A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
The Horse-Devil’s mother in Kúnos and Bain’s tale descends noisily from a mountain, detects a human smell and longs to eat flesh. Her son initially hides his wife as an apple and reveals her only after an oath. The mother then subjects the bride to contradictory or impossible tasks when her son is absent. He supplies the solutions, and the couple eventually escape before she can continue.
She sends two sisters in succession after them. The first mistakes a transformed bath-house and its keeper for strangers; the second is similarly deceived by a spring and water-drawer. Each witch travels in a pitcher, and the first and the mother explicitly use a serpent as a whip. When the mother pursues personally, she recognises her son coiled as a serpent around his wife’s tree form, but refuses to break the tree for fear of killing him. She settles for tearing off the bride’s little finger and returns home. Her kinship with the son limits her violence without making her benevolent, and her death is not narrated.
Origins & earliest records
Turkish storytelling collected in Anatolia, through Hungarian and English publication
Records & interpretation
Complete English tale including transformations, pursuit and unresolved talisman wording read.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Turkish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales
“The Horse-Devil and the Witch,” pp. 74–83. London: A. H. Bullen. Preface dated July1896 explicitly credits the Hungarian1889 intermediary.
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
Primary records and illustrations
Turkish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales
Ignácz Kúnos / R. Nisbet Bain; London: A. H. Bullen, 1901. The Horse-Devil and the Witch, pp. 74–83
Fullcachekunos-bain-6.txt,12012characters. All feeding/marriage, rose-garden nights, tournaments/disclosure, three hairs/tasks, two distinct aunts/pursuit, finger loss and mortal ending read. No explicit talismanidentity or fingerregeneration invented; mother not killed. No source-language/scanned-page or artwork collation.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical English folktale translation through HungarianKúnos/Bain1901, The Horse-Devil and the WitchResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.