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

Overview

The king’s queen is explicitly a sorceress. Fearing that the beautiful adopted girl Aubergine will displace her, she arranges a ceremonial friendship, then uses spells while the girl sleeps to question her about her life. Calling Aubergine a sister and exchanging veils does not make the two biological sisters.

She kills her own seven sons after successive answers identify each as the fairy’s life. A stronger spell finally reveals the necklace hidden through a fish, bee and box. She persuades the king to obtain it, claiming grief for sons supposedly lost to disease, and wears it to kill Aubergine. Removing it at night unintentionally allows the fairy to revive. Her later attempt to poison Aubergine’s son fails when he obtains the necklace first; she is ultimately buried alive at the restored heroine’s demand. No monstrous bodily form is described.

Jealous royal spell-worker who discovers and controls a fairy’s external lifeSpecific Punjabi narrative witness
01

Origins & earliest records

Punjabi storytelling collected and adapted in colonial British India

02

Records & interpretation

Complete named tale and Temple’s corresponding notes read; university-hosted 1894 text compared in full.

Selected bibliography

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

  1. 01

    Tales of the Punjab, Told by the People

    Flora Annie Steel, collector/adapter; R. C. Temple, annotations · 1894

    Princess Aubergine and corresponding notes; J. Lockwood Kipling illustrations

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

Direct primary record

Flora Annie Steel, Tales of the Punjab, Told by the People (Macmillan, 1894); R. C. Temple notes

Princess Aubergine. Complete tale and titled notes; Gutenberg anchors id00422/id01678; UPenn punjab-8

Complete narrative and corresponding notes read, with collection preface already read. Entire tale compared with UPenn 1894 transcription: over 99% token overlap; remaining punctuation, OCR and heading differences inspected. Fairy external life and Pepperina’s one-soul bird pair retained as separate story mechanisms.

Inspect the digitized plate · Source collection manifest

References

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

  1. Historical collected folktaleSteel, Princess Aubergine, complete narrativeResearch access: 2026-10-05
  2. Collector’s linguistic and comparative notesTemple, Notes to Princess AubergineResearch access: 2026-10-05
  3. University-hosted historical primary textUniversity of Pennsylvania, 1894 edition transcriptionResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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

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