Pájaro Verde (English language: Green Bird) is a Mexican folktale collected by Howard True Wheeler from Ayutla, Jalisco.
One day, a youth named "Pájaro Verde" goes to the palace to deliver coals to the king and falls in love with the princess.
The youth's mother then imposes tasks on her: first, she orders the princess to fetch bird feathers for zurrones (a type of leather bag) for Pájaro Verde's upcoming wedding.
The princess cries a bit, but Pájaro Verde gives her a little flute and bids her summon all birds with it and ask them for their feathers.
Thirdly, Pájaro Verde's mother orders the princess to go to a "comadre" (a friend) and fetch from there a box of "danzantes y danzarines".
During the ceremony, the ugly lady burns to death due to a spell Pájaro Verde's mother sent to whoever was in the bridesmaid's position.
The tale type involves the heroine being forced to perform tasks for a witch or her mother-in-law, but she is secretly helped by her husband or love interest.
[2] According to scholar Jan-Öjvind Swahn [sv], in his monograph about Cupid and Psyche, one of the impossible tasks the witch assigns the heroine is for her to fetch feathers from every bird in the world.
[4][5] German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther remarked that these motives ("the quest for the casket" and the visit to the second witch) are "the essential feature" of the subtype.
Once there, the servants take notice of her beauty and lie to the king that she promised to separate, in a single night, a bodega ('cellar, storeroom') of mixed heaps of rice and birdseed.
They follow the trail to the deep, dark woods, and wait for the full moon, when the witches come to dance and gloat under the moonlight about treasures they have stolen.
They knock on her door and ask for a glass of water; while the witch is distracted, Margarita steals the baulito ('small chest') from her and runs back to the carriage to escape.
Some time later, the king invites his subjects to see the magic puppets, and orders them to bring torches, lamps and candles to the event.
She asks around, but no one seems to know, until she finds a poor jacalito with an old woman watering some malvones, who gives the girl a ball of yarn and tells her to throw it and follow it where it lands.
The prince and Frasterita pay a visit to the old lady's daughters and show them the magic crystal palace, which they place in Loma Parda.
In this tale, titled Pájaro Verde ("Green Bird"), a girl asks her widowed father to marry their old woman neighbour.
The next time, she summons Pájaro Verde again; he comes and advises her on how to proceed: she is to ask for a river of crystalline water to open up and let her pass, exchange the correct fodder for animals (bone for a dog, hay for a horse), pass by an orchard of trees with fruits and not eat them, enter a witch's house, get the box and run back.
The girl begs for Pájaro Verde to come and help her, he appears and, uttering a spell, commands the birds to fly back into the box.
[10][11] In a tale from Puerto Rico, published by folklorists J. Alden Mason and Aurelio M. Espinosa with the title El Príncipe Encantado ("The Enchanted Prince"), a girl named Alejandrina has a widowed father that remarries.
In this tale, titled Las Flores de Alejandría ("The Flowers of Alexandria"), a girl named María lives with her grandmother.
All the while, the prince's servants begin to gossip about her, and lie to the queen that María boasted she could wash, iron and sew the clothes of the entire town in a single day.
The bird instructs the princess on how to get the tears, and reveals that the casket is a trap: if one opens it, a magical army jumps out of it to kill anyone they see.
[16] Folklorist Terrence Hansen, in his catalogue of Latin American folktales, classified the tale as a new subtype he created, type **428A, related to AaTh 428, "The Wolf" (see above).
[18] In a Venezuelan tale titled Pájaro Verde, Ramo de Amor ("Green Bird, Branch of Love"), a rich man loses his ships, leaving him only one.
The next morning, her father expels her from home and she has to sell bread for a living, until one day the queen buy some from her and invites her to come to the castle with her.
Finally, when Antuquita is ready to give birth, green bird comes back and tells her to not let herself be touched neither by his mother, nor his aunt, only by his sister.
The daughter is abandoned by a black slave in another forest, but she is found by a man named Dom Birro, who takes her to live with him, his stepmother and his step-sister Joana.
The stepmother gives Maria some pillows and orders her to go into the forest and fill them with "pena de passarinho" (feathers from little birds), for the prince's upcoming wedding.
Next, the stepmother gives Maria a small bottle and orders her to fill it with "lágrima de passarim" (tears from little birds).
Maria cries over the task, until Dom Birro appears to her and advises on how to proceed: he gives her a green twig to be given to the bull, and a piece of meat to be thrown to the dogs.