Household Tales · Chapter
The Six Servants explained
A prince, sick with love for a sorceress queen's beautiful daughter, sets out to win her hand despite the deadly tasks.
What happens
A prince, sick with love for a sorceress queen's beautiful daughter, sets out to win her hand despite the deadly tasks. He gathers six extraordinary servants—a Stout One, a Listener, a Tall One, a Sharp-Eyed One, a Frosty One, and another—who help him complete three impossible challenges. After overcoming the queen's treachery and the princess's pride, the prince reveals his true identity, and the couple is married.
Themes in this chapter
Transformation and Redemption
The princess's pride is humbled through hardship, and the prince's love is rewarded.
Virtue Rewarded and Vice Punished
The prince's perseverance and the servants' loyalty are rewarded; the sorceress's malice is thwarted.
Magic and the Supernatural
The queen is a sorceress, and the servants possess supernatural abilities.
Characters to notice
- the princess
The beautiful daughter of the sorceress queen, initially proud and haughty, later humbled.
- the young King
The prince who risks his life to win the princess, later revealed as a king.
- the servants
The six extraordinary servants: Stout One, Listener, Tall One, Sharp-Eyed One, Frosty One, and another.
- Unknown
The aged Queen and sorceress who sets deadly tasks for suitors.
Key passages
“In former times there lived an aged Queen who was a sorceress, and her daughter was the most beautiful maiden under the sun.”
Long ago, an old queen who practiced magic had a daughter of extraordinary beauty.
Introduces the sorceress queen and her daughter.
“A certain King's son who had also heard of the maiden's beauty, said to his father, 'Let me go there, I want to demand her in marriage.'”
A prince, having heard of the maiden's beauty, asked his father for permission to seek her hand.
The prince's motivation and quest begin.
“When the father perceived that all hope was over, with a heavy heart he said to him, 'Go thither, and try your luck, for I know no other means of curing you.'”
Seeing no other way to save his son, the king reluctantly allowed him to go.
The father's despair and consent.
“The prince thought, 'The task is easy, I will most certainly keep my eyes open.' Nevertheless he called his servants, told them what the old woman had said, and remarked, 'Who knows what treachery lurks behind this? Foresight is a good thing keep watch, and take care that the maiden does not go out of my room again.'”
The prince was confident but cautious, enlisting his servants to guard the maiden.
The prince's vigilance and reliance on his servants.
“Then the princess believed that he really was a swineherd, and tended the herd with him, and thought to herself, 'I have deserved this for my haughtiness and pride.'”
The princess, thinking her husband a swineherd, accepted her humble role as punishment for her former pride.
The princess's humbling and self-reflection.