Tale of the Doomed Prince

Did You Know?

• Andrew Lang adapted the story as The Prince and the Three Fates for his work The Brown Fairy Book.
• The Egyptian story inspired the 1992 Amelia Peabody mystery by Elizabeth Peters, The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog.

Synopsis

The king of Egypt, long without a son, prays to the gods, and his wife conceives that night. At the prince's birth, the seven Hathors foretell he will die by crocodile, snake, or dog. To protect him, the king builds an isolated mountain palace. One day the prince sees a man with a dog and asks for one; the king reluctantly gives him a dog.

When grown, the prince decides to face his doom and travels to Nahrin. There he competes with young men for a princess, winning her by jumping (possibly flying) to her locked window. He claims to be a charioteer's son who fled a stepmother, and the king allows the marriage. Afterward, the prince tells his wife his true identity and his three fates.

She urges him to kill the dog, but he refuses. She later stops a snake from biting him in his sleep, defeating one fate. Later, while walking with the dog, the dog speaks, saying it is meant to kill him. Fleeing, the prince reaches a lake where a crocodile seizes him but, instead of killing him, carries him back to an old wise man and his wife.

Motifs

Several motifs in this tale recur in later European fairy tales. The long-delayed birth of a child appears in Sleeping Beauty. The foretelling of death at birth is also found in Sleeping Beauty, The Youth who was Doomed to be Hanged, and The Two Kings' Children. The attempt to prevent doom through isolation from nature mirrors Sleeping Beauty.

The number three governs the dangers awaiting the protagonist. The death of the mother and replacement by a stepmother who hates the protagonist occurs in Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, and Cinderella. Leaving home to seek one's destiny and hiding one's true identity are common, the latter seen in Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Donkeyskin, and Iron John. Freeing a princess locked in a high tower recalls Rapunzel.

Competing with rivals by jumping high to reach a tower top appears in The Princess on the Glass Hill and Iron John. Talking animals appear in The Princess and the Frog and tale types ATU 554. A person or animal setting conditions for helping the protagonist occurs in The Princess and the Frog and Rumpelstiltskin. Cheating death and overcoming doom are central.

The seven Hathors, who decree fate at birth, are analogous to the Moirai, Parcae, or Norns. Because the ending is ambiguous, some versions conclude with the prince's death, aligning with the inevitability of fate and tale type ATU 930. In folkloristics, the tale is classified as ATU 934A, The Predestined Death. The likely original ending, given the dog's hesitance, the snake's death, and the crocodile's offer of help, is that the prince avoids his gruesome fate and is freed from doom.