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The Snow-child

European folktale

European folktale

The Snow-child is a widespread European folktale, found in many medieval tellings.

It is Aarne–Thompson type 1362.

Synopsis

A merchant returns home after an absence of two years to find his wife with a newborn son. She explains one snowy day she swallowed a snowflake while thinking about her husband which caused her to conceive. Pretending to believe, he raises the boy with her until he takes the boy on a trip and sells him into slavery. On his return, he explains to his wife that the boy melted in the heat.

Variants

The tale first appears in the 11th-century Cambridge Songs. It also appears in Medieval fabliaux, and was used in school exercises of rhetoric. A Medieval play about the Virgin Mary has characters disbelieving her story of her pregnancy citing the tale.

It contrasts to Aarne-Thompson type 703*, Snow Maiden, where a child really has a magical snow-related origin.

References

References

  1. [[D. L. Ashliman]], ''[http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type1362.html The Snow Child: folktales of type 1362]''
  2. 978-2-13-038255-3.
  3. Jan M. Ziolkowski, (ed. and trans.), ''The Cambridge Songs (‘Carmina Cantabrigensia’)'', The Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Series A, 66 (Garland: New York, 1994), no. 14.
  4. Jan M. Ziolkowski ''Fairy Tales from Before Fairy Tales: The Medieval Latin Past of Wonderful Lies'' p 42 {{ISBN. 9780472033799
  5. [[D. L. Ashliman]], ''[http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0703.html The Snow Maiden: foltales of type 703*]''
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folklore fabliaux european-folklore atu-1350-1439
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