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Overview
Rosella’s first supernatural hostess says that she belongs to seven ogress sisters and that the worst is Rosella’s mother-in-law. Rosella meets six of these aunts during her search before reaching the King of Love’s family home. His sisters protect her from their mother’s threats to eat her. The mother sends Rosella with a letter to another ogress; the King of Love’s instructions allow her to steal a box and return alive. The friend receiving that letter is a separate ogress, not identified as one of the seven sisters.
The mother next demands six mattresses filled with feathers, then arranges her son’s marriage to a Portuguese king’s daughter. After that bride is swallowed by the earth and the King of Love remains with Rosella, the mother clasps her hands over her head and declares that Rosella cannot give birth until she releases them. Her son stages his own death, and her daughters tell her that he has died because of her. She unclasps her hands in grief; the child is born, and the tale says the mother dies from a burst vessel in her heart. Her gesture and its release govern this birth episode, without establishing a universal power of every ogress.
Origins & earliest records
Crane, Italian Popular Tales (1885), I, The King of Love, pp.1–6; the list of stories identifies Pitrè, Fiabe, Novelle e Racconti, No.18, Lu Re d’Amuri. Crane marks this as translated from Sicilian dialect. The bibliography dates Pitrè’s collection to Palermo, 1875. No individual oral narrator is named in the selected English presentation.
Records & interpretation
The complete numbered tale preserves bird transformation, family relationships, tasks and its closing birth/death sequence. Crane’s preface acknowledges tense changes and omitted repetitions; his English version is the selected witness, not an independently collated Sicilian manuscript or recording.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Italian Popular Tales, I: The King of Love, pp.1–6
Complete numbered tale read through Rosella’s child’s birth and mother-in-law’s death. Following summaries of Crystal King and Peppino are separate witnesses, not added to this plot.
Family, evolution & connections
The King of Love and his ogress mother — Crane I
The complete King of Love narrative, pp. 1–6; not the following Crystal King summary.
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- Unnamed daughters (King of Love’s sisters)
Explicit mother connected to her son and separate unnamed daughters. The King’s father and the number of daughters are unstated. Bird and human appearances are one character. Rosella’s newborn has no supplied name or sex; this graph does not infer additional parents. The seven ogresses are a sibling set, while the letter recipient is separately a friend. No identity with Classical Eros is asserted.
Six unnamed ogress sisters
The first sheltering ogress identifies seven sisters, and Rosella meets all six before the King’s mother. The separate friend receiving the letter is not identified as another sister.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary textCrane, Italian Popular Tales (1885): I, preface, story list and bibliographyResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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