The White Bird and His Wife
The White Bird and His Wife is an East Asian folktale published as part of the compilation of The Bewitched Corpse. Scholars related it to the cycle of the animal bridegroom: a human woman that marries a supernatural husband in animal form and, after losing him, has to seek him out. Origin
The Tales of the Bewitched Corpse is a compilation of Indo-Tibetan stories that was later brought to Mongolia and translated to Mongolic languages. The collection is known in India as Vetala Pañcaviṃśati, in Tibet as Ro-sgrung, in Mongolia as Siditü kegür, and in Oirat as Siddhi kǖr. In this regard, Mongolian linguist Tsendiin Damdinsüren noted the existence of two Tibetan compilations of Vetala tales, one with 13 chapters and the other with 21. Also, both versions were mentioned in the work The Book of the Son, written in 11th century. Lastly, the divergence in contents between the Indian Vetala and the Tibetan versions, according to Damdinsuren, may indicate the latter were original works, instead of an adaptation or translation. In the same vein, according to Tibetologist Françoise Robin, there are more than 20 versions of the compilation in the Tibetan-speaking zone alone, and their common versions contain between thirteen and twenty-five stories, with some even reaching up to 75 tales. Summary

The following summary is based on Rachel Harriette Busk's, 's and 's translations of the story. In a distant kingdom called Fair-flower-garden, a man lives with his three daughters grazing their goat herds. One day, the goats vanish, and the elder daughter goes to look for them. She finds a large red door and goes through, then a gate of mother-of-pearl and another of emerald. A white bird appears to her and tells her that he can show where her herds are, as long as she consents to marry him. The elder daughter refuses. The next day, the middle daughter goes to look for the goats, and the same bird appears with the same proposal. She also refuses. The following day, the youngest daughter goes to look for her goats, and a bird appears to her. The youngest believes its words and agrees to marry him. Sometime after, a large gathering is happening near a local temple, and will last 13 days. The white bird's wife joins the people as the loveliest woman in the gathering. A mysterious rider on a dappled gray horse also joins the people. The white bird's wife goes back to the bird's palace and tells her husband about the rider at the gathering. This goes on for the next days. On the 12th day of the gathering, the white bird's wife pours out her heart to an old woman about the mysterious rider. The old woman advises the girl to pretend to go to the gathering, wait for her husband to take off the birdskin, assume human form and ride to the festival on his dappled gray horse. On the 13th day, the girl waits until her husband becomes human and leaves on his horse, then burns the perch, the birdcage and the featherskin. Later, after her husband returns, the girl tells him that she burned his featherskin and the cage, to keep him in human form permanently. Her husband despairs at her action, because his soul was inside the cage, and now "gods and dæmons" will come for him. The only solution is for her to stand the gate of mother-of-pearl and hew a stick for seven days and seven nights, without interruption. The girl gets some motes of feather-grass to apply to her eyelids. She resists for seven days, but, on the seventh night, the motes of grass come off her eyes and she fails the task, thus allowing her husband to be taken. She then goes looking for him anywhete between the heavens and the earth. One day, she hears his voice coming from up in the mountains. She follows it until she reaches a stream, where she finds her husband, carrying pairs of boots on his back. He explains that the gods and demons made him their water-carrier, and the worn-out boots indicate that he has been like this for some time. The girl asks what she can do to rescue him, and her husband tells her to build a new birdcage and to woo his soul back into it. Variants
In the translated version by Charles John Tibbitts with the title The Bird-Man, a father lives with his three daughters, who herds their calves; the sisters pass through a golden door, a silver door and a brazen door and find the bird; the youngest sister marries the bird. During the 13 days' feast around the large pagoda in the neighbourhood, the bird, in human form, rides a white horse, and his wife burns his birdhouse, which was the husband's soul. When the wife finally finds him again after he disappears, he explains that he is forced to draw water for the Tschadkurrs and the Tângâri. The wife saves him by building a new birdhouse. Mongolia
