The Prince Who Worked as Satan's Servant and Saved the King from Hell (Lithuanian: Apė karaliūnaitį, kur pas šėtoną slūžyjo ir karalių išgelbėjo iš peklos; German: Von dem Prinzen der bei dem Satan in Diensten stand und den König aus der Hölle befreite) is a Lithuanian fairy tale collected by German linguists August Leskien and Karl Brugmann.
One day, the black horse told him that the king's three daughters would choose their husbands: a great company of lords would gather, and they would throw their diamond apples into the air.
[3][4][5] The tale's collectors, August Leskien and Karl Brugman noted that it belonged to a cycle of stories wherein the hero works for a magician (or the devil) and finds a horse.
The horse becomes his companion and helps him flee from the magician's clutches until they reach another kingdom, where the hero works in a menial position and the princess falls in love with him.
[10] Scholars Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana noted the core narrative sequence of the tale type involves the hero riding three horses to either save the kingdom, or to obtain a certain remedy.
The prince and the horse escape from the old man's house and throw objects to deter him: a brush creates a forest, and a grinding stone a mountain.
Meanwhile, Pitch-Cap goes back the horse companion he found at the Devil's house, joins the fray in the metallic armours he pilfered from the witches, and defeats the king's enemies.
[41] In a Belgian tale collected by Victor de Meyere from a Brabant source with the title De jongen met het gouden haar ("The Youth with the Golden Hair"), the son of a poor couple (the father a woodcutter and the mother a housewife) decides to leave home to look for work elsewhere, until he eventually reaches a castle and works as the castle lord's servant.
The old woman agrees to take him in and gives him orders to groom and feed three black horses and beat up a white one, and fobids him to open a certain door while she is way, lest she punishes him.
The youth then throws the objects to hinder her pursuit: the mirror creates a vast sea, the hammer a mountain, and the comb a wall of fire.
Jan appears to turn the tide of battle against the Russians; his cowardly brothers-in-law try to achieve any victory, but finds the enemy armies have retreated.
[43] In an Irish tale published by author Seumas MacManus with the title Hookedy-Crookedy, Jack, son of a king and a queen, decides to travel the world to earn his own fortune.
After fleeing from the Giant, they take refuge in a forest near the Scotland border; the mare gives Jack a wishing-cap and, breathing over the boy, changes him to a hookedy-crooked shape.
[46] Slavicist André Mazon [fr], in his study on Balkan folklore, collected an Albanian language tale he translated as Le Chauve ("The Bald One").
[47] According to the Portuguese Folktale Catalogue by scholars Isabel Cárdigos and Paulo Jorge Correia, tale type 314 is reported in Portugal with the title O Jardineiro do Rei ("The King's Gardener").
[52] A later study by researchers Carolle Richard and Yves Boisvert registered 101 recorded variants in the Laval University archives: 59 from Québec, 30 from Acadia, 5 from Ontario and 7 from the United States.
After explaining the whole story and talking about the girl at the house, the couple give their son a candle and matches so he can better see his intended bride at night.
The great star takes the boy in as his servant and orders him to kill a steer every day and fill a trough with water, but forbids him from entering a nearby shed.
Sensing his approach, the horse tells the boy to throw behind them the comb (with creates a large lake), the brush (which becomes a thick timber), and the steer's stomach (which becomes rocks and canyons).
The animal kicks the Black man in the head and kills him, the boy takes his skin and wears it, then ties a rock to the body and throws it in the river.
The boy, in the Black man's disguise, reaches a city and the horse advises him to ask the king for a job in the royal gardens pruning the trees.
The boy, in the Black skin's disguise, follows the animal's advice; the monarch summons his four daughters: the elder three deny marrying the gardener, but Angelina chooses him and moves out to his orchard.
[54] In a Yemeni tale collected by author Werner Daum and translated into German as Eselsfell ("[The One With A] Donkeyskin"), a sultan's son is victim of a ploy by his stepmother, who tries to seduce him, and is expelled from home with his horse.
The king decides it is past time he married his daughter and sets a suitor selection test: the princesses are to throw apples at their men of choice when they parade beneath their window.
Later, war breaks out with a neighbouring king, and the prince summons the flying mare to ride into battle and defeat his father-in-law's enemies.
Distraught with grief over not finding the warrior, the Sultan falls ill and becomes blind, and the royal doctors prescribe lioness's milk served inside a lion's skin.
Before they return to Baghdad, the prince summons the three slaves and asks for a tent, where he welcomes his brothers-in-law and gives them a bag of lioness's milk diluted in water, in exchange for him branding their backs.
While working his new job, Gurrî summons the horse and tramples the old couple's crops - events seen by the local sultan's third and youngest daughter.
He has further adventures: first, he cures the blind king of Albania with some herbs and marries his youngest daughter; then quests for a cure for the queen - lion's milk, which he gives to his future brothers-in-law in exchange for branding their backs with his name; and finally joins in the war as a mysterious knight to protect the kingdom, is injured and his wife, the third and youngest princess of Albania, bandages his injury without knowing of his true identity.
[67] In addition, scholar Jack Zipes even declared that "almost all folklorists agree" that the Goldener narrative developed during the European Middle Ages.