Reading Notes: Celtic Fairy Tales - Part A, Silver-Tree and Gold-Tree

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Silver-Tree and Gold-Tree

This story is a Celtic version of the classic tale of Snow White, with a twist. In Snow White, the evil queen that tries to kill her in order to be the most beautiful is her stepmother, but in this story, Silver-Tree is Gold-Tree's biological mother. It is not a magic mirror that tells Silver-Tree that she is not the most beautiful woman in the land, but a trout in a well. The way that Gold-Tree escapes her mother's jealous wrath is also different from Snow White. In Snow White, she is saved by the seven dwarves, and eventually the prince who brings her back to life with true love's kiss. In this story, everyone but the prince seems to have a hand in saing Gold-Tree. 

The first time Silver-Tree makes an attempt on her daughter's life, she tells her husband, the king, to have Gold-Tree killed and to bring her her heart. There was a prince living in a foreign land that had been asking to marry Gold-Tree, so her father sends her out of the kingdom to marry the prince and live with him, and then gives his wife the heart of a goat and tells her that it belongs to Gold-Tree. Later, when Silver-Tree asks the trout again who is the most beautiful woman in the land, the trout tells her that it is still her daughter, who now lives in a foreign country with her prince. Silver-Tree claims she wants to go visit her daughter and commandeers a ship over to Gold-Tree's new kingdom. Gold-Tree, upon hearing her mother has arrived, tells her servants that she wants to kill her. They lock her in a room, and when Silver-Tree arrives at the palace, Gold-Tree tells her she's locked in a room and can't get to her. Her mother then asks her to stick her finger through the keyhole so that she may kiss it, and when Gold-Tree does so, her mother stabs her with poison, and she dies. The prince is heartbroken and keeps Gold-Tree's body locked in a room. He remarries, and one day his new wife comes upon Gold-Tree's body. She asks the prince what he would make him happy again, and he says that only the return of Gold-Tree would work. The second wife takes the poisoned stab out of Gold-Tree's finger, and she comes back to life.

Silver-Tree stabs Gold-Tree's finger (Source: Sacred Texts)


Silver-Tree asks the trout once more if she is finally the most beautiful woman in the land. The trout says that she is not dead at all. The queen returns to Gold-Tree's home, and the second wife tells Gold-Tree not to worry, that they will go down together to greet her. The queen offers Gold-Tree a drink, but the second wife says that it is a custom in their country that the person who offers someone a drink must take a drink first themselves. Silver-Tree went to pretend to drink, and the second wife moved forward and hit the cup so that some of the drink fell down her throat. Silver-Tree dies. The prince lived happily with his two wives after that.

So, to recap. The prince does not once save Gold-Tree as is custom for these kinds of stories. Instead, it is first Gold-Tree's father, and then the second wife who saves Gold-Tree (twice). The repeated back and forth is in some ways kind of like Snow White, but the character of the savior is completely different, and that's what I like about it. Gold-Tree is saved by family and friends, not by some handsome prince.


Story Source: Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1892).

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