According to Hungarian orientalist László L. Lőrincz, all Mongolian versions of The Bewitched Corpse contain 13 tales. The seventh tale of the compilation is titled Sibaɣun ger-tü ("The Man in the Form of a Bird"). In a 1959 publication of Mongolian fairy tales, a variant was published as its eighth tale, whose translated title is Histoire de la femme dont le mari était un coq ("The story of the girl whose husband is a rooster"). Russian Mongolist  translated and published in 1958 a Mongol-Oirat version of The Bewitched Corpse, whose seventh tale is titled "Имеющий птичью оболочку" ("Having a Bird Skin"): the man and his three daughters live in a place called Jirgalangiin-ӧy. Later in the tale, the youngest daughter marries the bird and burns his birdskin to keep him human forever, but he explains to her that his life was in the birdskin. Kalmyk people
Baira Goryaeva, expert on Kalmyk folklore, grouped tales about lost spouses (husbands and wives) under the same type of the Kalmyk tale corpus: type 400/1, "Муж ищет исчезнувшую или похищенную жену (жена ищет мужа)" ("Man searching for lost wife/Wife searching for lost husband"). She noted that the Mongol-Oirat tale "Имеющий птичью оболочку" fit the tale type she abstracted. translated a Kalmyk variant with the title The Story of the Bird-Cage Husband: an old man lives with his three daughters in the "Land of the Lustrous Flower Gardens", and they spend their days grazing their buffalo. One day, their animal disappears. The elder sisters goes looking for it and reaches a large red portal that leads to a court. She passes by the red portal, then by a gate of mother-of-pearl and finally by a gate of emerald, and finds herself in a grand palace with a little bird sitting on a table. The little bird tells her it can reveal the fate of the buffalo, in exchange for her marrying him. She refuses. The middle sister passes by the same three portals and declines the same offer. The youngest sister agrees to become the bird's wife, and it returns the buffalo to her family. Some time later, an assembly of people gathers as part of a 13 days' visit to a divine image in a monastery. The girl goes to the assembly and sees a fine youth on a blue-gray horse. The girl returns home and tells her little bird husband about the youth. This goes on for 11 days. On the 12th day of the assembly, an old woman tells the girl the youth on the horse is her husband, and that she should toss her husband's bird-cage into the fire. The girl follows the old woman's instructions. Later that night, the husband returns and she tells him about the bird-cage. The husband despairs at the fact and gives his wife a stick, for her to beat herself with it near the gate of mother-of-pearl for seven days and nights until his battle with the demons ceases. The girl obeys and resists for 6 days and nights, until, on the 7th day, she tires and her husband is taken by the demons. The girl searches for her husband, until she hears his voice in a mountain and in the depths of a river. Finding her husband near a pile of stones, he tells her he has become a water-carrier for "gods and demons" and that she can save him by building another bird-cage, then vanishes. Heeding his words, the girl returns to their home, fashions a new bird-cage and "invites her husband's soul" to enter it. Austrian journalist  translated the tale as Das Geheimnis des weißen Vogels ("The Secret of the White Bird"). In his translation, the third sister goes through the red gate, the gates of gold, mother-of-pearl and emerald and finds the bird; the girl agrees to be the bird's wife and returns the buffalo to her father. After the girl burns her husband's featherskin, her husband, in human form, tells her that the old woman was a messenger from the gods and devils. After the husband disappears, the old woman comes and advises the girl to keep looking for her husband. At the end of the tale, the girl is risen to the sky and meets her husband there. German theologue  translated the Kalmyk tale as Die weiße Eule ("The White Owl"), wherein the bird the maiden marries is explicitly identified as a white owl. Tibet
Lazsló Lörincz distinguishes between literary and folkloric (oral) versions of the tale: in the Tibetan redaction, the bird husband is identified as a rooster; in the literary versions, the three girls search for the lost cattle, whereas in oral versions the cattle just disappears. Regional tales 
