East of Sun, West of Moon

This is honestly one of my favorite fairy stories, but it is, unfortunately, not a very popular one. It's sorta like a weird version of Beauty and the Beast, but not quite.  It's completely unique, and that is why I think you all should know about it.

This is an old Nordic tale, so of course, it features a giant bear.


In the story, there is a poor farmer who has a number of children.  A large white polar bear comes to the man one day and requests that his youngest daughter go live with him for a year in exchange for riches.  The girl doesn't want to go, so her father tells the bear to return in three days, in which time he hopes to convince his daughter to go with the bear.

Long story short, he talks his daughter into going with the giant bear.  She rides on the back of the bear for seemingly forever, and when the bear finally stops, she sees that they have come to a flat, icy plane with a giant palace.

She is waited on by invisible servants every night, and she spends her days either in solitude or with the polar bear.  But her nights are spent very differently.

After she goes to bed each night, a man climbs into her bed and sleeps beside her.  She is terrified and confused the first time this happens, but when he does no harm to her, she eventually grows used to the constant presence of the man when she sleeps.  Eventually, the girl grows homesick, and she asks the bear if there is anyway she could go home for a short time to be with her family.  He agrees, but with one caveat--she has to promise never to be alone with her mother.  The girl agrees, and she is allowed to visit her family.

Throughout her visit home, the girl's mother tries to be alone with her daughter, but the girl is successfully able to evade it throughout the trip, until the very last day.  Then, the mother gets the story out of her daughter about the man who has been sleeping next to her.  Jumping to conclusions, the mother assumes that the man must be a troll.

So she does the only logical thing.  She gives her daughter candles and matches so that she can see the man in the darkness.

When the girl returns to the ice palace, she is reluctant to look at the man at night.  Eventually she does, and what she sees shocks her.

The man who has been sleeping next to her is beautiful and regal.  She leans over him, and as she does so, three drops of tallow from the candle drop onto his shirt, effectively waking him up.  He starts awake and stares at her in horror.  He explains that if she had lived with him for a year and a day, bear by day, man by night, he would have been free, but because she didn't his horrible step-mother will come and take him to the palace that is east of sun and west of moon.  He will now be forced to marry her daughter, who is, quite literally, a troll.

He is then whisked away by his stepmother off to the palace, and the girl is left alone.  Stranded.  She feels incredibly guilty and in love with the prince who just got dragged away, so she decides to follow him.

She finally reaches a mountain, and in front of it she sees an impossibly old woman who is holding a golden apple.  She asks the old crone whether she knows the way to the palace that is east of sun and west of moon, and the woman says no, she doesn't, but that she thinks her neighbor might know.  She lends the girl a horse to reach the neighbor and gives her the apple.  The youngest daughter thanks her and goes on her way.

The youngest daughter then reaches the neighbor--another impossibly old woman, who is this time holding a golden hair comb.  The young girl asks the neighbor is he knows the way to the palace that is east of sun and west of moon, and the old woman says no, but that she thinks her neighbor might know.  Again, the girl is lent a horse, and this time is given the hair comb.

The young girl then rides to third neighbor, yet another impossibly old woman, who this time is spinning on a golden spinning wheel.  She asks the woman if she knows the way to the palace that is east of sun and west of moon, and the woman says that she doesn't.  But, she says, she thinks that the East Wind knows the way there.  She lends the girl a horse to get there and gives her the spinning wheel.

The daughter then rides out to the site of the East Wind, and when she asks if he knows the way, he replies that he has never blown that far.  But perhaps his brother, the West Wind, has blown that distance.  He agrees to take her there, and so she is flown to the West Wind.

But the West Wind has never been there either.  He thinks that maybe the Southern Wind has, so the West Wind agrees to take the girl to his lair.  She is then flown to the Southern Wind's home.

But the South Wind has also never dared blow to the palace east of sun west of moon, so he tells her that he can blow her to his brother, the oldest of all the winds, the North Wind.

When she reaches the North Wind, he tells her that he did indeed, once blow a single leaf there, and although he was exhausted after doing that, agrees to take her there.  She is flown to the palace at once.

Once she reaches the palace, she immediately shows the apple to the troll-princess who the bear-prince is meant to marry.  The princess immediately wants it, but the girl only agrees to give it to her if she can spend the night with the prince.  The troll-princess agrees, and the girl is ecstatic.  However, the troll-princess gives the prince a sleeping draft so the prince does not wake while the girl is there.

The next day, the girl tries again, this time bartering the hair comb for time with the prince.  The troll-princess again agrees, and again gives the prince a sleeping draft.

The girl sobs about this for a long time, and some of the prisoners who were locked away by the cruel troll-royalty tell the prince that the girl is there in the morning.  The girl trades her final bounty, the spinning wheel, in exchange for another night with the prince.

Because he now knows about the sleeping draught, the prince doesn't drink it when the troll-princess gives it to him.  This time, he is wide-awake when the girl comes to him.

They hatch a plan together to get him out of the marriage to the troll-princess.  He will declare that he will only marry a woman who can wash his stained shirt (you know--the one that started this whole mess with the three tallow spots).

The troll-princess, is, well, a troll, and can't do as the prince asks.  So the prince turns to the daughter, whom he had long ago fallen in love with, and asks if she can complete the task and marry him.  The girl does it perfectly, and the trolls burst into a fit of pure rage.

The newly engaged couple quickly escape with the former prisoners of the trolls, and make it back to civilization, where they are promptly married, and live happily ever after.



I don't know why I love this fairy tale so much, but I have thought it was a fascinating one since the first time I read an adaptation of the story.  So next week, we will talk about two different novel adaptations of the story--Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, and East.