Muchie-Lal is an Indian folktale published by author Mary Frere, who collected it from her maid Anna Liberata de Souza. It tells the story of a girl that marries a prince in fish form and disenchants him with supernatural aid. It is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom, in that a human maiden marries a man cursed into animal form and breaks his curse. Variants are collected in Southern India and from the Dravidian languages, with the male protagonist taking many animal shapes, like that of a fish, a crab or a tiger.
Source Mary Frere collected the tale from her Indian maid Anna Liberata de Souza, and published it originally in 1868. Stith Thompson and 's Oral Tales of India sourced the tale from Mysore.
Publications The tale was republished in English as Little Ruby Fish (Murchie-Lal), and The Fish Prince (where the heroine is named Balna). The tale was also translated into German as Muchie Lal and to Russian with the title "Царевич-рыба" ("Prince-Fish").
Summary A Rajah and a Ranee suffer for not having children, and pray to be given a son, to no avail. One day, fishes are brought to the kitchen to be cooked, and one of the maidservants notices there is a single living among them. She places the little animal in a basin, which the Ranee sights one day and decides to adopt it as her pet, calling it "Muchie-Rajah" ('Fish-Prince'). As the fish grows up, the queen replaces his basin for increasingly larger recipients, until the fish is large enough to occupy a tank. The story then explains the fish was no ordinary animal, but a prince transformed into a fish due to the gods' anger.
Some time later, the fish begins to talk and asks the Ranee to search for a wife for him, since he is lonely. The Ranee then sends messengers to search for a maiden to be the fish's wife, the Muchie-Ranee, but many families refuse to give up their daughters to the fish prince for feart of it devouing them. The Ranee then offers a lac of gold mohurs as compensation for the daughter of any family to come marry the fish. People still refuse to accept the Ranee's proposal, even the beggars. Eventually, the messengers reach a village where a widowed Fakeer lives with his biological daughter, a second wife and his stepdaughter. The Fakeer's second wife hates the man's daughter and wishes to get rid of her for fear of overshadowing her own daughter, so, when the Fakeer is out one day and the messengers inform of the Ranee's search, the woman accepts the lac and gives her stepdaughter as wife to the fish, believing the animal will devour her.
The woman orders her stepdaughter, the Fakeer's daughter, to wash her saree in the river and prepare to go with the messenger and marry the fish prince. The girl cries for her fate near he river, and a seven-headed cobra appears to her. The girl confides in the cobra her problems, and the reptile advises her to take three pebbles with her, for her to cast whenever the fish comes up he surface to stop him from eating her. With the cobra's advice, the girl goes to the palace and is moved out to a room near the fish prince's tank. The fish prince emerges for air and the girl throws a pebble at him: the first two times, the fish sink to the bottom of the tank; the third pebble reverts him to human form. The now human fish prince explains the girl released him from the spell, then asks if she wants to become the Muchie-Ranee.
The next morning, people are surprised to see the fish has not devoured the girl; instead, there are a couple, the prince and the Fakeer's daughter. The monarchs marries their son to the girl, and they live in happiness for a while. However, the Fakeer's second wife learns of her stepdaughter's successful match and pretends to be happy for her. His stepdaughter, who has become Ranee, asks her husband to return home and visit has family. The stepmother seizes the opportunity to feign goodwill and instructs her own daughter to deal with her stepsister and become the Ranee in her place: the girl takes the Ranee to the riverbank, trades jewels with her and shoves her down the water to drown. As the stepsister returns home, the Ranee is saved by the Seven-Headed Cobra and taken to safety in his lair, where the Cobra lives with his cobra family.
The Fakeer's wife takes her daughter to Muchie-Rajah to pass her as the true Ranee, but he notices something strange about her for the first two days. On the third day, he pulls the jewels from the false wife, his stepsister-in-law, and banishes her, while he ordes the Fakeer's wife to be captured, but she evades. As for the true Muchie-Ranee, down in the Cobra's hole, she gives birth to a son she calls Muchie-Lal, after his father. When the boy is three years old, a bangle-seller passes by the hole and the Muchie-Ranee buys some from the seller for Muchie-Lal. However, the boy breaks the bangles during his playtime, so his mother has to buy new ones to replace it, making the bangle-seller very rich.
As time passes, the Muchie-Ranee begins to miss her husband and asks the Seven-Headed Cobra if she can leave and rejoin with her husband, but the Cobra insists she stays with them for her own protection. As for Muchie-Rajah, he has spent quite some time in search of his wife, but has no clue about her whereabouts. One day, he meets the bangle-seller, who tells him about the people who live in the Cobra's hole by the riverbank. Curious, the prince asks the bangle-seller about the people (a mother and her son, Muchie-Lal), then requests to be taken there. After resting for a whole day, the prince and the bangle-seller arrive at the Cobra's hole and find a biy playing with the young cobras.
