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Overview
Laurentine Kopena’s telling introduces three young women who remove pigeon robes to bathe. On a Tartaro’s advice, a poor young man hides the middle robe and secures its owner’s promise to help him. She sends him to her father’s household, where he receives impossible work under threat of death. Her combs uproot and sort a forest, prepare the land and produce the wheat cake required by noon. The father is later explicitly called a devil. The tale does not supply a personal name for the daughter, and the Lady Pigeon title describes her initial appearance.
She retrieves a ring from a river after a temporary bodily division and restoration, but a missing piece of her little finger remains an identifying mark. She warns that the horse and three fillies the servant must tame are her father and sisters, with herself as the last filly. After he completes this trial, he recognizes her hand during a blindfolded bride selection. Their escape is delayed from discovery by answering spittle, then protected by comb-created thorns, storm and finally a river in which her pursuing father drowns. The earlier enemy is described as a terrible monster during pursuit, without a new precise anatomy.
At the Christian country’s boundary she says she needs baptism to enter and warns her husband not to accept a kiss. An aunt kisses him unexpectedly and he forgets her. She creates a hotel offering free food and recognizes him when he visits with two companions. Her enchantments keep the companions occupied all night and make his extinguished light relight continually. At dawn she recalls their separation, restoring his memory. He brings a priest, she is baptized and they settle with his mother in another magically created palace. Webster’s following suggested interpretation maps the plot onto seasons and agriculture, but that is his expressly qualified theory, not the storyteller’s identification of the bride as Spring.
Origins & earliest records
Wentworth Webster’s Basque Legends, collected chiefly in the Labourd, London second edition, 1879, prints this account attributed to Laurentine Kopena. Its English translation preserves a specific telling, not the beginning date of oral transmission.
Records & interpretation
The complete The Lady Pigeon and her Comb, pp. 120–130, supplies the transformations and narrative outcome. Named storyteller attribution is retained; the narrator’s supernatural claims are not medical diagnoses or evidence against a historical person.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Basque Legends: The Lady Pigeon and her Comb
Second edition; pp. 120–130. Complete narrative and final outcome read.
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.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary collected translationWebster1879 complete The Lady Pigeon and her CombResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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