The White Dove

The White Dove may refer to:

See also

The White Dove (Danish fairy tale)

The White Dove is a Danish fairy tale. Andrew Lang included it in The Pink Fairy Book.

A version of the tale also appears in A Book of Witches, by Ruth Manning-Sanders.

Synopsis

Two princes were caught in a storm at sea when the sky had no sun. An old woman rowed up in a dough-trough and said she could save them in return for the next returning son their mother bore. They said they could not trade him, and the woman said that their mother might prefer the sons she had to the one she didn't, and rowed off. They shouted after her that they agreed, and the storm ended.

They told no one what had happened, even when their brother was born and grew up. But the woman came to him one day in a storm and told him his brothers had promised him in return for their lives. He said if she had saved them, he would go with her. She sailed away with him in her dough trough.

In her home, she set him to sort a great mass of feathers in one day. He had all but finished when a whirlwind mixed them together again, with only an hour left. The white dove tapped on the window and offered to help him. He let it in and it sorted the feathers.

The White Dove (French fairy tale)

The White Dove is a French fairy tale collected by Gaston Maugard in Contes des Pyrénées.

It is Aarne-Thompson type 312, and an oral variant of the type, which is best known by the literary tale, Bluebeard.

Synopsis

A woman would not marry except to a man with a blue beard. One day, a giant with a blue beard, a famous hunter, came to her parents' house, and she agreed to marry him. Because her new husband was rich, her mother considered what to give her and decided on three doves; she should send messages by the red dove if she were well and living peacably with her husband, by the white if she were ill, or by the black if she were unfortunate or in discord with her husband. Her husband went hunting and gave her nine keys, forbidding her to use one. She used it and found eight bodies of women, hanging up. She dropped the key, and it was stained with blood. Her husband demanded the keys and told her to go put on her finery, because she would die. The woman sent off the black dove and set the white dove to watch on the roof; then she stalled, saying that she was dressing a bride. The dove called that it could see nothing three times, and then three times reported that her brothers were respectively far off, approaching, and there. They broke into the house. Her husband claimed they were about to eat, but he fell asleep over dinner, either from drinking too much or a sleeping powder, and the brothers killed him.