Jean de l'Ours

[22] Along the same vein, Jean de l'Ours was a beautiful foundling adopted by a widow according to Carnoy in another version (1885, illustrated by Édouard Zier [fr]),[23] but this, except for an altered telling of the boy's origin, is by and large identical to the tale given earlier by Hippolyte Babou (1862):[e][24] In both texts he is depicted as an angel-faced, blue-eyed boy who wears a bearskin around his loins, has a lush mane like Samson's falling from head to chest, and carries a poplar sapling as a staff.

[41] A key example of type 301 B noted by French scholars such as Paul Delarue or Daniel Fabre [fr] is the version told by soldiers, and first published by Vidal et Delmart in 1833.

[n][48] Jean's party lodge at a castle, without sign of human presence, but with tables and beds prepared, and meals (and other wished-for items) that would appear as if by magic.

[82] According to Romanian scholar Petru Caraman (ro), in variants from Eastern Europe and from Slavic languages, they may be known as "Dughina", "Dubyna", "Vernidub", "Vertodub" or "Vyrvidub", and "Goryńa", "Vernigora", "Vertogor" or "Valigora".

[85] Fellow British scholar William Ralston Shedden-Ralston translated Vertodub as "Tree-extractor" and Vertogor as "Mountain leveller" - both derived from Russian vertyet’, 'to twirl'; dub, 'tree' or 'oak', and gora, 'mountain'.

[95] After tabulating the variants he collected in the Philippines for a general overview of the narrative, professor Dean Fansler noted that the event of the hero fighting the dwarf or devil who beat his companions "occur[red] in nearly all the folk-tales of the 'John the Bear' type".

[96] Folklorist William Bernard McCarthy, who published many variants of the tale type collected from American storytellers, noted that in all versions the rescue of the princesses from the underworld seemed to be a central part of the story.

[ai] Often, it leads him to another kingdom, where a dragon has blocked all water sources and demands as ransom the sacrifice of a maiden (tale type ATU 300, "The Dragonslayer").

[101] French comparativist Emmanuel Cosquin noted, in a monograph, the occurrence of the black and white animals in Greek, Turkish, Armenian tales, and in a story told by Hanna Diyab in 1709 to Antoine Galland.

[106] Similarly, Swedish scholar Waldemar Liungman [sv] located the motif of the hero's descent into the second underworld on the goat or other animal in countries around the Black Sea and among the Arabs.

[125] In that regard, professor Amar Annus suggests that both motifs ("the slaying of a dragon and the hero’s journey on an eagle’s back") were combined into "one coherent narrative" that "may have existed orally in ancient Mesopotamia".

Eventually, the hero runs out of meat to feed his avian saviour and decides to rip pieces of his own flesh, to give the eagle energy to finish the journey.

[131] The geographical distribution of tale type ATU 301 with the presence of this motif seems to be spread along "Europe, large parts of Central Asia and the Middle East, China (Miao), Canada and South America".

[132] In the same vein, Bernard Sergent suggested that the motif of a hero feeding parts of his own flesh to the eagle he uses to escape the underworld may actually show considerable antiquity.

Daniel Fabre [fr] noted in his study of Jean de l'ours that there were parallels between the birth origins of the hero and the various bear festivals in the Pyrenees region, held during Candlemas or Carnival seasons.

[140] An Occitan version Jan de l'Ours, collected by Urbain Gibert [fr] in Sougraigne, Aude was published by René Nelli, alongside his side-by-side French translation.

In Hippolyte Babou's version (1862),[24] considered to be an arranged piece of work to a large degree,[145] the hero goes to the Holy Land region into Palestine on his bearskin, and faces off with an archdemon who rides a shark.

[150][151] This pattern where not a male but female bear is involved, and suckles the infant, is given by Delarue as one of the alternative origins for hero in the tale group, but it is not exhibited in many examples in his list.

[163] Espinosa published more versions in Cuentos populares de Castilla y León: Juanillo el Oso and Juan Os from Peñafiel, Valladolid.

[173] Spanish scholarship has called attention to a similar being from Valencian folklore: the strong Esclafamuntanyes (ca), also described in some versions as the son of a bear and a human woman.

[27] Variants of the story have been collected among the Mexican population of the United States, and in Mexico (in Chihuahua, Jalisco, Guadalajara, Mitla, Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Chiapas—Chamula, and Zinacantán).

[as][173] The hero's helpers in the El Paso version were Aplanacerros (Mountain Breaker) and Tumbapinos (Pine Twister), reminiscent of names in the French version, whereas in the Juan de la burra, they were Carguín Cargón (the Carrier), Soplín Soplón (the Sigher), Oidín Oidón (the Hearer), exactly as found in Fernán Caballero's La oreja de Lucifer,[168][169] which is indeed a story classified as Type 301B,[179] but one whose protagonist has no connection to a bear or any substituted animal.

[17] According to Stith Thompson's study, the tale is found "over the whole of Europe" ("specially well known in the Baltic and in Russia"), in the Near East, North Africa and in the Americas (brought by the French and the Spanish).

[186] It has been noted that "the story of the underground journey and the three princesses ... is ubiquitous in the Hispanic tradition", where the strong hero travels to the underworld realm with his companions with fantastical powers.

[187] Professor Susie Hoogasian-Villa claimed that the tale-type "The World Below" is "one typical Armenian folktale": the hero rescues three princesses in the underworld realm, is abandoned by his companions and hitches a ride on the eagle's back in order to return to the surface.

[196] One variant from a Daghur source was collected, containing the ursine-born hero, the betrayal by his companions (two ghosts from a haunted house), the rescue of a maiden in a cave and the journey back to the surface on a bird.

[197] German scholar Ulrich Marzolph [de] stated that the tale type AT 301 "The Three Stolen Princesses", showed "particular prominence" in the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East regions.

[208][209] Paul Delarue also listed as ancient parallels to the bear-born hero a myth about Polyphonte and her twin sons Agrius and Oreius, born of a male bear, and a version where Arcesius, grandfather to Odysseus, was sired by human Cephalus and a she-bear.

[210] Professor Joseph Szövérffy drew attention to another possible parallel to the tale type: in an episode of the medieval (13th century) romance Torec, chevalier Melions descends to a cave to rescue his beloved and two other maidens, captured by a dwarf.

[213] In 1868, Prosper Merimee published Lokis, a new telling of a mysterious marriage Count, which appears to be born from the rape of his mother, and probably by a bear, these elements are gradually revealed, until the epilogue where the animal instincts of the character come to the fore.