Tale Summary
Once upon a time, there were three princes, sons of the emperor, who all loved hunting. In quick succession, the first and then the second sons both tried to hunt a hare that lured them to a mill where it turned into a dragon and ate them both. The third, youngest son then searched for his brothers. He resisted hunting the hare and asked an old woman in chains at the mill to help him discover the dragon’s weakness. She tricks the dragon into revealing that it lives in a lake in a faraway kingdom and that its power lay inside of the dragon’s body which also contained that of a boar, a hare, a pigeon, and a sparrow. The prince traveled to the kingdom, became the emperor’s shepherd, and took the flock to graze by the lake without allowing the dragon to eat the sheep, as had happened in the past. After two encounters with the dragon, the prince fought the dragon for a third time, and after the princess kissed him on the forehead, he tossed the dragon into the sky. Falling to the ground, the dragon smashed into pieces which became different animals. The prince first used his dogs to catch the boar and the hare that was inside the boar and then used his hawk to catch the pigeon. Inside the pigeon, he found the sparrow. He spared the sparrow’s life in exchange for information on where he could find his brothers. He then marries the emperor’s daughter and frees a village’s-worth of people from the dragon’s cellar in the mill, including his brothers.
Fairy Tale Title
The Dragon and the Prince
Fairy Tale Author(s)/Editor(s)
Andrew Lang
Fairy Tale Illustrator(s)
Henry Justice Ford
Common Tale Type
Dragon Slayers
Tale Classification
Page Range of Tale
pp. 80-92
Full Citation of Tale
“The Dragon and the Prince.” The Crimson Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1903, pp. 80-92.
Original Source of the Tale
From Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic’s Volksmärchen der Serben [Serbian Folktales] (Berlin, 1854).
Tale Notes
In this tale, the dragon slayer is of noble birth. Defeating the monster not only gains him a princess for a wife, but also leads to the release of his two brothers and villagers who had been imprisoned by the beast. The dragon is a shapeshifter that encloses within his body, like nested boxes, a series of other animals. In order to be victorious, the slayer must defeat the dragon, a boar, a hare, a pigeon, and finally a sparrow that reveals where the dragon has been keeping its captives. The slayer does not act alone but receives help from an old woman who is being held prisoner by the dragon and from a princess whose kiss enables him to finally defeat it. Two black and white illustrations accompany the tale: the first depicts one of the princes being caught by the dragon; the second depicts the dragon slayer receiving a kiss from the king’s daughter before he slays the dragon.
Research and Curation
Grant Nelson, 2020
Book Title
The Crimson Fairy Book
Book Author/Editor(s)
Andrew Lang
Illustrator(s)
Henry Justice Ford
Publisher
Longmans, Green, and Co.
Date Published
1903
Decade Published
1900-1909
Publisher City
London ; New York
Publisher Country
England ; United States
Language
English
Rights
Public Domain
Digital Copy
Available on the Internet Archive
Book Notes
None
More tales like this
"The Eight-headed Serpent.” Japanese fairy tales, Teresa Peirce Williston, Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co, 1904, pp. 35-41.
“The Lambton Worm.” Fairy Gold : A Book of Old English Fairy Tales Chosen by Ernest Rhys, Ernest Rhys, London: J.M. Dent & Co.; New York : E.P. Dutton & co., 1907, pp. 8-12.
Yamata No Orochi. Takejiro, Hasegawa. Translated by Basil Hall Chamberlain, Kobunsha, 1886.
"The Seven-Headed Serpent.” The Yellow Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1906, pp. 60-63.
“The Dragon and the Prince.” The Crimson Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1903, pp. 80-92.
“The Dragon of the North.” The Yellow Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang, London, New York, Bombay: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1906, pp. 9-20.
“The Knights of the Fish.” The Brown Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang, New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1914, pp. 343-350.