Tibetologist August Hermann Francke, in a 1923 article, reported the existence of Tibetan manuscript from the Bar-bog family from Lahul. The manuscript, titled Ňos-grub-can-gyi-sgruns, contained 13 tales, the seventh named Bya-shubs-rgyal-po (German: der König in Vogelgestalt; English: "The King in Bird-form"). According to Lörincz, M. K. Kolmaš provided the Eötvös Loránd University with a microfilm of a xylography from East Tibet. The xylographic version contained 16 tales, the ninth tale titled Rgyal-bu bya-šubs-čan-kyi leu'ste (French: Histoire du prince au corps d'oiseau; English: "Story of the Prince with the body of a bird"). In a variant translated as "Царевич в птичьей оболочке" ("The Prince in Bird Skin") or The Feathered Prince, three orphaned sisters live together and earn their living by milking their female buffalo and selling its milk and butter. One day, the animal disappears, and the elder sister goes looking for it. After a while, she sits by a rock near a cave. A little bird appears to her and begs for some food, and asks her to marry it. The elder sister refuses and returns home. The next day, the middle sister goes to look for the animal and rests by the same stone, and the same white bird propositions her, but she declines. Lastly, the youngest sister agrees to marry the white bird, and he directs her into the cave. Inside, magnificent and richly decorated rooms appear before her with every door she opens. At last, the little bird perches upon a couch and tells her that their buffalo was devoured by an evil raksha. The girl begins to live there as the white bird's wife, tidying the place and preparing the food. Some time later, a festival is held in a nearby village, with musicians, equestrian games, and all sorts of amusement. The white bird's wife goes to the festival, and sees a handsome youth on a gray horse, who gazes at her. The girl leaves the festival and meets an old woman. The girl pours out her woes to her, lamenting over the fact that her husband is just a little bird, but the old woman reassures her that the youth at the festival was her husband, and that she only has to burn his bird disguise the next time. The girl follows the old woman's instructions the next day, and burns the bird skin. The same night, her husband (in human form) comes home and asks her about the bird skin. The girl tells him she burned the birdskin, and the man reveals he is a prince, and that the birdskin was to protect him from an evil witch. Saying this, a whirlwind comes and takes the prince. The girl tries to find him and wanders through valleys and deserts, until she finds him one day near a temple, carrying jugs of water and wearing faded boots. The prince tells her to get feathers from all species of bird for a new bird coat, and, once she has fashioned it, she must chant a special prayer for him to return to her. Saying his, he disappears. The girl returns to their cave palace and gathers all feathers she can must, fashions a new bird skin and chants the correct chant to summon her husband back to her. He appears and both live happily. In a variant published by Tibetologist David MacDonald with the title The Story of the Bird who turned into a Prince, in the land of Mo-tshul, an old farmer lives with his three daughters; the three sisters pass by a red door, a gold door and a turquoise door and meet the bird on a throne; the youngest sister marries the bird and burns his feathered cloak; she does penance to try to save her husband by standing at a door and turning a "devil-stick" or "devil-rod"; after her husband vanishes, she finds him in the summit of a hill, and he explains he must wear out a pair of boots by traveling at the behest of the devils. She saves her husband by fashioning a new feathered cloak and by saying fervent prayers, until he appears at their door. Author Eleanore Myers Jewett translated the tale as The White Bird's Wife and sourced it from Tibet. In her translation, the youngest daughter is named Ananda. Authors Fredrick Hyde-Chambers and Audrey Hyde-Chambers translated a Tibetan tale with the title The White Rooster. In this tale, a widow lives with her three daughters, Pema, Tsokyi and Dekyi, the three equally beautiful. They live in a small house near the edge of a lake, and take their yaks to graze. One day, Pema takes the yaks to pasture, but hears a loud sound and gets distracted. When she turns to check on the animals, they have disappears. Desperate, the girl searches high and low for the animals, and enters a cave; inside, she finds jewels and finely decorated doors she passes through, until she finds a large throne room at the end of the cave, a large white rooster sat on a cushion. The rooster