Maiden Bright-eye
Maiden Bright-eye is a Danish fairy tale. Andrew Lang included it in The Pink Fairy Book. It is Aarne-Thompson type 480: the kind and the unkind girls.
Synopsis
A man has a son and a daughter, that latter of whom is known as Maiden Bright-eye. His wife dies and he marries another woman, who has a daughter of her own. The stepmother is cruel to her Bright-eye. One day, the stepmother sends her to watch the sheep and pull heather. For dinner, the stepmother packs Maiden Bright-eye pancakes with flour that has been mixed with ashes.
Maiden Bright-eye pulls up some heather and a little fellow in a red cap pops up from the ground to ask why she is pulling off the roof of his home. She apologizes and shares her dinner with him. For her kindness, he gives her gifts with magic: she grows much more beautiful, a gold coin falls from her mouth when she opens it, after which her voice sounds like music, and he promises that she will marry a young king. He also gives a cap that can save her life if she puts it on.
Maiden Bright-eye tells her stepmother about meeting the little man, but not about sharing her dinner. The stepmother sends her own daughter, who acts rudely to the little man. The little man gives her ugliness, causes a toad to fall from her mouth when she opens it, and promises a violent death.
Meanwhile, the son enters the king's service. The king, hearing the tales of Maiden Bright-eye's beauty, asked her brother if these stories are true and has them confirmed. The king decides to marry her and sends the brother in a ship to fetch her. The stepmother gives her daughter a mask and sends her off on the ship with the stepchildren. While the ship is still sailing, her daughter pushes Maiden Bright-eye overboard then pretends to be Maiden Bright-eye for the king. But Maiden Bright-eye puts on the cap and it transforms her into a duck, allowing her to swim.
The king marries the stepmother's daughter, but then sees her unmasked, ugly face. He throws Maiden Bright-eye's brother into a pit of snakes for lying to him about the girl's beauty.
As a duck, Maiden Bright-eye swims to the king's castle, waddles up the drain to the kitchen, and meets a little dog. She asks it after her brother and stepsister, and it told her their fates; she then says she will only come twice more. Serving maids hear the talking duck, and tell others. The next night, a great number come to listen. The duck asks her questions again, says she will come once more, and escapes. The third night, a cook puts a net outside the drain and catches the duck. She has many gold feathers, so they take good care of her.
The brother dreams that his sister has come to the castle as a duck and can change back. He tells someone, and word gets back to the king. The king asks if he could produce his real sister, the beautiful one. He says he can if someone produces a knife and the duck. When they do, he cuts the duck, and Maiden Bright-eye regains her own form.
The stepsister is put in a barrel with spikes all around it, and dragged off by horses, while the king marries Maiden Bright-eye.