The Iron Stove

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The Iron Stove is a fairy tale, collected by the Brothers Grimm, as tale number 127.

It is Aarne-Thompson type 425A, The Animal Bridegroom

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A prince is cursed by a witch into an iron stove, which the witch leaves in the woods. A lost princess finds the stove, and the prince sends her home on the promise that she will marry him. To do this, she had to return with a knife and scrape a hole in the stove.

The king attempts to send first a miller's daughter and then a swine-herd's daughter to take the princess's place. Although the women are very beautiful, they betray their origins, and the princess finally goes. When she scrapes the hole, she finds the prince very handsome. He will take her to his own country, but she wishes to first bid her father farewell. He agrees, but tells her to speak no more than three words. She fails this prohibition, and can not find the iron stove.

In the woods, she finds a cottage full of toads and frogs. They give her shelter for the night, tell her how to find the prince -- by climbing a high glass mountain, and crossing three piercing swords and a great lake -- and give her gifts -- three large needles, a plough-wheel, and three nuts. She uses the needles to climb the glass mountain and rolls over the swords on the plough-wheel. She finds a castle where the prince was getting married, and cracks the nuts. Each one holds a dress, and she barters each one for a night in the prince's room. The first two nights, his bride gives him a sleeping drink, but the third night, the servants have told the prince of her pleas, and he does not drink.

They steal the bride's clothing so she could not get up and flee, using the ploughwheel and the needles to get back to the cottage of toads and frogs, but when they arrive, it becomes a castle, and the frogs and toads, which were the children of kings, are all transformed back into their true forms. They live there for many years, until they are reconciled with the prince's father.