The Language of the Birds
A merchant's son learns bird speech and fulfills a prophecy.
The Language of the Birds is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev. It appears as number 247 in his compilation of Russian Fairy Tales. The story is notable for its exploration of fate and the consequences of understanding animal speech.
Quick Facts
- Aarne–Thompson grouping
- ATU 671 ("The Three Languages")
- Region
- Russia
- Published in
- Russian Fairy Tales by Alexander Afanasyev
- Related
- The Three Languages
Facts from the source article.
Synopsis
A merchant's son named Ivan wanted to understand what birds say. One day while out hunting, he spotted four chicks about to be caught in a storm and covered them with his coat. When their mother came back, she was so thankful that she taught him the language of the birds. Later, Ivan was sitting with his parents one evening when a nightingale's song upset him. His father pressed him to explain, and Ivan said the bird had declared that he was really meant to be a king's son, not a merchant's, and that his own father would one day serve him as a servant. Frightened by this, his parents set him adrift in a boat. A merchant found him at sea. Ivan warned the merchant about an approaching storm, but was ignored. After the storm damaged the ship, he warned about pirates, so they hid. They eventually reached a city where a king was troubled by three crows that always sat by his window. The king promised his youngest daughter's hand to anyone who could make them leave. Ivan listened to the crows and then told the king the birds needed a royal ruling: should the young crow follow its father or its mother? The king said the father, so the mother crow flew off alone, and the father crow stayed with the young one. The king gave Ivan his daughter and half the kingdom. Meanwhile, Ivan's father lost all his wealth and became a beggar. One day he came to Ivan's castle asking for help. Ivan brought him inside, gave him food and clothes, and asked what he wanted. The father asked to be taken on as a servant. Ivan then told him the nightingale's words had come true, and he took care of both his parents.
Commentary
Folklorists group this story under the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 671, "The Language of the Animals." A Scottish legend tied to Eilean Donan Castle tells of a lord who granted his son the ability to talk to birds by making the boy's first drink come from a raven's skull. A closely related Portuguese tale, collected by Francisco Adolfo Coelho and called "The Little Boy and the Moon," follows a similar plot. In it, a boy tells his father that the moon has predicted the father will one day offer him water to wash his hands, and the boy will shrink back and refuse. Frightened, the parents seal the boy in a box and abandon it at sea. A fisherman finds the box and delivers the child to a king, who adopts him. Years later, the boy travels to an inn run by his father, where the prophecy is unknowingly fulfilled.
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