Donor (fairy tale)

In fairy tales, a donor is a character that tests the hero (and sometimes other characters as well) and provides magical assistance to the hero when he succeeds.

The fairy godmother is a well-known form of this character. Many other supernatural patrons feature in fairy tales; these include various kinds of animals and the spirit of a dead mother.

In his analysis of fairy tales, Vladimir Propp identified this role as the donor and listed it as one of the seven roles found in fairy tales. Before giving the hero magical support or advice, the donor may also test the hero, by questioning him, setting him tasks, or making requests of him. Then, the donor may directly give the hero a magical agent, advise him on how to find one, or offer to act on his behalf. If the character itself acts on behalf of the hero, it also takes on the role of helper in Propp's analysis. Because a donor is defined by acts, other characters may fill the role, even the villain; a boy escaping a witch may steal her magical handkerchief, making the witch an involuntary donor. Conversely, the donor of Rumpelstiltskin converts himself into the villain by demanding the heroine's baby as the price of his work.

In Grimm's Fairy Tales, the hero often meets the vital helper in the woods, in liminal areas between other realms.

When more than one character attempts the tasks, such as when the youngest son sets out last, all of them commonly met the donor. It is through failing in the test that the older sons are marked out as not being the hero; only the youngest son passes the test and receives the aid.

There may be three donors, distinguished by the fact that the first two are unable to help and so send him on to the next. A common motif, as in Farmer Weathersky, is that one can consult all the beasts, the next all the fish, the third all the birds, and only the last can discover what the hero needs. In other cases, each of the three may give the hero or heroine something, but only the third has the information necessary to them.

The characters of donors are numerous. Fairy godmothers were added to Sleeping Beauty by Perrault; no such figures appeared in his source, Sole, Luna, e Talia by Giambattista Basile. In the Grimm Brothers' variant of Cinderella, the protagonist is aided not by her fairy godmother but by her dead mother, as is the heroine of the Finnish variant, The Wonderful Birch. A great variety of other figures may also take this place. In Vasilissa the Beautiful, the heroine is aided by a wooden doll that her dying mother had given her; in Rushen Coatie, by a red calf sent to her by her dead mother, a calf that can continue to aid her after its death; in Katie Woodencloak by a mysterious dun bull; in Tattercoats, by a gooseherd who is her friend for a long time before his mysterious powers are revealed. In East of the Sun and West of the Moon, the heroine is given vital gifts by three old women she meets on the way.

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