Fables and Folktales: Prince Lindworm

There’s something very… modular about fairy  tales. The individual building blocks are   firmly established and don’t tend to change -  it’s just the way they’re arranged that makes   a story unique. You got dashing princes,  beautiful princesses, questing knights,   benevolent kings and queens, evil magic  people, good magic people, heroic peasants,   cruel step-parents, clever tricksters, talking  animals, dragons, trolls, the works. Spin a   few wheels and out pops a fairy tale. The Frog  Prince? A [dashing prince] is [cursed] by an [evil   witch] to become a [friendly talking animal]  until he is saved by a [beautiful princess].   It’s pretty telling that most of these  stories don’t even bother to name any of the   characters - the role they fill matters a lot  more than their actual individual character.  But despite how basic these archetypes are,  the stories they slot into can still be really   interesting - and while most of us have a passing  knowledge of the big names like Red Riding Hood,   Hansel and Gretel, and anything Disney ever  monetized, there’s a lot of really neat stuff   out there that doesn’t get the same kind of  press. So today let’s talk about a bite-sized   Norwegian fairy tale with dashing princes,  heroic peasants, and at least one dragon. Our story begins with a [benevolent king and  queen] who are regrettably also pulling duty as a   [tragically childless couple]. The Queen is pretty  bummed about that whole situation, and is out for   a walk sublimating her feelings about it when she  stumbles on a [mysterious old woman] who happens   to be a [witch]. The lady asks her what’s wrong  and when the queen fills her in on the No Kids,   Cradle Empty situation, she gives her some cryptic  advice, telling the queen to take a two-handled   jug and put it upside down in the corner of  her garden overnight. The next morning, two   roses will have grown under it, one red and one  white - the queen should choose one rose to eat,   red if she wants a son, white for a daughter,  but under no circumstances should she eat both.   The queen heads home and takes her advice, not  really expecting all that much, but the next day   she finds that, surprisingly, the witch was right  on the money and the roses have really grown!  She agonizes for a bit over which one to  eat, reasoning that a son might eventually   need to go off to war but a daughter will  have to marry some foreign lord and either   way she’ll lose the kid someday. Jeez, way to  be a downer about this Magical Baby situation.   Anyway, after a few minutes of dithering she  settles on the white one, but the rose turns   out to be super delicious and nutritious so  she ignores the warning and eats the other   one too. Denying the explicit orders of a witch  in a fairy tale? What could possibly go wrong?  Nine months pass, and while the king is out  warring, the queen gives birth to twins - one   healthy baby boy and one lindworm, aka a dragon.  Ah, those magical pre-ultrasound days where every   pregnancy was a surprise. Anyway, the lindworm  skedaddles outta there real quick and the queen’s   like “Welp. Hope that was a hallucination.”  and just… doesn’t bring it up ever. Neato.  So years pass and the [dashing prince] grows to  be a very fine young man, and eventually he’s sent   off to find a suitably [beautiful princess] to be  his bride. But when he tries to leave the kingdom,   the road is blocked by a massive lindworm that  tells him “A bride for me before a bride for you!”  The prince heads back, thoroughly confused,  and the queen confesses that the lindworm is   actually right on the money - technically he  was born first, making him the older brother,   so he kind of has to get married first. So the king starts contacting far-off   kingdoms to ask for a bride for his son - though  he doesn’t say which son - and when the requisite   [beautiful princess] arrives, a lavish wedding  is held and she’s married off to the Lindworm,   who promptly eats her. The Lindworm still demands  a bride, since evidently devouring the bride   on the wedding night means the wedding doesn’t  count, so the king writes to a different kingdom,   gets a second [beautiful princess] shipped  over, and the exact same thing happens.  Now never let it be said that these [benevolent  royals] can’t learn from their mistakes. The   king’s not too eager to make an enemy of a third  kingdom, so instead he goes to his royal shepherd   and tells him his beloved and conveniently  expendable daughter is going to marry the   lindworm whether she wants to or not. It’s always  so lovely to see a ruler who really goes the extra   mile to connect to his people like that. Now the [heroic peasant girl] obviously   doesn’t want to get eaten, so she does what  any self-respecting protagonist would - she   goes for a walk in the spooky woods lamenting her  doom until a [mysterious old woman] who happens   to be a [witch] pops out of the woodwork  to ask her what’s wrong. The shepherdess   fills her in on the situation and the witch  gives her some very specific instructions   on how she can survive her wedding night. The wedding day arrives, lavish party, beautiful   bride, commendably scaly groom, etcetera etcetera  - but that night, following the witch’s advice,   the shepherdess has the castle staff bring  her a few things. She layers on ten dresses,   preps two basins of lye and milk, and gets  ready for some fairy tale shenanigans.  When the Lindworm tells her to ditch the dress,  she tells him to lose a skin. He’s a bit thrown by   this request, but agrees - but after he sheds the  skin, surprise, she’s got another dress on! Guess   you’d better lose another skin if you want a piece  of this! They repeat the process several times,   and by the time the shepherdess is down to her  last dress, the lindworm is in pretty rough   shape. This is when the plan enters phase two.  Following the witch’s instructions to the letter,   the shepherdess grabs a whip, which I  guess the castle staff just assumed was   for totally kosher bedroom fun times, dips  it in the lye and whacks the lindworm with   it. Then she dumps the milk over him, and then  - possibly most surprisingly - she hugs him.  The next day the staff are shocked to discover  that the shepherdess is not only alive, but   cuddling up to a very handsome [dashing prince].  With the lindworm officially freed from his cursed   existence by being quite literally whipped into  shape, the kingdom is overjoyed and the wedding is   held all over again, this time with feeling. The  prince and the shepherdess are happily married for   real this time and everyone lives happily ever  after except for those two princesses who got   totally murdered. Sorry ladies, but someone’s  gotta pay the price for the rule of three! [Bring Me To Life - Evanescence]

Channel: Overly Sarcastic Productions

Views: 1,386,290

Keywords: Funny, Summary, OSP, Overly Sarcastic Productions, Analysis, Literary Analysis, Myths, Legends, Classics, Literature, Stories, Storytelling, History, Mythology, Folklore, Folktale, Prince Lindworm, Rose Prince

Id: F24DV_Og5ug

Length: 5min 7sec (307 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/5noo_Junior]

I'd pay good money to hear Red sing the entirety of "Wake Me Up". The second voice is hilarious XD

[u/RowKHAN]

Gotta say, story way ahead of it's time. Wedding night BDSM and a (possibly) trans dragon, spicy folklore right there.

[u/KerPop42]

Ah, that made me nostalgic for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Though also, does anyone else get strong metaphoric vibes from this one, especially the way she transformed him into a human?

[u/HLtheWilkinson]

I’ve been waiting weeks for this episode since Red tweeted about using Bring Me To Life and it did NOT disappoint.

[u/RoyalPeacock19]

Since he’s older, he gets to be king next too, lol. Theoretically though, should he not be a girl, cause white rose and such?

[u/draw_it_now]

Maybe she has a vore fetish?

[u/sounds_of_stabbing]

I love the stuff on fables and folktales I've always had a fascination with them

[u/PawelGladys]

trans dragon trans dragon trans dragon trans dragon trans dragon trans dragon trans dragon

[u/anoobypro]

Why are people saying the dragon is trans? We only know that the red=boy white=girl applies to eating a single rose, there's no reason to say that eating both would result in twins of male and female children.