Origins and setting
“East of the Sun and West of the Moon” is one of the best-loved Norwegian wonder tales recorded by Asbjørnsen and Moe in the nineteenth century. It bears the bone-structure of “Beauty and the Beast,” but with northern light and iron in it: a White Bear who is a prince by night; a poor cottager’s youngest daughter; a troll-queen’s enchanted castle “east of the sun and west of the moon”; three old women who lend golden treasures; the four Winds, with the North Wind mighty among them; and a hard-won bridal proved by washing a stained shirt and by three nights bought with glittering gifts. The tale moves in clean stations: the bargain, the forbidden candle, the long search, the Winds’ ride, the three nights, and the washing that breaks trollish doom.
The tale
I. The White Bear’s bargain
There was once a cottager so poor that the wind seemed to blow straight through his walls. He had many children, and the youngest girl was the apple of his eye. One winter evening, snow like feathers in the air, a shape loomed at the door—a White Bear, great as a dray-horse, with eyes as steady as stars.
“Will you give me your youngest daughter?” said the Bear, “and I will make you rich as rich can be.”
The father trembled; the child looked into the Bear’s eyes and saw neither hunger nor malice, only a gravity like moonlight.
“If you will have me kindly, I will go,” she said at last, for the hunger in the house was keen.
Next morning the Bear took her on his back. They travelled over fells and firs, through blue dusk and white drift, till they came to a castle of many rooms, warm as summer and lit without lamps.
“Here you may be mistress of all,” said the Bear. “Only—be content, and ask not to see me by light.”
By day she wandered in gold halls; by night someone came and lay down beside her in the dark, and he was no bear, for his hand was a young man’s hand, and his breath was gentle.
II. The mother’s counsel and the forbidden light
After a time, longing for home pricked her like a nettle, and the Bear consented to carry her for a visit.
“But tell no one how you live,” he warned. “And take no counsel that would make you break our peace. If you do, you’ll lose me.”
Her mother kissed her and wept, and at last drew her aside:
“Child, you sleep with a beast! Take this tallow-candle and flint. Strike a light when he is asleep, and see what manner of creature shares your bed.”
The girl hid the candle. That night, in the silk-dark chamber, when the unseen husband breathed deep, she struck the spark. The wick caught; the room blushed gold—and on the bed lay the fairest prince she had ever seen. She bent, half laughing, half crying, and kissed him. A drop of hot tallow fell upon his shirt, and he woke with a cry.
He looked at her long, sorrow in his handsome face.
“Oh, if you had but kept faith! A year and a day, and the spell had broken.
Now I must go to my stepmother’s castle,
east of the sun and west of the moon,
and marry a troll-princess with a nose three ells long.”
Before she could speak, the castle groaned; the walls turned to wind; and he and all his halls were gone. She stood outside in the snow with the candle-end in her hand and the winter sky like iron above.
III. The road of the three old women
“I will find him,” she said, and set out in shoes that wore thin to the cords. She walked till the world seemed nothing but hill and daybreak, and came at last to a rock-hut where sat an old woman carding wool with a golden carding-comb.
“Where go you, lass, in shoes that show your toes?” croaked the crone.
“To the castle east of the sun and west of the moon, if foot or fate will carry me.”
“I do not know the way,” said the old one, “but take this golden comb, and maybe it will buy you what bread won’t. Ask my sister.” She whistled, and a wind came like a foal’s breath. “Here is the East Wind—he may know.”
The East Wind came shouldering the door. “I have blown far,” he said, “but never there. Try my brother the West Wind.”
The girl went on and found the second sister, who spun at a wheel bright as beeswax, and she gave the girl a golden spinning-wheel. The West Wind rumbled in: “I have blown many ships to harbour, but not there. Try the South Wind.”
The third sister sat by a hearth, turning a golden apple in her lap—an apple that rolled of itself and never fell. She gave it tenderly into the girl’s hands. The South Wind came hot as noon: “I have scorched deserts and rocked palm-trees, but I have not blown so far. You must go to Old North. He’s the eldest and strongest.”
IV. The four winds and the ride on the North
They came at last to a cliff where the North Wind lay with his back to a mountain, blowing his rest. When he rose, the world grew smaller.
“So it is you, little mite,” boomed he, “who would go east of the sun and west of the moon? I have been there once—and that was a fierce blowing. But if you have the heart to sit, I have the lungs to carry.”
