The White Bird and His Wife

The Tales of the Bewitched Corpse is a compilation of Indo-Tibetan stories that was later brought to Mongolia and translated to Mongolic languages.

[1][2][3] The collection is known in India as Vetala Pañcaviṃśati, in Tibet as Ro-sgrung,[4] in Mongolia as Siditü kegür, and in Oirat as Siddhi kǖr.

[1][5] In this regard, Mongolian linguist Tsendiin Damdinsüren noted the existence of two Tibetan compilations of Vetala tales, one with 13 chapters and the other with 21.

Lastly, the divergence in contents between the Indian Vetala and the Tibetan versions, according to Damdinsuren, may indicate the latter were original works, instead of an adaptation or translation.

[7] The following summary is based on Rachel Harriette Busk's,[8] Frederick Herman Martens [ru]'s[9] and Bernhard Jülg [de]'s translations of the story.

The old woman advises the girl to pretend to go to the gathering, wait for her husband to take off the birdskin, assume human form and ride to the festival on his dappled gray horse.

On the 13th day, the girl waits until her husband becomes human and leaves on his horse, then burns the perch, the birdcage and the featherskin.

She resists for seven days, but, on the seventh night, the motes of grass come off her eyes and she fails the task, thus allowing her husband to be taken.

During the 13 days' feast around the large pagoda in the neighbourhood, the bird, in human form, rides a white horse, and his wife burns his birdhouse, which was the husband's soul.

Vladimirtsov [ru] translated and published in 1958 a Mongol-Oirat version of The Bewitched Corpse, whose seventh tale is titled "Имеющий птичью оболочку" ("Having a Bird Skin"): the man and his three daughters live in a place called Jirgalangiin-ӧy.

[16] Charles Fillingham Coxwell [de] translated a Kalmyk variant with the title The Story of the Bird-Cage Husband: an old man lives with his three daughters in the "Land of the Lustrous Flower Gardens", and they spend their days grazing their buffalo.

The husband despairs at the fact and gives his wife a stick, for her to beat herself with it near the gate of mother-of-pearl for seven days and nights until his battle with the demons ceases.

Finding her husband near a pile of stones, he tells her he has become a water-carrier for "gods and demons" and that she can save him by building another bird-cage, then vanishes.

Heeding his words, the girl returns to their home, fashions a new bird-cage and "invites her husband's soul" to enter it.

[17] Austrian journalist Adolf Gelber [de] translated the tale as Das Geheimnis des weißen Vogels ("The Secret of the White Bird").

In the Romani tale, titled O coro rom te pinsteri or Der arme Zigeuner und die Taube ("The Poor Gypsy Man and the Dove"), a father lives with his three sons who work for a local lord, the eldest grazes the horses, the middle one the cattle and the youngest the pigs.

When the horses vanish one day, the eldest tries to find them and passes through a set of doors: a wooden one, an iron one, a silver one, then a golden one, and sees a white dove on a table.

She closes her eyes and falls into a dream-like state, where the same smart fellow appears to her in a vision: his name is Alifu, a boy servant in heaven, and he was the sparrow, a form he was cursed with as penance for misdeeds; the old woman is a fox spirit that wishes to do him harm.

[23][24][25][b] These tales refer to a marriage between a human woman and a husband of supernatural origin that appears in animal shape.

Nadbitova classified it as type 432, "Финист – ясный сокол" ("Finist, the Bright Falcon", the name of a Russian fairy tale).

[28] According to Lörincz, in a Tibetan language translation of The Bewitched Corpse, titled Ro-sgruṅ (published by professor Damdinsuren), tales nr.

[29] Hungarian Mongolist Ágnes Birtalan [hu] translated the tales collected by linguist Gábor Bálint in the 19th century from Kalmyk sources.

The third tale of his collection, named Moγǟ köwǖn ("The snake-lad") by Birtalan, also contains the animal husband tale: the heroine marries a snake that becomes a man; her sisters burn his snakeskin, causing his disappearance; later, the heroine quests for him and rides a deer's antlers to reach the heavens, where she finds her three sisters-in-law.

[30] English author Frederick James Gould adapted the tale as For Another's Sake, and published it in his book Stories for Moral Instruction.