Flights of Fairytale Fancy: The Ring, A Swedish Fairytale

            Having been raised on a fairly steady diet of classic Grimm’s fairytales it has been interesting to delve into the folklore of other cultures, particularly those to which I have an ancestral claim.  My maternal grandfather is from Swedish stock and in recent years I have had the opportunity to read some of the delightful tales that come from that country.

            The interesting thing is that despite a large part of the evil in the story being attributed to trolls, the other characters have their fair share of flaws too.  The protagonists, whether prince or peasant, human or gnome, are sometimes rude and short-tempered, occasionally doing the right thing to simply avoid guilt, and sometimes doing the wrong thing despite the warning of their elders.  There’s something very human about them, about their imperfections and tendency towards pride. 

            There’s one story I particularly like, although not for the reason you might initially think.  The story is entitled “The Ring”.  The main character is a prince, although the unsung hero of the story is really his horse.  One evening the prince goes for a ride down by the water and after dismounting finds a small silver ring with tiny blue stones in it.  Figuring that one of the ladies from the court lost it, he puts it in his pocket and rides back to the castle.  Then at the next meal, he asks the ladies if any of them have lost a ring and shows them the one he found.  The ladies all laugh at the tiny, shabby thing, and then start to compare their own sparkling trinkets.

            Thinking nothing more of it the prince puts it back in his pocket and then later on his nightstand.  However, as soon as he blows out the light the ring starts vibrating rather noisily.  Quickly he relights the candle, but as soon as the light touches it, the ring is still.  This goes on for the next few nights with the movement of the ring escalating, until finally the prince is convinced that he needs to find the owner of the ring (or never get another decent night’s sleep). 

With nothing to go off of, save the fact that he found the ring by the water, the prince mounts his trusty steed and follows the flow of the water upstream, trying to discover its owner.  On his long journey, he meets many women of varying age, pedigree, and prosperity, some of which have lost rings, none of whom claim the simple one he found. 

Finally, disheartened and despondent, he arrives on the banks of a mighty river.  On the opposite side is a steep mountain whose top is shrouded in blue mist.  Adorning its slopes are the most glorious flowers, and the prince, in his depressed state, finds himself longing to see them more closely.  Urging his faithful horse into the raging waters he barely manages to cross safely.  Once there, he leaves his horse to graze in a meadow while he explores the steep and narrow path towards the summit.  He climbs for what seems hours until finally hearing the melody of a stream, he realizes how desperately thirsty he is.  Stumbling into a clearing he finds a young woman with a yoke of buckets drawing water.  Seeing him, she does not react with alarm but regards him seriously and with great solemnity. 

He asks for water, and she smiles faintly before pointing out that there is nothing from which to drink.  Then, before he can respond she cups her hands filling them with water, and allows him to drink.  He gulps down the first handful and then requests seconds.  While he is again leaning forward to drink, the ring, which he had taken to wearing on a chain around his neck, slips out from his tunic. 

Wide-eyed the girl asks him how he obtained her ring, and he tells her his story.  She then tells him hers.  She is a princess, (of course) and the ring was a protective charm given to her by her dying mother.  She had been told if she was ever in need of help to throw the ring into the water and chant a certain spell.  Her mother had died when she was a small child, and years later her kingdom was invaded and her father killed.  She was taken prisoner and lived in a tower.  She was given plenty of beautiful things and treated like the princess she was (aside from the fact that she was stuck in the tower).  After a few years, her captor announced that she was going to marry his son.  The princess would rather have died, but wisely didn’t say so and was, therefore, able to devise and implement her escape.  Unfortunately, as soon as she escaped the usurpers, she was captured by a mountain troll and has been working for him ever since.  She’d tried to escape him, but had been unable to cross the river and had instead thrown her ring into the waters according to her mother’s instructions. 

After they finish explaining everything to each other (and conveniently falling in love) they hear the troll calling for the princess, so they take off running back to the meadow where he left his horse.  Once they’ve mounted they cross the river and begin the long, uneventful journey back to the prince’s castle. (As I said before, the horse is the real hero of this story.  For the major, but unappreciated role he plays, he really should have a name.)

The only complaint that I have about the story, aside from the horse being taken for granted, is that the troll captured a princess to work for him.  If I were a troll who forced young women into servitude, I would try to abduct someone with a bit more experience in hard labor and subjugating themselves.  Plus, a peasant would be much easier to nab than a royal, although, admittedly he did capture the princess once she’d fled into the forest.  Still, despite the fact that the princess pretty much walked into his home, I feel like he would have been better served to grab someone who actually knew how to do the chores.  Even with the princess’s cleverness, he’d still have to teach her the basics in everything!  I suppose the village wenches had too much common sense to go out into the forest without an escort or a weapon.

Anyway, what I really appreciate about this story is how the prince goes out on this quest with very little idea of where he’s going.  He has a goal: to find the owner of the ring, but no notion of where or who she is, and very little idea how to find her.  (In fact, he doesn’t even have a guarantee that the owner is a “she”!  The ring could be a memento of a loved one that some old man lost.)  I feel like my life has been similar to that, especially in my young adult years.  I have certain goals and hopes and dream, but attempting to fulfill them can be quite nebulous.  It can be discouraging even, but somehow giving up would be worse than to keep going and still never find The End.