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The King of Love


The King of Love is an Italian fairy tale collected by Thomas Frederick Crane in Italian Popular Tales.

It is Aarne-Thompson type 425A. Others of this type include The Black Bull of Norroway, The Brown Bear of Norway, The Daughter of the Skies, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, The Enchanted Pig, The Tale of the Hoodie, Master Semolina, The Enchanted Snake, The Sprig of Rosemary, and White-Bear-King-Valemon.

One day he took his youngest daughter, Rosella, with him, and she pulled up a radish. A Turk appeared and said she must come to his master and be punished. He brought them underground, where a green bird appeared, washed in milk, and became a man. The Turk told what had happened. The father said that there was no sign that the radish had belonged to him. The man married Rosella and gave her father a sack of gold. One day, while the man was away, her sisters visited her. She told them that her husband had forbidden her to ask who he was, but they persuaded her to ask his name. He told her that he was the King of Love and vanished.

She wandered in search of him, calling for him, and an ogress appeared, demanding to know why Rosella called on her nephew. The ogress took pity on her and let her stay the night, telling her that she was one of seven sister ogresses, and the worst was her mother-in-law. Each day, Rosella met another; on the seventh day, a sister of the King of Love told Rosella to climb her hair into the house while their mother was out. Then she and her sisters told Rosella to seize their mother and pinch her until the ogress cried out to be left alone in her son's name.


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