"The Witch in the Stone Boat.” The Yellow Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang, London, New York, Bombay: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1906, pp. 274-278.

Tale Summary

There was once a handsome prince named Sigurd whose aging father desired to see his son married before he died. He told him that there was a beautiful princess who lived in a certain country who would be a fitting wife, and so Sigurd set off. When he arrived, the King readily agreed to the marriage, but on the condition that the prince stay as long as he could because the King himself was too old to rule. Sigurd agreed only when he was also granted permission to visit his home country when his father died. He and the princess were married and had a child, and when the boy was two years old news came of the death of Sigurd’s father, and so the family boarded a ship to visit and pay their respects. During the journey they came to a dead calm and the wind would not blow, and they were stuck at sea. One day, the prince had gone below deck to sleep while his wife played with their son. A stone boat came alongside the ship, and an ugly Witch snatched the Queen and stole her beautiful clothes and put them on, becoming like her. She placed the Queen in the boat, cursing her to go to her brother in the Underworld, and when she was out of sight the baby began to cry. The witch took him below deck and scolded Sigurd, who was surprised because his wife had never before done that. The ship reached the kingdom he was now to rule over and he was crowned King, but his son would not stop crying until he got a good nurse for him, and everyone noticed that his wife had changed dramatically. One day, two young fellows of the court listened to her talking to herself alone in her room, and heard that when she yawned a little, she was a young maiden, when she yawned half-way then she was half troll, and when she yawned fully she was a troll altogether. The two saw through a crack that she did transform in this way after a full yawn, and saw also that her brother, a three-headed Giant, came up from the floor and shared a trough of meat with his sister. One evening, the nurse who took care of Sigurd’s child saw a beautiful woman dressed in white and wearing a chain appear from the floor, who held the baby gently before returning to the ground. This happened the next evening, and the woman said “two are gone, and one only is left” before disappearing. The nurse told the King the whole story, and he hid in the child’s room with a sword in his hand, and when the woman appeared he recognized her as his wife and cut the chain, causing loud crashing noises. She told him the story of what had happened to her, and that she had gone to the Underworld where a three-headed Giant wished to marry her, but she refused to consent until she had visited her son for three nights. He had put a chain around her that he had fastened to his own waist, and the crashing sounds were him plummeting to his death. The King had the Witch stoned and then torn to pieces by untamed horses, and he and his Queen lived happily together and the nurse was married to a nobleman