool, the animals and the doors to stop her.

Finally, Sabzqaba's mother betroths him to her niece. During the wedding night, Sabzqaba changes his wife into a broom and places her in a corner, and secretly stashes a pack of needles and pins and a water bottle, and saddles two horses. After he marries, he kills his cousin and places her head in a chest, changes his human wife back to human shape and both flee from his demon relatives. The next morning, the demonesses discover the cousin's head and go after the couple on their horses with a demon retinue. Sabzqaba and his wife throw behind them the needles and pins (that become a field of them), a grain of salt (that becomes a lake) and finally the water in the bottle (which creates a sea between them). With each passing obstacle, the number of demons decreases, until they reach the sea and some of them drown, making them cease their chase. At a safe distance, Sabzqaba creates a palace for him and his wife, and brings his mother-in-law to live with them.Ravanipour, Moniro. "افسانه‌ها و باورهاى جنوب" [The Fairy Tales and Beliefs of Southern Iran's Region]. انتشارات نجوا, 1369 . pp. 95ff.

Analysis Tale type The tale was classified, according to the international Aarne-Thompson Index as type ATU 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband". More specifically, it is classified as subtype ATU 425B, "Son of the Witch". This tale type involves the heroine being forced to perform tasks for a witch or her mother-in-law, but she is secretly helped by her husband or love interest.

Motifs

According to Swedish scholar 's study on Animal as Bridegroom tales, a characteristic motif that occurs in the "Indo-Persian" area is the heroine using a ring to signal her arrival to her husband, when she finds his location.

The heroine's tasks One of the heroine's tasks is to sort out a heap of mixed grains. According to Swedish scholar , this motif appears in Mediterranean and Near Eastern variants of type ATU 425B, "The Witch's Tasks".Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. p. 375.

Another motif that appears in the tale type is that the heroine must travel to another witch's house and fetch from there a box or casket she must not open. German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther remarked that these motives ("the quest for the casket" and the visit to the second witch) are "the essential feature" of the subtype.

The heroes' magic flight The heroine and her supernatural husband escape in a Magic Flight sequence, that is, the characters either throw magic objects to delay their pursuers, or change into other forms to deceive them. Although this episode is more characteristic of tale type ATU 313, "The Magic Flight", some variants of type ATU 425B also show it as a closing episode. German literary critic Walter Puchner argues that the motif attached itself to type 425B, as a Wandermotiv ("Wandering motif").Puchner, Walter. "Magische Flucht (AaTh 313 sqq.)". In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Band 9: Magica-Literatur – Neẓāmi. Edited by Rudolf Wilhelm Brednich; Hermann Bausinger; Wolfgang Brückner; Helge Gerndt; Lutz Röhrich; Klaus Roth. De Gruyter, 2016 . pp. 13-14. . https://www.degruyter.com/database/EMO/entry/emo.9.003/html

According to Marzolph's index, Iranian type 425B concludes with the episode the "Magic Flight": by throwing objects behind them, the heroes create magic obstacles, e.g., a pack of needles becomes a field of needles, salt creates a plain of salt, and the water creates a sea or a river.Marzolph, Ulrich. Typologie des persischen Volksmärchens. Beirut: Orient-Inst. der Deutschen Morgenländischen Ges.; Wiesbaden: Steiner [in Komm.], 1984. p. 85 (section VI).

The tree husband Among the forms of the supernatural husband of tale type ATU 425, the heroine may marry a tree. Accessed 11 Aug. 2024.

Variants

Bibinegar and Maysaskabar In an Iranian tale published by professor with the title "Бибинегар и Майсаскабар" ("Bibinegar and Maysaskabar"; Persian: "بی بی نگار و می‌سس قبار", "Bibi Nagar and Mises Qabar"), a childless woman promises her unborn child to a tree stump. A girl is born and given the name Bibinegar. A voice emerges from the tree stump to remind her mother to give what it is owed. Bibinegar cries but decides to sit beside the tree stump. A man comes out of it with a grand retinue, introduces himself as Maysaskabar and gives the girl a coat. He tells her that she can never part with the coat, lest he will disappear. Bibinegar's aunt burns the coat in order to get rid of him and to marry the girl to her son. The man disappears, his only memento a turquoise ring. Bibinegar decides to seek him out, and passes by a flock of sheep, a caravan of camels and a herd of cows - all presents from Maysaskabar to Bibinegar. She reaches a fountain where a boy is getting water. She begs for a drink and the boy refuses, and she curses the water the boy is carrying to become pus and blood. The boy returns to fetch water again and she drops his ring inside it. Maysaskabar notices the ring and gets the maiden to a house of divs. He convinces the divs to take her as a servant. He plans to escape with her that night after he kills the wife he was forced to marry. They escape in a "Magic Flight" sequence as the man's mother pursues them. She is killed, but lets a drop of blood drip on the ground and become a gazelle. Maysaskabar decides to take the gazelle as a pet, but once he is away the animal attacks Bibinegar. One night, the gazelle becomes human, hides everyone in bottles and prepares a cauldron of boiling water to drop Bibinagar in. Bibinegar tricks the woman and goes to the roof to pray, to buy herself some time, and a fairy appears. The fairy tells the girl to break the bottle Maysaskabar is in. She does and he is released. The man tosses the gazelle into the cauldron, reveals it is all a setup by his aunt and sends Bibinegar with a bottle with his aunt's life inside to his aunt. He advises her to feed the dog and the camel with the correct food, water the garden, clean the rug and the bed, and to delouse his aunt when she asks for it. She follows through with the instructions, slams the aunt's head against the floor and runs away. The dog attacks Maysaskabar's aunt. Bibinegar returns to her beloved, now human.Османов, Магомет-Нури Османович. Персидские народные сказки. Сост. М.-Н. Османов, предисл. Л.С. Комиссарова. М.: Наука, 1987. pp. 250-256. In his Catalogue of Persian Folktales, German scholar classified the tale as his type AaTh 425B, Der Tierbräutigam: Die böse Zauberin ("The Animal Bridegroom: The Evil Sorceress"), and sourced it from Kermān.Marzolph, Ulrich. Typologie des persischen Volksmärchens. Beirut: Orient-Inst. der Deutschen Morgenländischen Ges.; Wiesbaden: Steiner [in Komm.], 1984. pp. 84-86 (entry nr. 9).

Suz Al-Hawa Beidar Qaba