King Kojata

A king and a queen had no children. One day, the king was travelling (hunting to forget his childlessness in the Polish, inspecting his country in the Russian), and grew thirsty. He found a spring with a cup floating in it. Trying to grab the cup did not succeed; it always evaded his hands. When he dropped to drink directly, a creature in the well (the King Kostiei in Polish), grabbed his beard and would not free him until he promised to give it something: in Polish, the most precious thing in his palace, which was not there when he left it; in the Russian, something he knew nothing about, and which he would find on his return home.

He promised. On his return, he found his wife had a son. He told no one of the exchange, but when the prince was grown, an old man appeared to him in the woods and told him to tell his father to make good on his bargain. When he told the king, the king told him the truth. The prince set out to pay it.

He came to a lake where thirty ducks (Russian) or twelve geese (Polish) were swimming, and where there were clothes on the shore. He took one. The birds came ashore, changed into women, and dressed themselves, except the one whose dress he had. That one, as a bird, looked about, and begged the prince to give her back her clothing. He did so. She was grateful, told him that she was the youngest daughter of the man he had been promised to, and promised to aid him. She told him that when he reached her father, he was to approach him on his knees, without any fear.

He obeyed her, although her father gave fearful yells. When he had nearly reached him, her father laughed and said it was well that he had not been frightened. In the morning, he ordered the prince to build him a marble palace in a day. He went to his room, the daughter came to him as a bee, and promised to do it for him, and the next day, the palace was built. The next day, he demanded that the prince pick out his youngest daughter from her sisters. She told him she would be the one with the ladybug on her eyelid (Polish) or fly on her cheek (Russian), and he was able to find her. The third day, he told the prince to make him a pair of boots. The prince was no shoemaker, and the youngest daughter told him that they must flee. She spat on the ground (Polish) or breathed on the window and made frost (Russian), and they fled. When the servants came for the prince, the spit or frost answered for them. Finally, he ordered the door broken, which revealed their flight.

The servants chased them. The maiden turned herself into a river, the prince into the bridge, and put three roads into the forest over the bridge. The servants, not knowing which way to go, turned back. Her father told them that they had been the bridge and river. When the servants returned, the maiden turned herself and the prince into a dense forest, with many paths, and the servants became lost and could not find them. When they returned, her father decided to chase them himself. The maiden said that he could go no further than the first church. She demanded his cross. With it, she made herself a church and the prince a priest. Her father demanded if the priest had seen them, and he said that they had passed and had sent their greetings. Her father had to turn back.

The shorter Polish version ends here.

Andrew Lang included the Russian version King Kojata, in The Green Fairy Book. A. H. Wratislaw collected a Polish variant Prince Unexpected in his Sixty Folk-Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources, as tale number 17.[3] A shorter, also Polish version, The Unlooked for Prince, was collected by Louis Léger in Contes Populaires Slaves[4] and included by Andrew Lang in The Grey Fairy Book.

Josef Baudiš published a Czech version in English, simply named Kojata, in his book of Czech folk tales The Key of Gold in 1917 (reprinted in 1922).[5] In this version, the princesses are enchanted into duck forms.

Karel Jaromír Erben listed several stories in his compilation of Slavic fairy tales, and on his annotations indicated that this story, titled About Prince Unexpectedly, or The Skeleton King, originated from a Polish book of fairy tales by A. J. Gliski.[6] In addition, in a Czech language book of Slavic fairy tales, Erben published a variant where the antagonist describes himself as "Kościéj nesmrtelný" (litt. Koschei, the Non-dying), that is, the sorcerous Koschei, the Deathless.[7]

A version of the tale, named Kojata and sourced as Russian, was published in The Golden Fairy Book. In this version, the prince's father was named Kojata, not the antagonist (named Czernuch, the king of the subterranean realm), and the thirty bird maidens bathe in their avian forms (an inversion of the common Swan maiden narrative).[8]

Another version of the tale, titled Kojata, appears in A Book of Wizards by Ruth Manning-Sanders.

A. H. Wratislaw suggested the antagonist of the story is the Polish version of Koschei the Deathless, the wizard character of Russian folklore.[9]

The tale is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Folktale Index as ATU 313, The Magic Flight (Maiden helps the hero flee), combined with a subtype "Forgotten Fiancé", by motif "Kiss of Oblivion".

The princesses, royal daughters of King Kostei, are enchanted maidens who transform into their geese disguise. When they take off the disguise to bathe and play in the water, a human male hides the clothing of the youngest - a story that mirrors the widespread tale of the swan maiden.[10]

• Foundling-Bird
• Nix Nought Nothing
• Snow-White-Fire-Red
• Sweetheart Roland
• The Battle of the Birds
• The Grateful Prince
• The Master Maid
• The Nixie of the Mill-Pond
• The Prince Who Wanted to See the World
• The Troll's Daughter
• The White Dove

• Prince Unexpected
• The Unlooked for Prince
• King Kojata
• Kojata