King Fortunatus's Golden Wig

King Fortunatus's Golden Wig is a French fairy tale collected by Colonel A. Troude and G. Milin in Le Conteur breton ou Contes bretons.

It is Aarne-Thompson type 531. This type is generally called "The Clever Horse," but is known in French as La Belle aux cheveux d'or, or The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, after the literary variant by Madame d'Aulnoy. Other tales of this type include Ferdinand the Faithful and Ferdinand the Unfaithful, The Firebird and Princess Vasilisa, Corvetto, and The Mermaid and the Boy.

A couple had no children. The husband went to a wise man, who offered him his choice of apples from a tree. He picked a white one and ate it. The wise man told him he would have a son within a year, but when the boy was fifteen, he would leave and take nothing. At that time, he should tell the boy to take what he found in the ruined hut at the end of a path.

When the boy, Jean, was fifteen, it happened as the wise man had said, and his father told him to take what he found there. Jean found a bridled and saddled horse and rode off on it. Against the horse's advice, he looked to see what quarreling crows had dropped. When he found it was King Fortunatus's golden wig, he took it for Mardi Gras, though the horse warned him against it. It took him to the king and stayed in the forest, in a hut of branches, while Jean went to work for the king as a stable boy. The horses he cared for did so much better than the others' horses that he roused their envy. He found that the wig glowed and so used it instead of candles.

When Mardi Gras came, he wore the wig. The king took him for a king's son, but Jean admitted to being his stable boy, and the king took the wig. The other stable boys told the king that Jean said he could marry King Fortunatus's daughter, and the king demanded that Jean bring her. Jean went to his horse in the forest, and it told him to get three ships, with beef, millet, and oats. They sailed up a river: first through the land of lions, where they threw out the beef, and the grateful king of the lions gave him a hair to call on the lions; then through the land of ants, where they threw out the millet, and the king of the ants gave him one of its hind legs; then through the land of geese, where they threw out the oats and the king of the geese gave him a feather.

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