greets Pema and says he can help her find the missing yaks, as long as she agrees to be the bird's wife. Pema declines his offer and returns home empty-handed. The next day, the middle sister, Tsokyi, traces her sister's footsteps to the rooster and is also proposed with marriege, which she also refuses. Finally, the youngest sister, Dekyi, goes to the cave to meet the rooster and agrees to become his wife. The rooster points to the place where she can find the roosters, and bids her returns before sunset, now that she is to become the rooster's wife. It happens thus: Dekyi's family retrieves the yak herd, while she goes to live in the cave with the rooster. Some time later, a horse-racing contest is announced to he held at a nearby town, with festivities and a gathering of people. Dekyi herself goes to the events, wearing fine clothes and the people barely recognize her. During the races, a mysterious rider on an ice-blue horse beats the competition and gazes at Dekyi with some familiarity. Dekyi goes home to the rooster. On the last day of the festival, Dekyi meets with an old woman and tells her about her marriage, to which the old woman gives a cryptic message about things not being what they appear. Dekyi then goes back to the cave and does not find her husband, but a large rooster skin strewn about on the ground. She then realizes the rider at the race is her husband in human form, and decides to burn the rooster skin to keep him human forever. Next, the human rooster comes back and asks her about the skin, and learns his wife destroyed. Despairing at the situation, he explains that as long as he had the rooster skin, he could be protected from the demons, for he was cursed to rooster skin when he refuses to become their slave. Dekyi asks how she can still save him, and is told she is to hold a candle and bang on a door night and day for a whole week. She follows his instructions and manages to stay awake for 6 days, but falls asleep and drops the candle. When she comes to, she notices that her husband is nowhere to be found, and lives in the cave. At the end of the tale, she finds her husband again during a walk. He reveals to her he is now a slave to the demons and can never return to her, but insists she takes the jewels in their cave and go back to her family. It happens thus, and Dekyi goes back to live with her family. In a Tibetan tale titled Langa and Jatsalu, also contained in a published version of Ro-srung (2003), a family of four (father, mother and two daughters) lives in a valley. One day, the father goes to graze sheep down in the valley, when a sinpo shapeshifter appears, kills the man and wears its skin. He passes himself off as the father and tells then a distant king is looking for a bride, and suggets his eldest daughter should go. The mother adorns her elder daughter, who accompanies the false father down to the valley. The false father devours the elder daughter, and goes back home with a new lie: the king's brother wishes to marry their younger daughter, Langa. The mother prepares Langa for the journey, and the false father goes with her down a mountain pass. Seeing so many people there, the false father leaves Langa on the road. While she waits, a little white dog appears and asks for food, in exchange for telling the girl three secrets. Langa feeds the little animal, which reveals the girl's fahter is a shapeshifter, directs her to a cave where her father and elder sister's bones are, and gives her a plate to use to distract the shapeshifter before he has a chance to devour her. After the dog leaves, the sinpo comes back to devour her, but, following the animal's advice, she throws the plate and it rolls down the slope. She follows the plate until it stops at a burlap sack filled with cow dung. She lifts the sack and finds a pair of doors that lead underground. Langa goes down the stairs and passes by a large iron door and a large golden door, until she reaches a splendidly decorated throne room. Inside the room, a talking rooster greets her and offers food and a warm bed for her, telling her to use a small door near the bedroom wall. Langa accepts the rooster's offer, eats and sleeps for a bit, then goes out the small door: when she exits it, it leads her to a crowded marketplace. Meanwhile, the rooster at the throne room takes off his birdskin, becomes a handsome youth and rides a horse to the marketplace. Langa and the rider, named Jatsalu, spot each other and fall in love with each other, while the crowd shouts at Jatsalu to come see them. Jatsalu throws ashes and dust at the people, and drops a sack of brown sugar to distract