Mr Simigdáli ("The Gentleman Made of Groats", in Max Lüthi's translation) is a Greek fairy tale, collected by Irene Naumann-Mavrogordato in Es war einmal: Neugriechische Volksmärchen. Georgios A. Megas collected a variant Master Semolina in Folktales of Greece. There are about forty known Greek variants on the fairy tale of baking a figure and having it brought to life. It is Aarne-Thompson type 425, the search for the lost bridegroom, in an unusual variation, involving motifs similar to Pygmalion and Galatea.
Synopsis A king's daughter refuses all her suitors. She takes almonds, sugar, and groats—or semolina—and makes the figure of a man from them. Then she prays for forty days, and God brings the figure to life. He is called Mr Simigdáli (Mr Groats)—or Master Semolina if made from that—and is very handsome. An evil queen hears of him and sends a golden ship to kidnap him. Everyone comes out to see it, and the sailors as instructed- capture Mr Simigdáli. The princess learns how he had been carried off, has three pairs of iron shoes made for herself, and sets out. With the first pair of iron shoes worn out, she comes to the mother of the Moon, who has her wait until the Moon comes, but the Moon can not tell her where Mr Simigdáli has been taken, and sends her on to the Sun, having given her an almond for her to break upon need. The Sun and its mother give her a walnut and send her on to the Stars. No star has seen him, except for a little star which then takes her to the castle where Mr Simigdáli is prisoner after being given to drink the water of oblivion, and the star gives her a hazelnut. She looks like a beggar and he does not recognize her, so she begs for a job taking care of the geese. Then she breaks the almond and it holds a golden spindle, reel and wheel. The servants tell the queen, who asks what she wants for her; the princess will trade it only for Mr Simigdáli to spend a night with her. The queen agrees but gives Mr Simigdáli a sleeping potion. The princess tries to talk to him but she cannot wake him. Then she breaks the walnut, which contains a golden hen and her chicks, and she tries and fails again. The hazelnut contains golden carnations, but that day, a tailor, who lives next to the girl who tends to the geese, asks Mr Simigdáli how he can sleep at night what with all the girl's talk. Mr Simigdáli realises something is off so he secretly readies his horse and only pretends to drink the potion; so, when the princess begins to talk to him, he rises and takes her with him on his horse. In the morning, the queen sends for him, but he is not there. She tries to make her own man, but when the figure is done, she curses instead of praying, and the figure rots. The princess and Mr Simigdáli return home and live happily ever after. And, as the Greek saying has it, they lived happily but we lived even more so!
Analysis
Tale type Although the tale is classified as the more general type ATU 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband", the tale pertains to a cycle of stories found in Italy, Greece and Turkey: the heroine, refusing to marry any suitor chosen for her, decides to fashion her own husband out of materials, and prays to a deity for him to come alive. It could be considered, therefore, a subtype specific to Italy. The type is also considered a Greek-Turkish oikotype of The Disenchanted Husband, which, according to Jan-Öjvind Swahn's study, falls under type 425B: the artificial husband created by the heroine and the exchange of three nuts for three nights with her husband. In the same vein, Marilena Papachristophorou identified three motifs that "essentially" form this subtype: 1) the fabrication of an ideal mate; 2) the heroine's quest that leads her to three supernatural helpers; 3) the three wonderful objects exchanged for three nights with the found husband.
Motifs Lüthi remarked that the reference to number forty indicated the presence of the tale in the Orient, since the numeral has cultural significance for Middle Eastern cultures (e.g., indicating a period of maturation or purification).
The gifts from the helpers The heroine, creator and lover of the artificial husband, gains exquisite presents from her supernatural helpers, which she will use to bribe the kidnapping queen for a night with her lover. Also, according to Max Lüthi, the heroine cracks open the nuts and almonds she gets from her helpers and finds beautiful dresses that depict the skies (or heavens), the earth and the seas.
The hero's ingredients Folklorists Georgios A. Megas and Michael Merakles, as well as researcher Marilena Papachristophorou, noted that in these tales, the hero is named after the materials with which he was created: herbs, musk, amber, cinnamon and sugar. According to Papachristophorou, the more common names for the hero include Sucrepétri, Moscambaris or Muscambre, after the materials used to build the husband (in the latter two, musk and amber), although the tale is better known as Simigdalenios ("Man of Semolina"). In addition, German scholar Max Lüthi noted that sugar appears to be "the crucial ingredient" in most variants from Greece and Italy, although Papachristophorou remarks that it is the "most common [ingredient] in all versions" of the story. Papachristophorou interpreted that the incidence of the sugar in the heroine's creation of the perfect man in the story is multifarious: historically, sugar was a commodity more rare and precious than honey, known since Antiquity; thus, being a rare spice, it adds an exotic component in the fabrication process, and, being a granulous substance, meshes well with other granulous and pulveral ingredients.
Variants
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