A voice comes from the hole, calling for Muchie-Lal, and prince Muchie-Rajah recognizes it is his wife's voice. The prince calls into the well for his wife, and she tells him about the ruse her stepfamily played on him and their attempt on her life. Muchie-Rajah says he has come to bring her home, and Muchie-Ranee informs the Cobras about it. The Seven-Headed Cobra allows Muchie-Ranee to return home with her husband and son, but the cobra will miss them, and gives the family as a parting gift costly gifts.
Analysis Tale type The tale is part of the cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom, wherein the heroine marries a wild animal that she disenchants into human form.Ramanujan, A. K. A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India. University of California Press, 1997. p. 218. . Stith Thompson and Warren Roberts approximated the Indian tale to tale type AaTh 433B, "King Lindworm", of the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index.
According to Kannada scholars, the story of the "Crab Prince" ("ಏಡಿಕುಮಾರನ ಕಥೆ", in the original), is "popular" in Karnataka and classified as type 433B ("ವರ್ಗ ೪೩೩ ಬಿ", in the original). In the Kannada tales, the queen sights a female crab with its young and sighs over not having a son. She becomes pregnant and gives birth to a crab (a fish or a snake, in other variants), which grows up and demands a wife, lest he destroys the village. A stepmother sends one of her stepdaughters in exchange for a bride price as the crab prince's wife. She dies in the same night. After killing the first bride, he demands another, and the stepmother sends her other stepdaughter. The second girl cries for her sister's fate, when Shiva and Parvati give her some magical stones she can use on the crab prince to disenchant him. In some tales, the crab prince has killed many brides before his disenchantment. After turning to human form, the Crab Prince's wife's stepmother pays her a visit under the false pretenses of helping the girl in her delivery, shoves her inside a well and replaces her for her own daughter. The pregnant heroine falls inside the well and helps a snake, which welcomes her in the well. She gives birth to the Crab Prince's son inside the well. The prince notices his wife looks different, and a bangle seller finds the princess inside the well, then reports to the Crab Prince. The Crab Prince rescues his wife and son from the well and punishes the stepmother and her daughter.
According to scholar A. K. Ramanujan, in stories titled "The Crab Prince" (edikumāra) or "The Fish Prince" (mīnakumāra), the heroine is sold or given to an animal bridegroom that she disenchants and teaches to be a loving husband.
Motifs The tale contains the motif B603, "Marriage to fish (whale)", and D170, "Transformation: man to fish".
Variants Tales about fishes The Fish Prince (East India) In a tale sourced to East India with the title The Fish Prince, a king and queen have two sons, one one-eyed and dwarf in size, and the other tall and handsome. The king favours the other son instead of the one-eyed prince, named Deesa, who is outraged by this and complains to his wife Mitna. Mitna has sorcerous powers and plots with Deesa to get rid of the other prince. She climbs a balcony and drops a powder on the other prince, turning him into a fish which swims away from his father's kingdom, until he is caught by a group of fishermen and brought to another king's palace to be cooked. However, one of the servants decides to spare the fish and presents it to the queen. The childless queen decides to adopt the fish and take care of it as a son, which she calls Athon-Rajah, the Fish Prince. The Fish Prince grows up and eventually is moves out to a tank large enough to house him. One day, the queen asks the fish, and he answers he would like to find a wife. The queen agrees to find him a wife, orders the building of a room for her next to the tank, then sends messengers to find a maiden for the prince, offering a bag of gold as dowry. However, rumors spread that the Fish Prince wants a wife to devour her, and many families refuse to give up their daughters. Eventually, a poor fakir decides to send his daughter by his first wife to be married to the prince, a decision also agreed upon by her stepmother and the fakir's second wife. The fakir is paid the bag of gold and directs the queen's messengers to the river margin, where the girl, named Maya, is. Maya learns of the proposal and, in tears, is guided to the queen for wedding preparations. Before she is married to the prince, Maya asks the queen for a last favour: to visit her old friend by the river, a seven-headed cobra she has known since childhood. The queen allows Maya a visit and the girl meets the cobra. The girl explains the situation and the seven-headed cobra tells her to pick up three pebbles near its hole and throw each of the pebbles against the fish prince if he emerges from its tank in order to restore him to human form, for he is an enchanted prince. Maya returns to the palace and is placed in the room adjacent to the fish's tank. The Fish Prince approaches her with an open mouth, and Maya casts the first pebble into his mouth, causing him to sink to the bottom of the tank. He recovers his bearings and goes near the girl, who casts the second pebble against his head, then the third pebble against his fin. This turns the fish back into the human form. The now human prince marries Maya and they live in happiness.
The Fish Prince (Betta Kurumba)