Aarne-Thompson Analysis of the Variants

The aforementioned tales were listed as variants of the "Bearskin" tale in A Guide to Folktales. This book uses the Aarne- Thompson method for tale classification which involves searching for various motifs (those listed with each of the stories here) and then attempting to find tales which have similar motif contents. While the above tales do vary somewhat, the all have the common motifs of:

Making a deal with the devil (M211)
For some time the hero must not wash or comb himself (C721.1 & C723.1)
He marries the youngest of three princesses (L54.1)
The elder two made sport of him (Q2)
The elder sisters kill themselves

Aarne - Thompson classified tales with this pattern as being of tale type 361. This numbering places the tale firmly in the section of "Ordinary" magic tales within the numbering system developed by Aarne and Thompson. Both Aarne and Thompson believed in the idea of the Uhr-Märchen, that is, and original version of the tale from which the other versions sprang. Their method for tracking this original tale, and how distant the variants are is based on a number of hypotheses. I do not have enough information to address all these factors, but there are a number which can lead to some fairly strong conclusions as to the origins of the tale. One of the factors the Aarne-Thompson hypotheses uses to determine origins of tales is by checking the diffusion of the tale. According to Sith Thompson (of Aarne Thompson) in The Tale Type Index the highest concentration of tales of this classification is in Finland with 72 distinct variants. Following closely behind are the Irish with 51, Lithuanian with 44, German with 27, Estonian with 25, and Danish with 22. There are a number of other variants in other countries, but none of them are given credit for more than 20 distinct versions. Simply looking at this geographically, we see that all these countries are in the area of the Baltic Sea (and North Sea to its east) and that the highest concentration is near Finland (Lithuania and Estonia). Aarne-Thompson further hypothesized that common trade routes would be the ones over which tales dispersed. However, even without this information, it seems that, simply by locality, an origin for the tale can be placed somewhere in Finland. A second hypothesis is that, the further a tale travels from its origin, the fewer of the original motifs the tale retains. Thus, we will now attempt to date the other tales. We will begin with the (admittedly disputable) hypothesis that the Finnish tale, "The Soldier and the Bad Man", is indeed the earlier version. The motifs of this tale are:

Soldier makes a deal with the devil (M211)
For six years he must not wash or comb himself (C72 1.1 & C723. 1)
Devil cooks people in a giant kettle (G303.25.4)
The soldier is given a jacket with pockets always full of money
He marries the youngest of three princesses (L54. 1 )
The elder two made sport of him (Q2)
The elder sisters kill themselves
The devil "You got one, I got two" (K217)

Looking at the Grimms' version, we see that their version has all the motifs except the devil's kettle. This alteration may be partially explained by the fact that there is a Grimms' tale entitled "The Devil's Sooty Brother" which is actually closer to the Finnish version that the actual "Bearskin" story and which does contain the devil's kettle. As such, at least one of the Grimms' version seem to have some agreement with the Finnish tale. Of course, "The Three Traveling Artisans" and "The Road to Hell" are also missing the money filled garment and the devil's statement (and also have a very different tale structure as we will see later) so it may be stated (if we continue our assumption) that these tales came after the Grimms' version.

Likewise, "Don Giovanni de la Fortuna" and "The Devil's Breeches" are also only lacking of the kettle (although they throw in a couple of new motifs) and so are probably relatively close to the original tale. Both of these variants are of Italian origin. Italy had few variants of this tale, but the fact that they appear to maintain many of the motifs of the Finnish version is testimony that they are closer to the original tale, at least temporally.

Therefore, if we continue with our hypothesis that the Finnish tale is the earlier of the versions, the tales are, in chronological order:

1. "The Soldier and the Bad Man"
2. "Bearskin", "The First of the Bearskins", "The Devil's Breeches", "Don Giovanni de la Fortuna"
3. "The Three Traveling Artisans", "The Road to Hell"

Admittedly, this is a very rough ordering, but is does not seem to go against the hypothesis that the Finnish tale is the closest to the original since so many tales (half of them) are so close to it in detail.