ATU 409 The Girl as Wolf

Tales of Magic › Supernatural or Enchanted Wife (Husband) or Other Relative (ATU 400–459)

The tale in brief

A witch turns a young bride into a wolf, often on her wedding journey, and puts her own daughter in her place; at night the wolf comes back to nurse her baby, and when her wolf skin is found and burnt she becomes a woman again.

Summary written for RunoVerse and checked against the Finnic texts linked on this page.

Runosong types

The SKVR or ERAB type index cites this tale type in its description of these song types:

Noorik soendiks The young wife turned into a werewolf · ERAB · 1 poem

Finnic sources cited in the catalogue

The entries of the catalogue’s list of literature and variants that concern Finnic tradition.

Finnish Rausmaa 1982ff. I, No. 39

Estonian Aarne 1918, No. 408*

Livonian Loorits 1926, No. 408*

Karelian Kecskeméti/Paunonen 1974

Full references:

Rausmaa 1982ff.: Rausmaa, Pirkko-Liisa (ed.): Suomalaiset kansansadut 1–6. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1982–2000.
Aarne 1918: Aarne, Antti: Estnische Märchen- und Sagenvarianten. Verzeichnis der zu den Hurt'schen Handschriftensammlungen gehörenden Aufzeichnungen. FF Communications 25. Hamina: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1918.
Loorits 1926: Loorits, Oskar: Livische Märchen- und Sagenvarianten. FF Communications 66. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1926.
Kecskeméti/Paunonen 1974: Kecskeméti, István; Paunonen, Heikki: Die Märchentypen in den Publikationen der Finnisch-ugrischen Gesellschaft. Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 73 (1974), 205–265.

Motifs and related tale types

Motifs: Transformation: Man to Wolf D113.1·Disenchantment by Destroying Skin (Covering) D721.3·Treachery Punished Q261

Combines with: ATU 403 The Black and the White Bride·ATU 403C The Substituted Bride (previously The Witch Secretly Substitutes her own Daughter)·ATU 510A Cinderella·ATU 510B Peau d'asne (previously The Dress of Gold, of Silver, and of Stars [Cap o' Rushes])·ATU 511 One-Eye, Two-Eyes, Three-Eyes

Sources

Tale-type number, title, classification, related types and the Finnic sources: Hans-Jörg Uther, The Types of International Folktales (FF Communications 284–286, Helsinki 2004). · Uther 2004, part I (FF Communications 284), free online ↗

Runosong types cited in the type indexes: the song-type indexes of SKVR and ERAB.

Motifs and combinations with other tale types: the Trilogy dataset, from Stith Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature and the ATU catalogue.

The plot summary, the notes and the arrangement of this page are RunoVerse’s own.