Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree

There was once a king whose wife was called Silver-Tree and whose daughter was called Gold-Tree. One day Silver-Tree and Gold-Tree went to a glen where there was a well, and in the well lived a trout.

“Troutie, bonny little fellow,” said Silver-Tree, “am I not the most beautiful queen in the world?”

“Oh, indeed you are not.”

“Who is, then?”

“Why, Gold-Tree, your daughter.”

Silver-Tree went home blind with fury. She lay down on her bed and swore she would never be well until she had eaten the heart and liver of her daughter Gold-Tree. When the king came home that evening, he was told that his wife was very ill. He went to her and asked what the matter was.

“Only one thing, and you can cure it if you choose.”

“There is nothing in the world I would not do for you.”

“If I can eat the heart and liver of Gold-Tree, my daughter, I will be well.”

Now, at about that time, the son of a great king had come from overseas to ask for Gold-Tree’s hand. The king agreed to the marriage, and the young couple sailed away to the prince’s country. Then the king sent his lads to the hunting hill for a he-goat and gave its heart and liver to his wife to eat, and she got up well and strong.

A year later Silver-Tree went to the glen with the well and the trout. “Troutie, bonny little fellow, am I not the most beautiful queen in the world?”

“Oh, indeed you are not.”

“Who is, then?”

“Why, Gold-Tree, your daughter.”

“Well, she has not been alive for a long time. It is a year since I ate her heart and liver.”

“Oh, indeed she is not dead. She is married to a great prince overseas.”

Silver-Tree went home and begged the king to make the longship ready. “I am going to see my dear Gold-Tree,” she said, “for it is so long since I saw her.” The longship was prepared, and they set off. Silver-Tree herself took the helm, and she steered so well that they arrived in no time.

The prince was out hunting in the hills. Gold-Tree recognised her father’s longship approaching. “Oh,” she said to the servants, “my mother is coming, and she will kill me.”

“She will not kill you at all. We will lock you in a room where she cannot get near you.” And so they did.

When Silver-Tree came ashore, she called out, “Come and meet your own mother, who has come to see you!” Gold-Tree answered that she could not, because she was locked in a room and could not get out.

“Then won’t you put your little finger through the keyhole,” said Silver-Tree, “so that your own mother can kiss it?”

Gold-Tree put her little finger through the keyhole, and Silver-Tree drove a poisoned thorn into it, and Gold-Tree fell down dead.

When the prince came home and found Gold-Tree dead, he was overwhelmed with grief. She looked so beautiful that he could not bear to bury her, so he locked her in a room where nobody could reach her.

In time he married again. His new wife had charge of the whole house except that one room, and the prince always kept its key himself. But one day he forgot to take the key with him, and the second wife went into the room. There she saw the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. She turned her this way and that, trying to wake her, and she noticed the poisoned thorn in her finger. She pulled it out, and Gold-Tree rose up alive, as beautiful as ever.

That evening the prince came home from the hunting hill looking very gloomy. “What gift would you give me if I could make you laugh?” asked his wife.

“Nothing could make me laugh, unless Gold-Tree came back to life.”

“Well, you will find her alive down in that room.”

When the prince saw Gold-Tree alive, he was overjoyed, and he kissed her and kissed her and kissed her. “Since she was your first wife,” said the second wife, “you had better keep to her, and I will go away.”

“Indeed you will not go away,” said the prince. “I will keep you both.”

When the year came round, Silver-Tree went to the glen and put her question to the little trout in the well, and got the same answer: the most beautiful was Gold-Tree, her daughter.

“But she is not alive. It is a year since I put the poisoned thorn into her finger.”

“Oh, she is not dead at all, at all.”

Home went Silver-Tree, and she begged the king to ready the longship, saying she longed to visit her dear Gold-Tree. Off they sailed with the queen steering, and they made the crossing quickly.

The prince was out hunting in the hills. Gold-Tree saw her father’s ship coming. “Oh,” she cried, “my mother is coming, and she will kill me.”

“Not at all,” said the second wife. “We will go down and meet her.”

Silver-Tree came ashore. “Come down, Gold-Tree, my love,” she said, “for your own mother has brought you a precious drink.”

“It is the custom in this country,” said the second wife, “that whoever offers a drink must take a sip of it first.”

Silver-Tree put the cup to her mouth, and the second wife knocked it so that some of the drink went down her throat, and she fell dead. There was nothing for her people to do but carry her body home and bury it. The prince and his two wives lived long after that, contented and at peace. And there I left them.

About this telling

Jacobs took “Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree” from the Celtic Magazine, where Kenneth Macleod printed it in Gaelic and English. It is a Scottish Highland relative of Grimm’s “Snow White,” and Jacobs notes that no other version was known in the British Isles in his day.

He also remarks on the prince keeping two wives, a detail glossed over in another version Macleod heard. Jacobs thought the tale probably came to the Highlands from abroad, so that this trait may have travelled with it rather than describing Highland life.

Read the original: Joseph Jacobs, Celtic Fairy Tales (Gutenberg #7885, Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree)

Reading guidance: older readers. Includes a mother’s attempts to kill her daughter, threatened cannibalism, poisoning, apparent death and a fatal counter-trick. The revival is fairy-tale magic, not a model of medical care.

Reading the story closely

Silver-Tree treats beauty as a contest in which her daughter’s existence is a threat. The second wife faces a possible rival too, yet acts to revive and protect her. That contrast is more revealing than a general claim that all jealousy ends in punishment. The repeated ship arrivals also turn a sign of family connection into a warning of danger.

Pair the keyhole visit with the offered drink: what does the mother ask Gold-Tree to trust, and how does the second wife change the encounter? Then give both wives a voice in discussing the prince’s proposed household. The source reports peace, but gives the prince most of the decision-making speech.

Think about it

• What did Silver-Tree ask the trout, and why did its answer make her so angry?
• How did the king trick Silver-Tree into thinking Gold-Tree was dead?
• How did the prince’s second wife save Gold-Tree twice?

More stories like this

• Fair, Brown, and Trembling — an Irish tale of a jealous family and a hidden beauty
• Connla and the Fairy Maiden — another tale from Jacobs’s Celtic Fairy Tales
• The Bald Wife — a Bengali tale about a jealous co-wife