The Singing, Springing Lark

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The Singing, Springing Lark or The Singing, Soaring Lark is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, appearing as tale no. 88.^[1]

It is Aarne-Thompson type 425C. Others of this type include Beauty and the Beast and The Small-tooth Dog.^[2]

It also contains motifs from AT 425A, such as East of the Sun and West of the Moon, the search for the lost husband.^[3] Others of this type include Black Bull of Norroway, The Daughter of the Skies, The Brown Bear of Norway, The Enchanted Pig, Cupid and Psyche, The Tale of the Hoodie, The Iron Stove, The Sprig of Rosemary, and White-Bear-King-Valemon.^[4]

[edit] Sypnosis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A man went on a journey and asked each of his daughters what she would like. The oldest wanted diamonds, the second pearls, and the youngest a singing, springing lark, which he was unable to obtain. On his journey home, he saw a tree with a lark, and ordered his servant to catch it. A lion sprung out and threatened to kill him for trying to steal the lark. It would take nothing to spare his life except for the first thing to meet him on his return home, and offered him the lark as well, if he would agree to that. He fears it will be his youngest daughter, but his servant persuades him to accept.

His youngest daughter is the first to greet him. When told of his promise, she set out the next morning. At the lion's castle, she was greeted by lions, and at night, all of them turned into humans. She married the lion whose lark her father had tried to take and lived with him, sleeping by day.

One night the lion told her that her oldest sister was marrying and offered to send her, with his lions. She went, and her family were glad to see her. After her return, the lion told her that her second sister was marrying, and she said he must go with her, and their child. The lion told her that if any candlelight fell on him, he would be transformed into a dove for seven years. She went ahead and had a chamber built to protect him, but the door was made of green wood, and it warped, making a crack. When her sister's wedding procession went by, candelight fell on him, turning him into a dove.

He tells his wife that for every seven steps she takes, he will drop a feather and a drop of blood, and perhaps she can track him by that.

When the seven years were nearly up, she lost the trail. She climbed up to the sun and asked after the white dove; the sun did not know, but gave her a casket. She then asked the moon, who did not know, but gave her an egg. She asked the night wind, and it could not help her but told her to wait for the others; the east and west wind could not, but the south wind said that the dove was again a lion and fighting a dragon that was an enchanted princess by the Red Sea. The night wind advised her to strike the lion and dragon with a certain reed, to allow the lion to win and both creatures to regain their form, and then to escape on the back of a griffin. It gave her a nut that would grow to a nut tree in the middle of the sea; this would allow the griffin to rest.

She stopped the fight, but the princess also regained her form and took the man who had been a lion with her on the griffin. The daughter followed until she found a castle where the princess and her husband were to be married.

She opened the casket and found a dazzling dress in it. She brought it to the castle, and the princess bought it from her, even though the price was that the daughter wanted to spend the night in the man's bedchamber, but the princess had a page give the man a sleeping draught. Though the daughter pleaded with him, he thought it was the wind's whistling.

The next day, she opened the egg. It held a chicken with twelve golden chicks. The princess again bought them for the same price, but the man asked the page what was the wind the previous night, and the page had to confess to the draught. He did not drink it the second night, and they fled on the griffin to their home, where they found their child.