A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

In the first tale of Kúnos and Bain’s Turkish collection, a prince leaves home with his sister after spending their inheritance. Despite her warning he drinks from a dirty puddle and immediately becomes a stag. He retains speech and provides for her while she shelters in a tree, including catching a hare for their shared meal. When a ruler’s men repeatedly try to cut down that tree, the stag licks the cuts and restores the trunk thicker and stronger than before.

A woman’s deception eventually draws the sister down from the tree, and the ruler marries her after bringing the stag to join her. He continues to live beside the couple. When an impostor pushes his sister into a fountain and takes her place, he recognises the substitution. She engineers a demand for his heart as a supposed remedy. Facing slaughter, the stag calls to his sister at the fountain and receives her answer from inside the great fish that has swallowed her.

The ruler overhears their exchange, has the fountain drained and cuts the woman and her newborn son from the fish. The stag finds something in its blood, swallows it and becomes a man again. The text does not identify the substance more precisely. He remains with his sister’s family after their reunion. This is a particular human-to-animal transformation, not a separate race of stag-people, and no antler powers or voluntary shapeshifting are supplied.

Retained human speechTree restoration by lickingRecognition of impostorRecovered human form
01

Origins & earliest records

Turkish storytelling collected in Anatolia, through a Hungarian and then English publication

02

Records & interpretation

Complete English tale, attached glossary footnotes, title, preface and contents directly read.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Turkish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales

    Ignácz Kúnos (collector); R. Nisbet Bain (translator from the Hungarian version) · 1901

    “The Stag-Prince,” pp. 1–11; footnotes 2–3. London: A. H. Bullen. Preface dated July 1896, pp. v–viii, says Bain used the first Hungarian Török Népmések edition of 1889. This is not a direct Turkish-to-English translation.

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

Complete English narrative, relevant footnotes and edition frame read

Turkish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales

Ignácz Kúnos / R. Nisbet Bain; London: A. H. Bullen, 1901. The Stag-Prince, pp. 1–11; footnotes 2–3; preface v–viii

Master kunos-bain.html/.txt, full chapter kunos-bain-1.txt. Actual 1901 title distinguished from July1896 preface and 1889 Hungarian source. Footnotes only gloss Padishah/emperor and peri/fairy; source-language originals not collated. Full transformation, tree healing, fish childbirth/restoration, violent punishment and family reunion read. Final four Romanian tales clearly separated in contents and excluded from this Asian source batch.

Inspect the digitized plate · Source collection manifest

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Historical English folktale translation through HungarianKúnos/Bain, Turkish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales (1901), The Stag-PrinceResearch access: 2026-10-05
  2. Edition and contributor metadataProject Gutenberg catalog: Kúnos, Bain and Levetus editionResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

FT·2086 · RESEARCH EDITION 01Back to top ↑