“I have the heart,” she said, though her own thudded like a rabbit’s.
“Then up with you—and hold fast.
Do you sit easy?”
“I sit as well as I can.”
“Good—then off we go, and I’ll blow my very last to get you there.”
They rose with a roar. Mountain-tops crouched; seas wrinkled like blue hides beneath. He blew till forests leaned and clouds shredded. Once he faltered.
“Do you sit easy? I’m blowing my last!”
“Blow, dear North—blow!”
He blew again, so that the sky went thin. At last he dropped her on a ledge of ice-pale rock and fell on his face, panting.
“There’s your castle. I can do no more.”
V. Three nights bought with gold
The troll-queen’s castle shone like a frost-rose on the cliff. Within, trolls strutted and sneered, and the prince walked like a sleepwalker at the side of a long-nosed bride.
The girl hid her raggedness and went to the gate as a poor beggar-maid with a bundle. When the troll-princess saw the glitter peeping from that bundle, greed pricked her like pins.
“What is that?” she sniffed.
“Only a golden carding-comb.”
“Give it to me.”
“I will sell it—for the favour of sitting with the prince to-night.”
The trolls cackled, sure of themselves. “Let her sit; we will give the prince a draught, and he will sleep.” So they traded. That night she sat by him and whispered:
“Wake, my heart—
remember the bear’s warm breath,
the candle’s drop,
and the vow I broke but keep now with my feet.”
But the trolls had given him a sleeping-draught like melted snow from a mountain tomb; he did not stir. At dawn they drove her out and grabbed the comb.
Next day she brought forth the golden spinning-wheel. The troll-bride shrieked to have it. Again the bargain: a second night. Again the whispering:
“Wake, my heart—
remember the White Bear’s back,
the mother’s counsel,
the North Wind’s roar.”
And again the prince slept, and she was thrust out in the morning.
On the third day she rolled the golden apple on her palm till the entire court drooled to own it. “Only let me sit with him a third night,” she said. They agreed, smirking. But there were human folk among the cooks and grooms in that cold place, and one had heard her weeping in the dark night before. “This is no troll’s whine,” he muttered, and when he carried the drinking-horn to the prince that evening, he spilled it in the rushes and brought clear water instead.
So, when she bent and breathed, very soft:
“Wake, my heart—
east of the sun and west of the moon is far,
but love has longer legs,”
the prince opened his eyes and knew her.
“You!” he whispered. “You have found me. Then listen: they will set me a trial in the morning—the washing of the shirt your candle stained. If the troll-princess cannot cleanse it—and she cannot—and you can, I shall claim you for my bride.”
VI. The washing of the shirt and the breaking of troll fate
At daybreak the troll-queen brought out the prince’s snow-white shirt, now blotted with tallow like two fallen stars. The troll-bride seized it and rubbed and scrubbed till her fingers smoked, but the stains only spread and blackened.
The queen spat. “Give it to me!” She wrung and rasped; nothing availed but to make the shirt fouler.
Then the little beggar-maid stepped forward.
“May I try, lady?”
“You?” sneered the trolls—but the prince said, very grave, “Let her.”
She dipped the cloth in clean water and sang under her breath; the stains vanished as if they had been never-born. The shirt shone like hoar-frost in sunlight.
“See now,” said the prince, “who is my true bride.”
The trolls howled till icicles shook. The long-nosed princess stamped; her nose snapped in three places for rage. The queen called for iron and chains; the castle trembled.
But the North Wind had not gone so far to fail the last furlong. He rose beyond the cliff and blew—one last world-wide breath. The frost-rose castle splintered; trolls burst or were whirled away like brown leaves; and there on the rock stood the prince and the girl with the washed shirt between them, laughing and crying together.
VII. Homeward—rich as rich can be
The fallen halls were full of gold and silver; they took what they could carry, not greedy but glad, and the North Wind bore them softly home, not as before with wrath but with a cradle’s care.
At the cottager’s door the youngest daughter set down a chest that would have bought ten farms. The White Bear was nowhere; the Prince stood in his place.
“Father, here is my husband, as I once promised.”
There was a wedding with ale and fiddles and a sun that seemed to linger on the ridge to watch. And if anyone asked the way to that cold castle, the girl would smile and say:
“East of the sun and west of the moon—which is to say:
far—
but not too far for a faithful heart.”
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