Fairy Tale Friday--Myrsina (Greece, 1970)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

This week we look at a tale from Greece that was collected by George A. Megas in his book Folktales of Greece in 1970. I can find little information about the author except that he was an academician and professor at the University of Athens and he was instrumental in the development of Greek Folklore. I found this tale here on Book of Fables blog. 

What sets this tale apart is that it is not a mother or stepmother who envies our protagonist’s beauty, but rather her two older sisters. This puts me in mine of the Twa Sisters—a murder ballad I spent a year studying on Murder ballad Monday a few years ago where sisterly jealousy turns deadly. We looked at several tales where the moon is used as a magic mirror, but here the sisters ask the sun who is the fairest. Perhaps this is because Greece is such a warm, sunny place that the sun is at the heart of their lives.

This tale becomes more like a Cinderella story in that they force their youngest and most beautiful sister (according to the sun) to wear dirty rags in an effort to diminish her beauty, but the sun sees through all that. Even though they are arrayed in their finest and covered in jewels, Myrsina’s beauty shines through.

Then the story morphs into a version of Hansel and Gretel. The sisters say they need to go rebury their mother whose grave lies over the mountain and then abandon their youngest sister there on the pretence that they forgot to bring a spade to dig up their dead mother and must go home and get one. Then we go back to Cinderella as the trees of the forest act as magical helper like a fairy godmother and help her to find safety in a little house.

We then return to elements of Snow White for the house is not occupied by seven dwarfs but the twelve months. They look after her like a sister until her sisters find out that she is still alive. They bake her a poison pie (was it an apple one? It does not say) and failing in that attempt on her life come back and claim they have a ring of their late mother’s that they need to give to her. I can’t decide about the character of Myrsina. I sometimes think her interactions with her sisters are full of innocence when she asks “Won’t you stay and eat it with me?” and then I read it again I hear a wariness in her voice as she deals with them and takes everything with a grain of salt. But at least she talks in this one, unlike last week.

This one ends much less creepy than other versions. The prince gazes upon her, sees the ring and the red marks on her finger and removes it and so she survives. There is no bringing her dead body home and keeping it secret in a room and stripping her unconscious body naked like in other tales. Then they get married and lived and thrived and did good deeds.

source

Myrsina source

Once upon a time, there lived three sisters who were orphans. The youngest was named Myrsina, or Myrtle.
One day, the two older sisters, who thought themselves great beauties, decided to find out which one was the fairest of the three. So they went outside just as the sun was rising and asked, “Sun, who is the best of us all?”

The sun answered, “One is as good as the other, but the third and youngest is the best.”

When the two older sisters heard that, jealousy came alive in them. The next day, they wore their finest clothes and forced Myrsina to wear her oldest clothes.

“Sun, who is the best of us all?”

The sun answered, “One is as good as the other, but the third and youngest is the best.”

Now, the two older sisters were truly angry. The next morning, they added all of their jewellery to their finery and forced Myrsina to wear dirty old rags.

“Sun, who is the best of us all?”

The sun answered for the third time, “One is as good as the other, but the third and youngest is the best”

That was the last thing the two older sisters could bear to hear. They were eaten up by envy and began to plot how best to be rid of Myrsina.

“Our mother has been dead for so many years,” said the eldest. “We should go and rebury her. ”

“It will take time” said the second sister, “since she is buried far away on the mountain”
Myrsina, who was too young to remember any funeral, agreed to go with her sisters. She took the funeral bread and kollyva—the traditional offering of fruit and grain—with her.
When they had gotten into the mountain forest, the eldest sister said, “Here is the site. But—well, aren’t we fool? We forgot our shovels.”
“We will go back for them” mid the second sister. “Myrsina, you stay here and guard the site”

There was Myrsina left all alone in the forest. She waited, and waited, and finally, when night began to fall, she knew she had been left to die, and burst into tears.
The trees took pity on her. “Do not cry,” whispered a beech tree. “Let that bread you hold roll. Wherever it stops, there you stay, safe and sound.”

So Myrsina set the bread rolling and followed it down and around until it finally stopped in front of a house. She went inside but found no one around and the place in terrible mess. Myrsina rolled up her sleeves and set to work. She soon had straightened everything out and even had started dinner.
Then, the owners of the house came home. They were the twelve months, twelve brothers who shared the house.
“Look at this!” one month cried, “Someone has cleaned up our house!”
“And someone has started dinner.”
“Do not be afraid!” they called out. “If you are a lad, you shall be our younger brother. If you are a maid, you shall be our little sister. We shall never harm you.”
Then, Myrsina came out from where she had hidden herself. She sat down with them and told them how her sisters had abandoned her.
“Then, little sister, you shall have a home with us,” the months decided.

And for a time, they did. Myrsina kept the house clean and the food cooked, and the brothers treated her kindly and laughed and sang with her.

Meanwhile, though, Myrsina’s two sisters found out that she was not dead and cold, but alive and happy. Envy ate them up. They baked a pie with poison in it and set out to visit her.
“Oh Myrsina, we thought you were dead! We have been searching and searching for you!” the two older sisters exclaimed.
“I thought you had abandoned me.” replied Myrsina.
“No, no, we looked everywhere for you. When we learned you were here, we came with a pie for you.”
“Won’t you stay and eat it with me?”
“No, no, we are in a hurry. Good-bye, Myrsina;”
They hurried off.
Myrsina cut a tiny piece of the pie and gave it to the dog. Instantly, the dog fell down dead.
“Poison!” Myrsina cried and went out and buried the pie deeply.

Months passed. The two older sisters heard that Myrsina was alive and again set out to visit her. This time, they brought a poisoned ring. “Sister? Sister? Won’t you let us in?” they implored.
“No, sisters, I will not,” Myrsina replied.
“Please, Myrsina! We have our mother’s ring” said the eldest sister. “On her deathbed, she said, ‘If you do not want my curse, give this to Myrsina  when she grows up.’”
The second sister said, “And now you are all grown up, and we do not want to go to hell from our mother’s curse. So, just open a window a crack, and we will slip the ring in to you.”
So Myrsina opened the window just a crack, and the sisters slipped the ring in for her. No sooner had Myrsina put the ring on her finger than she fell to the floor.

When the months came home and found Myrsina lying lifeless, they mourned so loudly , the mountains rang with the cries. Then, they dressed her in gold and placed her in a golden casket. But they did not have the heart to bury her, so they kept the casket in the house.

A young prince chanced to pass that way. He saw the golden casket and begged for it. “It is such a lovely thing I will keep it in a place of honour.”
“No, you must not. Our poor Myrsina lies dead within.”
They told the prince all about the lovely maiden, and his heart ached with pity. “May I see her, for just a moment?”

So they opened the casket. The prince cried out in anguish. Such a lovely maiden, dead.
But then he saw the ring on her finger, and the red marks around the ring. Carefully, he removed the ring. As soon as he had done so, Myrsina returned to life.

Myrsina found the handsome young prince on his knees before her. And her heart went out to him.
So it happened that they were wed. And the twelve months were guests at the wedding.
As for the two older sisters? No one knows what became of them. But Myrsina and her prince lived and thrived and did good deeds.

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for a tale with dragons instead of dwarfs.