Prince Bariam and the Fairy Bride

Is she a dove or is she a woman? Trick question: she's a fairy.

This week, dear reader, we turn to Pakistan for our fairytale. This one certainly intrigued me. It's Prince Bariam and the Fairy Bride.

Just to begin the tale, we have a male giant kidnap a prince. I have seen a tale where a man kidnaps another man so rarely, I double checked to make sure I wasn't misreading "princess". So already we're off to an interesting start. This giant is longing to possess the prince, which is usually something that happens only to princesses and beautiful women. Prince Bariam is treated like a possession, so of course his fairy bride is as well. Firstly, he steals her clothes so she can't turn back into a dove and run away from him. Then the giant, whose wife she was before, decides that since he loves Prince Bariam so much, he'll give away one of his wives. Oh, but it's all okay because the fairy wife fell in love with Prince Bariam too. Or something. She was very philosophical about never seeing her fellow fairies again.

Everything was fine until the wife, Ghulab Bano, decided she needed to see her parents again. Once they found out she was married to a mortal, her folks got mad and locked her up. Because she's still theirs even though she's been married to two different people now, I guess. Fortunately, Prince Bariam gets a magical cheat code from the giant so he goes to live with Ghulab Bano in her prison. I thought this was an interesting choice. It might have felt a bit stifling to live with the giant, since he sort of had feelings for both of them, so I can understand why they might want to get away from that for awhile, but why didn't Prince Bariam take her to his home? In any case, it must not have been too bad because after Prince Bariam and Ghulab Bano left the prison, they went back to live with the giant for several years. Several awkward years.

Meanwhile, the prince's kingdom has been ruled by the vizier and three of the prince's four wives are now married to the vizier. I can't really blame them. Prince Bariam never thought about them during the years he was gone and the one wife who defied the vizier was put in a pit and fed scraps. Prince Bariam doesn't bother trying to take his kingdom back until he thinks the vizier has kidnapped Ghulab Bano. Then he raises his army of giants, defeats the vizier, kills his unfaithful wives, and saves his faithful wife. He must have been kind of mad when he found out the vizier didn't kidnap Ghulab Bano. He must have felt like he did all of that for nothing if he hadn't bothered to try to take his kingdom back before. Prince Bariam must have been even more mad when Ghulab Bano wouldn't come live in the human world with him after that. What a silly situation to be in. Prince Bariam split his time between fairy world and the human world, like a kid with divorced parents, until he died.

As for the moral of this story, I suppose the best one is that it's not all bad when a giant falls in love with you.