The Three Flowers (German: Die drei Blumen), also known as White as Milk, Red as Blood, is a German Fairy Tale collected by Franz Xaver von Schönwerth. It has been translated into English and published in collections such like The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales and White as Milk, Red as Blood - The Forgotten Fairy Tales of Franz Xaver von Schönwerth.
Three huntsmen head into the depths of a faraway, vast wood to find their sister Katie, who has been kidnapped by a witch. They survive for a while by killing game and sleeping beneath the trees until they discover a little empty cottage. They settle in for the night, and they discover a tiny wood sprite is living in the hut.
The sprite is forced to stay out of the cottage when the hunters make themselves at home, though she often sits on the garden fence, singing sadly and weaving twigs crowns. The hunters decide to capture her and force her to work as their servant, but the sprite begs them to let her go; in return, she will bring their sister back.
The hunters accept her deal, and several days later the sprite brings Katie to the cottage. The brothers are overjoyed, but Katie reveals she is being harassed by a strange grey man who is constantly frightening her, teasing her and forcing her to suck his little finger. The three brothers ambush the man, kill him and bury him in the cottage's garden. Before long, three long-stalked, sweet-smelling, bright-colored flowers grow in the grave. Every time Katie picks one of them to smell it, though, the wood sprite frantically warns she must not break the stalks.
Sometime later, Katie comes upon a white dog in the woods. The dog takes a liking to her and starts barking until his owner comes at his call. The hunter falls in love with Katie and asks for her hand in marriage, declaring his intent to return in three days, marry her and take her to his castle. Katie is shocked, but she nods and the hunter leaves.
When Katie tells the news to her brothers, they caution her about the dangers of marrying a total stranger, but Katie is determined to go ahead with the wedding. Three days later, the man comes back in a magnificent carriage and the wedding is celebrated. However, Katie feels sorry about wearing rags in her wedding day, and, wanting to adorn herself a bit, she plucks the three flowers. When their stems snap, Katie's brothers are transformed into deer. Katie stands there, "white as snow, cold as ice", and the wood sprite whispers in her ear she must "remain as still and silent as the grave for seven years" in order to break the curse. Nonetheless, the hunter is still enthralled by her, so he takes her to his carriage and rides off to his castle.
Katie and the hunter begin their new life together. While she is treated well by her husband, her mother-in-law cannot stand her and endeavors to make Katie miserable. When Katie gets pregnant and delivers her child, the woman chokes the baby to death as Katie is sleeping, smears his blood on his mother's mouth, and goes to tell the hunter Katie has eaten her own child. The hunter enters his wife's bedchamber, finding her still asleep, but he also notices the three blooming flowers by her bedside. Since the wood sprite confided in him that, as long as they do not wither and fade, the flowers are a symbol of his wife's innocence, he does not believe his mother's accusations.
Katie gives birth to two more sons, who are also murdered by her evil in-law. Eventually, the old woman discovers the secrets of the flowers and crushes them. She then bewitches her son so that he trusts her and agrees to get his wife executed. Katie is dragged to the place of execution, trembling but unable to speak and plead her innocence. Right before her head is cut off, though, her three brothers appear riding stags, and tell Katie the seven years are up and she can talk again.
Katie at last explains everything, and it is her mother-in-law who is beheaded. Katie can live happily at last, but she never forgets the wood sprite who helped her, and whom she never meets again.
"Every year the matron of the castle visited the hut of the wood sprite in the woods, and her children decorated the little room inside with flowers. But it was always empty and remained gloomy, with just a cricket chirping beneath the hearthstone."
In the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index it is classified as a Type 451 "The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brother".
See also "The Six Swans" and its variants.
Tropes:
- Animorphism: Katie's brothers are turned into stags when she ignores the wood sprite's well-meaning warnings and plucks three flowers.
- Babies Ever After: After her brothers' curse is broken and her evil mother-in-law has been punished, Katie has several more children.
- Big Brother Instinct: The three huntsmen kill the man who was harassing their sister. They are not happy when they later hear she has gotten herself engaged to some stranger, but this time they restrict themselves to saying it is not a good idea.
- Don't Go in the Woods: Three huntsmen go into a huge forest where their sister has been hidden away by a witch. They run into strange creatures, one of which is stalking her sister, and become turned into beasts when her sister plucks three enchanted blossoms.
- Due to the Dead: After killing their little sister's stalker, the three huntsmen bury the man respectfully in the garden.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Katie endures silently her abusive mother-in-law's hatred and mistreatment for years, even though the odious woman kills her three babies and frames Katie for their deaths, until her brothers are finally turned back to normal. Then Katie reveals the truth to her husband, her mother-in-law is punished, and Katie can finally raise her family.
- Eats Babies: Katie's wicked mother-in-law kills her babies and then accuses Katie of eating her own children so that she is put to death.
- Elective Mute: Katie accidentally triggers a curse which transforms her brothers into deer. In order to break the curse, she does not speak a single word for seven years, not even when she is falsely accused of eating her children.
