Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Deadly Trial for a Woman

One of the greatest tropes of many fairy tales is the trial to marry a princess. I have seen this happen across the board in the old fairy tales of many cultures. The idea of it works something like this:

-A princess is available to be married.

-The king or the princess herself decides that only a very special person must be allowed to marry her.

-To determine who this person must be, some sort of trial must be completed in order to prove his worth.

-If the trial cannot be completed, the fellow who made the attempt must be executed.

Alright, let's go over each one of these steps, one at a time. We begin with the idea that there is a princess who has been put soundly on the market to be married. The big deal about this is that anyone, even a peasant, has a shot at this and can gain quite a sizable dowry as well as a shot at the throne. Even if she is ugly as a donkey (no offense to donkeys), the other aspects of being married to her still make the whole transaction a bargain. For this reason, many would try for this goal out of sheer greed.

But the latter brings us to our next point. It wouldn't do for this to be a "first come, first serve" situation. Oh, no. Certainly not. I mean this is a princess after all. No king would let just anyone have his daughter, and no daughter would rightly put up with that sort of arrangement. Therefore it is important that we make very sure that whoever does marry her is a person worthy of it. And the interesting thing about this idea is that they are entertaining the notion that there may be someone floating about their mass of peasants that may actually be worthy. Then they may not be. Nobody knows, but they seem to want to find out.

At this point, a trial of some sort needs to be administered. I've seen this trial come in a number of forms. Here are some examples of how they may be structured:

-The man must go out into the world and bring back some sort of ancient treasure guarded by some beast such as a dragon or some other monster.

-The man must dispense with a creature that has been causing problems in the kingdom such as a witch or some sort of demon.

-The man must solve some sort of riddle either given by the princess herself or the king. This riddle is often some sort of inside joke or some obscure reference which would be extremely difficult for anyone to "guess."

-The man is expected to get some sort of reaction out of the princess, such as making her smile or laugh.

-In situations where the princess is ill or completely comatose, the man may simply be expected to heal her somehow.

If the man who hopes to be this woman's husband wants to win this trial, he must certainly be a spectacular human being. These trials are all meant to be difficult and sometimes deadly. The idea of it is that this person will show himself to be more than just a mere peasant, at which point he needs to be raised up in status to be among those who are likewise considered as such. But what about those who fail this test?

As the final point morbidly denotes, failure to complete this trial almost always leads to the death of the hopeful male. In some cases, the trial itself would be dangerous enough to lead to an untimely death. But what about those riddles? Unfortunately, if the trial doesn't kill you, the king will. Think of this required punishment as both the price of admission as well as failure. It takes a certain sort of bravery to take a dangerous risk like this. It is, perhaps, the first part of the trial: the fact that you were willing to risk your own life for a goal. Courage.

It's obvious that the trial is simply intended to find someone with an abundance of good qualities. If anything, you might run into a hero in the process. First they have to show courage by accepting the ultimate penalty. Then they have to prove themselves capable of completing the task. None of this really reflects the man's romantic qualities, but it does help decide who he is as a man. It is a sort of litmus test to see if he is royal material. Marrying a princess is not only about love and devotion, it can effect the way the kingdom is going to be run down the line. This is why the test is so important.

The feelings of the woman are important, but the kingdom comes first. Who is this man who is going to rule someday? There are a lot of things that need to be considered in this case. It's not as simple as figuring out who will love her the most. And if they can well-determine the right man for the job, everyone will benefit from it in time.

As for me, I'd really rather not be put in a position where I could be killed for not guessing the answer to the riddle correctly. That also excludes me from heroship, but I don't mind that so much. I'm content just being an author in a small town. I've no interest in throwing a perfectly good life away for someone I don't know anything about. But it's safe to say that there would be many out there who would do it... and perhaps a handful of people in history who could succeed.

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