#the princess sees a bear with a golden wreath she's dreamed of - she agrees to go live with him in exchange for it

[naariel]

Brunebjørn Druid Halsin

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Based on Kvitebjørn Kong Valemon by Theodor Kittelsen. As a kid I always really enjoyed that painting, and the norwegian folktale it depicts. So naturally I had to recreate it with Halsin and Gaia.

[little-witchys-garden]

White-Bear-King

Valemon

Part 1

Book by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen

This is kinda a shortened version of it.

There was once, as well could be, a king. He had two daughters, who were mean and ugly, but the third was as fair as sweet as the bright day, and the king and all were fond of her. She once dreamed about a golden wreath, which was so lovely that she couldn’t live unless she got it. But as she couldn’t get it, she began to pine and could not speak for sorrow. And when the king found out it was the wreath she was grieving for, he had one made almost like the one the princess had dreamed of, and sent it out to goldsmiths in every land and asked them to make one like it.

They worked both day and night, but some of the wreaths she threw away, and others she wouldn’t even look at. Then one day, when she was in the forest, she caught sight of a white bear, which had the wreath she had dreamed of between its paws and was playing with it. And she wanted to buy it.

No! It wasn’t to be had for money, but only in return for herself. Well, life wasn’t worth living without it, she said; it didn’t matter where she went or who she got, if only she got the wreath. And so they agreed that he was to fetch her in three days’ time, and that would be a Thursday.

When she came home with the wreath, everyone was glad because she was happy again, and the king felt sure that it would be a simple matter to keep a white beat at bay. On the third day, the whole army was posted round the castle with him. But when the white bear came, there was no one who could hold him against him, for no weapon could make any effect on him. He knocked them down right and left until they were lying in heaps. This, thought the king, was proving downright disastrous; so he sent out his eldest daughter and the white bear took her on his back and rushed off with her.

When they had traveled far, and farther than far, the white bear asked:

“Have you ever sat softer, have you ever seen clearer?”

“Yes, on my mother’s lap I sat softer, in my father’s court I saw clearer,” she said.

“Well, you’re not the right one then,” said the white bear, and chased her home again.

On the third Thursday he came again. This time he fought even harder than before, until the king thought he couldn’t let him knock down the whole army, and so he gave him his third daughter. Then he took her on his back and traveled away, far, and farther than far, and when they had reached the forest, he asked her, as he had asked the others, if she had ever sat softer and seen clearer.

“No never,” she said.

“Well, you’re the right one,” he said.

So they came to a castle which was so fine that the castle her father lived in was like the meanest cottage in comparison. There she was to stay, and live well, and she was to have nothing else to do but see to it that the fire never went out. The bear was away during the day, but at night he was with her, and then he was a man. For three years all went as well as could be. But each year she had a child, which he took and rushed away with as soon as it had come into the world. So she became more and more downcast, and asked if she couldn’t be allowed to go home and see her parents. Yes, there was no objection to that; but first she must promise that she would listen to what her father said, but not to what her mother wanted her to do. So she went home, and when they were alone with her, and she had told them how she was getting on, her mother wanted to give her a candle to take with her so she could see what the bear was like when he turned into a man at night. But her father said no, she shouldn’t do that. “It will only do more harm than good”.

But no matter how it was or was not, she took the candle stub with her when she left. The first thing she did, when he had fallen asleep, was to light it and shine it on him. He was so handsome that she thought she could never gaze her fill at him, as she shone the light, a drop of hot tallow dripped onto his forehead, and so he awoke.

“What have you done? Now you have brought misfortune on us both. There was no more than a month left; if you had only held out I would have been freed, for a Troll-hag bewitched me, so that I’m a white bear during the day. But now it’s over with us. Now I have to go there and take her.”

She cried and carried on, but he had to go and go he would. So she asked if she could go with him. That was out of the question, he said, but when he rushed off in his bearskin, she seized hold of the fur all the same, flung she up on his back and held of fast. Then they were off over mountain and hill, through groove and thicket, until her clothes were torn off, and she was so dead tired that she let go her hold, and knew no more. When she awoke, she was in a great forest, and so she set out on her way again, but she didn’t know where her path led. At last she came to a cottage where there were two womenfolk, an old crone and a pretty little girl.

The king’s daughter asked if they had seen anything of White-Bear-King Valemon.

“Yes, he rushed by here early today, but he was going so fast that you won’t catch up with him again,” they said.

The little girl scampered about, and clipped and played with a pair of golden scissors, which were such that pieces of silk and strips of velvet flew about her if she but clipped in the air. Wherever the scissors were, clothes were never lacking.

“But this poor woman, who has to journey so far and on such rough roads, she’ll have to toil hard,” said the little girl. “She has more need of these scissors than I; to cut clothes for herself,” she said, and then she asked if she could give her the scissors. Yes that she could.

So the king’s daughter set off through the forest which never came to an end, all that day and night. And the next morning she came to another cottage. Here there were also two womenfolk, and old crone and a little girl.

[clintonpittmansblog]

White Bear King Valemon Theodor Kittelsen 1912 A king had a daughter who was beautiful and gentle, and who dreamed of a golden wreath. She saw a white bear in the woods, and it had the wreath. The bear would not give it to her until she agreed to go away with him, and it took her to its castle. Every night, it turned into a man and came to her bed in the dark. Every year, she had a child, but as soon as the baby was born, the bear rushed away with it. At the end of three years, she asked to visit her parents. There, her mother gave her a candle so that she could see him. At night, she lit it and looked at him, and a drop of tallow fell on his forehead, waking him. He told her that he was a bear king, and if she had waited another month, he would have been free of an evil witch queen's spell. Now he must go to the witch's kingdom and become her husband. He rushed off, but she seized his fur and rode him, though the branches battered her, until she was so tired that she fell off. She searched in a forest until she came to a cottage where an old woman and three little girl were. The old woman told her that the bear had gone by, and the little girls gave her presents to help her on her journey. When she came to the witch’s castle, she bribed he witch to let her see her bear king. They came up with an idea how to kill the witch. When the day arrived that the king was to marry, many witches gathered for the occasion. But the king had carpenters put a trap door in a bridge over a deep chasm for the wedding procession, and it opened so that the witch-bride and her witch-bridesmaids fell through it. The bear king and the princess took the treasures from the witch's castle and went to his homeland for the real wedding. On the way, they took the little girls, and the princess learned that they were her own daughters, whom the king had taken so they could aid her in her quest. Theodor Kittelsen was born in 1857 in the coastal town of Kragerø in Norway. He found nature to be a great inspiration for his artwork. Kittelsen's style would be something like Neo-Romantic. He played, with perfect control and delicacy, with the fine lines between reality and superstition.