- Enchanted Forest: Most of the action happens in a remote, endless and haunted wood, devoid of people but inhabited by witches, sprites and other dangerous creatures.Three hunters went hunting in a faraway forest. They found themselves in a wilderness without end, where they lived on wild game and slept beneath the trees.
- Evil Matriarch: Katie's mother-in-law utterly hates her and is constantly abusing her. The woman is so determined to make Katie's life miserable that she murders Katie's newborn babies and frames the helpless mother.
- Family-Unfriendly Death:
- The man who was sexually harassing Katie is beaten to death by her three brothers.
- Katie's babies are choked to death by her evil mother-in-law.
- Forbidden Fruit: The wood sprite warns several times Katie to NOT pick the beautiful flowers growing on the grave of the stranger man whom her brothers killed to protect her. Nonetheless, Katie ends plucking the flowers when she wants to adorn herself on her wedding day, and her brothers instantly become turned into stags. In order to break their curse, Katie must remain silent for seven years.
- Frame-Up: After murdering Katie's babies, her mother-in-law smears Katie's mouth with their blood to frame her as a baby-eater and filicide.
- Garden Garment: The diminutive wood sprite wears a dress made from moss strands.
- House Fey: Variant. The three huntsmen find an abandoned hut in the woods inhabited by a forest sprite, and they decide to capture her and put her to work as their maid. However, the shy sprite -who moved out of the house to avoid the big, scary humans- offers to find their missing sister in exchange for being left alone.
- Lilliputians: The wood sprite is so tiny that she uses thimbles for heating milk.The first night they watched a spark leap up from the hearth, and a tiny little woman began cooking milk in a thimble. The huntsmen forced the wood sprite to leave the hut.
- Love at First Sight: A wealthy hunter runs into Katie as looking for his hunting dog and immediately takes her hand and asks her to be his wife.
- Nature Spirit: The three huntsmen find a tiny wood sprite living in and abandoned cottage in the middle of a huge forest. In exchange for being left alone, the wood sprite helps them find their sister.
- No Name Given: Neither Katie's brothers, nor her stalker, nor her husband, nor her husband's family, nor the wood sprite are referred to by name. In fact, the female protagonist is only named in one version of the story.
- Our Fairies Are Different: Katie's brothers find a wood sprite in a cottage in the middle of a vast forest. The unnamed sprite is a tiny and shy humanoid creature who is afraid of humans and tries to stay out of their way. Schönwerth includes a brief description of wood sprites according to German folktales: "Wood sprites, or forest sprites, are tiny creatures that make their homes near hearths. Their clothing is made of spun moss that hangs in ropelike strands from trees. We think of them as enchanted beings hounded by phantom hunters. They live together as married couples and bear children. Their enemies are the phantom hunters, who rage through the lands like wild beasts during autumnal storms. The wood sprites' only protection against them is to take refuge on a tree stump that has three crosses carved into it."
- Pay Evil unto Evil:
- Katie's three brothers ambush and murder the man who was sexually harassing their sister.She was a beautiful girl, white as milk, red as blood. But she soon complained to her brothers about a little grey man who would often come to her. He would tease and terrorize her, and force her to suck his little finger. So the brothers waited in ambush, grabbed the little man, beat him to death and buried him in the garden.
- Katie's mother-in-law was beheaded in punishment for murdering Katie's three babies and then framing their poor mother.
- Katie's three brothers ambush and murder the man who was sexually harassing their sister.
- Rags to Riches: Katie goes from living in an abandoned cottage in the middle of a forest to becoming the mistress of a castle.
- Rule of Seven: Katie and her brothers fall victim to a spell when she picks three blossoms she had been told to not touch: for seven years she will be unable to speak, and they will remain transformed into deers.
- Rule of Three:
- Katie has three brothers.
- After Katie's brothers have killed her stalker, three beautiful flowers grow on his grave.
- Katie finds a white dog which barks three times before his owner shows up. The man falls in love with Katie and declares he will come to fetch her in three days.
- Katie has three children who are murdered by her evil mother-in-law.
- Sinister Suffocation: Katie's babies are throttled to death by her evil mother-in-law.The hunter's mother was an evil woman who disliked Katie. She was constantly scolding the young woman and making her life miserable. When the time came for Katie to deliver a child, she bore a son, whom the old woman took and choked to death.
- Title Drop: One of the alternate names for this tale is "White as Milk, Red as Blood". When she shows up, Katie is described in the next terms: "She was a beautiful girl, white as milk, red as blood."
- Trauma Conga Line: Katie is held captive by a witch and sexually harassed by a stranger. Shortly after being rescued and meeting her fiancé, she triggers by accident a curse which turns her brothers into stags, and she must remain mute for seven years to undo the spell. During those seven years, her mother-in-law murders her three babies and frames Katie, who is almost put to death because she cannot speak up and defend herself.
