Hõimlane verejõe tagant: Saami muinaslood tootempõhjapõdrast. III

• Main Author: Enn Ernits
• Format: Article
• Language: Estonian
• Published: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum 1998-01-01
• Series: Mäetagused
• Online Access: http://www.folklore.ee/tagused/nr6/meanda3.htm

There are two motifs in stories about taking a wife: wooing and the visit of the fater- and mother-in-law. The wooers are either animals or people in animal costumes. Unlike in the first subtype, the wooers are active. Animals obviously represent totems.One variant of a Turja fairytale has obvious infulences from the Indo-European wonder-fairytale "Frog the Princess" (AT 402) where the proposer is given difficult tasks and where the wife burns her husband's skin. In another variant, married girls leave their parents in zoomorphic form. In a couple of variants, the mother wants to wed her younger daughter to her totem animal.The two variants of the third subtype represent a contamination of stories of a reindeer and dog marrying and its motifs are not clear. In both variants, future brides cross a taboo, for which they are turned into stone.