them, then makes his way back to the throne room to put on the rooster disguise again. Langa comes back from the marketplace and comments with the rooster about the events. The next day, she opens and closes the small door to trick the rooster, and spies through a hole in the wall: the rooster takes off its skin to become Jatsalu, and makes his way to the market. While he is away, Langa burns the rooster skin. After Jatsalu returns from the market, he finds Langa, who tells him she loves him, but burned the rooster skin. Jatsalu despairs at the fact, for the skin served to protect him from his enemies, and they will find him again, so they must make the most of the night. The next day, Jatsalu directs Langa to his parents' compound, which is guarded by ferocious dogs, but she can bypass them by performing an act of kindness and keep a state of mindfulness at all times. Langa follows his instructions and reaches his parents' large house. Jatsalu's mother takes her in as a servant and comments that her own son has disappeared. That same night, Langa has a dream about the little dog, which predicts that a dransong truth-sayer will come and she must heed his words. Some time later, the house's servants notice Langa is pregnant and gossip about it to their mistress, lying that the girl must have had a dalliance with a male servant or with a shepherd. Langa denies it, and Jatsalu's mother lets her stay, though noticing the girl is indeed pregnant. Later, Langa has another dream where a rider on a red horse appears with a red dog and asks Langa if she has nice accommodations; the girl replies to the rider in the vision she does not. The next morning, Langa tells Jatsalu's mother about her son, and the woman deducts he has been kidnapped by a tsen body-snatcher. After learning of Langa's relationship with her son, the woman places her in a better room. That same night, Jatsalu comes to Langa's new bedroom and explains the tsens have made him to herd their horses and next to be their water carrier, which allowed him to sneak out and alert his wife, saying only through her skills can he be saved, then goes back to the tsens. Langa then prays fervently, and the dransong truth-sayer appears in her dream to guide her, instructing her on how to proceed. The next day, she finds deer's antlers and a turquoise in a bush, which she takes and goes to a juniper tree, and hides herself amidst some lower branches. She places the turquois in her mouth and hold the antlers above her head, as the dransong manifests above the antlers. Langa holds her position as the tsens appear with their horse herd and circle the juniper tree, while the dransong changes shape into a blue horse and waits near a blue pond. Jatsalu appears and goes to give water to the blue horse, which says he has come to rescue him. Jatsalu mounts on the horse and escapes back to his parents' house, while Langa keeps her mindfulness among the tsens. A giant scorpion creature tries to menace her, but the girl holds her spiritual concentration and dismisses the scorpion. At last, the tsens vanish whence they came, and Langa is taken to Jatsalu's house to live with him. Buryat people
Researcher Nadežda Šarakšinova reported a Buryat language translation of The Bewitched Corpse with 22 tales. In this version, the tale is numbered 5 and its title is translated as The Woman who Had a Bird Husband. Romani people
Transylvania linguist Heinrich von Wlislocki collected a Romani tale from Siebenbürgen (Transylvania), which he considered to be related to the tale from the Siddi-Kur. In the Romani tale, titled O coro rom te pinsteri or Der arme Zigeuner und die Taube ("The Poor Gypsy Man and the Dove"), a father lives with his three sons who work for a local lord, the eldest grazes the horses, the middle one the cattle and the youngest the pigs. When the horses vanish one day, the eldest tries to find them and passes through a set of doors: a wooden one, an iron one, a silver one, then a golden one, and sees a white dove on a table. The dove talks to him and says it can find the horse if the boy marries her. He declines, telling her that he already has a sweetheart. The same thing happens to the middle brother. When the youngest brother meets the white dove, the boy agrees to marry her. He begins to live with the dove, eating the best food and drinking the best drinks, until he gets bored and wishes to see human people again. The dove tells him that the king will be part of a three-day festival in the plains, and he can go there to have fun. The boy finds some money and buys finer clothes to join the people at the festival. When night comes, a young woman clad in golden clothes appears and enjoys the festivities. After the boy returns to the dove, he tells the bird about the maiden at the festival. The next day, the boy sits on a rock by the stream and sighs over the golden maiden. A frog tells him that the golden maiden is the white dove, changed into an animal by an evil sorcerer, and that he can burn her dove feathers when she goes to the festival. That night, the boy waits for his wife to go to the festival and burns the dove feathers. He breaks the enchantment and lives happily with his wife. Hui people
