Princess Miranda and Prince Hero
Princess Miranda is a beautiful princess residing on an island, accompanied by twelve loyal maidens. While many princes seek her hand, Miranda remains uninterested, demonstrating her power by turning forceful suitors to ice with her gaze. The tale takes a darker turn when Kosciey, the king of the underground realm, attempts to capture Miranda, using his poisonous breath to overpower her army. After a lengthy standoff, Miranda is eventually left isolated in her palace as her kingdom falls into despair.
In this narrative, Prince Hero emerges as the valiant figure who answers Miranda's silent pleas for help. Guided by a mystical sun and aided by an old woman named Jandza, he embarks on a quest to find the means to defeat Kosciey and save the island. The story culminates in Hero's confrontation with Kosciey, where he shatters the source of the villain’s power, leading to the liberation of Miranda's kingdom. Ultimately, this fairy tale symbolizes the triumph of good over evil and has been interpreted as an allegorical reflection of Poland's struggles against oppression, further enriched by elements of Polish folklore such as dragons and magical characters.
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Princess Miranda and Prince Hero
Author: Traditional
Time Period: 1851 CE–1900 CE
Country or Culture: Poland
Genre: Fairytale
PLOT SUMMARY
A beautiful princess named Miranda lives on an island with twelve loyal maidens. Visitors to the island speak of Miranda’s incredible beauty, and over time she gains a number of subjects as well as a palace of white marble in which to live. Many princes travel to the island to woo her, but she is not interested in any of them. If any of the princes become forceful in their advances, Miranda turns them to ice with her gaze. She dreams of a young, gallant knight who will be her husband.
One day the king of the underground realm, Kosciey, emerges from his kingdom and surveys the upper realms. With a telescope he gazes at Miranda’s island, where he sees the marble palace and Miranda, who is sound asleep. Kosciey is struck by her beauty and transports himself to the island. As he advances on Miranda’s palace, she calls together her army to fight against him. But Kosciey has poisonous breath and uses it to put Miranda’s army to sleep. He closes in on the princess, so she uses her gaze to turn the wicked man to ice and quickly retreats to her palace.
Kosciey escapes from the ice and uses his breath to make all of the inhabitants of the island fall asleep, except Miranda. Afraid to get too close to her because of her icy gaze, Kosciey surrounds her palace with an iron rampart and stations a twelve-headed dragon to guard the gate. Months pass, and Miranda’s kingdom becomes a desert. Plants grow around her sleeping army as their armor rusts. The princess takes refuge in a room inside a palace tower and pleads to the stars, moon, and sun for help.
The sun tells her to take comfort, for her savior and lover who appeared in her dreams, Prince Hero, is coming from the bottom of the sea to defeat Kosciey. Then the sun speaks to Hero and explains to him that Kosciey cannot be defeated by normal means. The sun tells Hero where to find a mace and a magical horse that will take him to an old woman named Jandza, who alone can tell him how to defeat Kosciey and save Miranda’s kingdom.
Prince Hero finds the mace and magical horse behind iron doors in an eastern field. The horse speaks to Hero and tells him that the magical mace will strike unseen wherever he commands. Hero mounts the steed, and they arrive before sunset at the home of Jandza in an ancient forest. The old woman explains to Hero how he can defeat Kosciey. She tells him that he must go to the island of Everlasting Life, where he will find an oak tree under which is buried a coffer that contains a hare who is sitting atop a gray duck. Inside the duck is an egg, and in that egg is the life of Kosciey. When Hero breaks the egg, Kosciey will die.
The magical horse leads Hero to the island of Everlasting Life, where he finds the coffer, takes out the hare by its ears, and retrieves the egg from the duck. When he travels to Miranda’s island, the twelve-headed dragon is still guarding the gate, so Hero commands the mace to kill the beast. It strikes a thousand blows until the dragon finally tears itself apart with its own claws. Once Hero enters the palace, Kosciey attacks and overpowers him. Hero crushes the egg, and Kosciey instantly falls dead.
The enchanter’s spell is broken, and the denizens of the island wake up. Prince Hero and Princess Miranda are married, and the whole island feasts, dances, and rejoices.
SIGNIFICANCE
The fairy tale of Princess Miranda and Prince Hero was first collected by author A. J. Gliński in his book Polish Fairy Tales (1862). The stories were originally told to Gliński by the peasants of the eastern provinces of Poland, and scholars believe many of the tales date back to primitive times. Many of the stories are remarkably similar to German, Celtic, and Indian folktales.
The fairy tale is a fairly straightforward story of the forces of good conquering the forces of evil, but scholars have interpreted the story as an allegory of Poland, which for years was oppressed by German militarism. The character of Princess Miranda, therefore, symbolizes the spirit of Poland as she surveys all of the despair and devastation around her and waits for a hero. Prince Hero is a typical Prince Charming, a stock character found frequently in fairy tales and folklore. This formulaic hero completes an arduous quest in order to rescue the princess from an evil being.
Polish folklore often contains elements of witchcraft, and Jandza, Prince Hero’s magical benefactor, appears frequently in various forms throughout Polish and Russian fairy tales. Her name translates to “fury,” but variations of the name appear in different languages and commonly translate into something close to “old witch.” She is often depicted as a powerful witch and a goddess of wisdom and death who is mostly benevolent and who helps those who are able to find her. Her house rests atop chicken legs, and the door is always hidden from those who try to come inside.
Dragons are also prominent in Polish folklore and tales from other European cultures. The Wawel dragon that was said to terrorize ancient Kraków is the most famous dragon of Polish legend. Much like the twelve-headed dragon of the fairy tale of Princess Miranda and Prince Hero, dragons in European folklore were generally depicted as evil. This is in sharp contrast to Asian dragons, which were often benign creatures. It was not until modern times that European dragons were depicted in literature and film in a more positive light.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Asala, Joanne. Polish Folklore and Myth. Iowa City: Penfield, 2001. Print.
Johns, Andreas. Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale. New York: Lang, 2004. Print.
Knab, Sophie Hodorowicz. Polish Customs, Traditions, and Folklore. New York: Hippocrene, 1999. Print.
Lüthi, Max. The European Folktale: Form and Nature. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1986. Print.
Monte, Richard. The Dragon of Kraków and Other Polish Stories. London: Lincoln, 2008. Print.
Srna, Jana, et al. “Polish Fairy Tales Translated from A. J. Gliński.” Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, 8 July 2011. Web. 4 June 2013.