In a similar tale from the Hui people, recorded in 1980 in Ningxia with the title Yaya and the Golden Sparrow, at the foot of Jing Mountain (Golden Mountain), a girl named Yaya finds a hurt golden sparrow and brings it home to heal. She places him a birdcage with a twig inside, feeds it until it recovers, and the bird, in appreciation, sings a song to her. One day, Yaya goes to the garden and sees a "smart fellow" smiling at her. She shyly runs back home and sees the sparrow with a blank stare. Some time later, there is a horse race competition at the village, and the same smart fellow rushes in on a white horse, gives Yaya a bouquet of red peonies, and vanishes from view. When she returns home the same day, the little sparrow sings about red peonies. A few days later, an old woman tells her that the girl should burn the sparrow in the birdcage, since it is the "embodiment" of that same smart fellow. Caught in a dilemma, she thinks hard about a decision, but chooses to throw the little bird in the fire. As it burns, it sings a sorrowful song, and Yaya takes it out of the flames to clean it feathers. She closes her eyes and falls into a dream-like state, where the same smart fellow appears to her in a vision: his name is Alifu, a boy servant in heaven, and he was the sparrow, a form he was cursed with as penance for misdeeds; the old woman is a fox spirit that wishes to do him harm. He also explains that, if she wants to see him again, she should go to the top of Jing Mountain 3 times a day and pray 365 times each time, for 365 days, without missing a day. She follows his guidance and, a year alter, the Golden Sparrow comes to take her to a heavenly garden. However, the evil fox spirit strikes one last time: he disguises himself as a soldier and breaks into Alifu's house in heaven to kill Yaya, but Alifu fights him to a standstill. Suddenly, a dark cloud fulminates the fox spirit with lightning, and Yaya and Alifu are freed to live their lives in peace. Analysis

Tale type
The tale has been related by scholarship to the international tale type ATU 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband", of the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index. These tales refer to a marriage between a human woman and a husband of supernatural origin that appears in animal shape. Sometimes the human wife tries to break the enchantment by destroying the husband's animal skin, but he vanishes and she must undergo a penance to get her husband back. According to philologist researcher Irina S. Nadbitova, from the Kalmyk Institute for Humanities research RAS, a similar narrative exists in the Kalmyk Folktale Corpus, with two variants she listed. Nadbitova classified it as type 432, "Финист – ясный сокол" ("Finist, the Bright Falcon", the name of a Russian fairy tale). Related tales
According to Lörincz, in a Tibetan language translation of The Bewitched Corpse, titled Ro-sgruṅ (published by professor Damdinsuren), tales nr. 4 and nr. 9 (out of 21 of the compilation) are tales about animal husbands. As such, they can be classified as tale type ATU 425 and its subtypes. Hungarian Mongolist  translated the tales collected by linguist  in the 19th century from Kalmyk sources. The third tale of his collection, named Moγǟ köwǖn ("The snake-lad") by Birtalan, also contains the animal husband tale: the heroine marries a snake that becomes a man; her sisters burn his snakeskin, causing his disappearance; later, the heroine quests for him and rides a deer's antlers to reach the heavens, where she finds her three sisters-in-law. Adaptations 
English author Frederick James Gould adapted the tale as For Another's Sake, and published it in his book Stories for Moral Instruction. In his work, the girls' lost goat is the reason they meet the white bird inside the chamber. See also
 The Bird Lover

Footnotes

References 

Asian fairy tales
Asian folklore
Tibetan literature
Mongolian literature
Fictional birds
Fictional married couples
Birds in popular culture
Fiction about shapeshifting
ATU 400-459