Tradition / Region: Albanian Mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Fairy
The Myth
The Earthly Beauty is a supernatural maiden with the power to transform beings and grant wishes. She appears in a garden and is associated with the transformation of a skull into a living man.
A maiden, married to a skull, was troubled because her sisters wished to see her husband. While in distress, she followed a black cat into a garden where she saw a girl and a boy sleeping under a rose bush, with a baby lying in the sun. She covered the baby and carefully freed the girl’s hair from the thorns.
When the girl awoke, she called for the one who had helped her and promised to grant any wish. The maiden came forward and asked to see her husband as he had been before. The girl revealed that the man beside her was the maiden’s husband and that she had turned him into a skull. At that moment, the skull was transformed back into a living man.
Sources
Albanian Literature contributors. (n.d.). Folktale 11. In Albanian Literature, from http://www.albanianliterature.net/folktales/tale_11.html
Frashëri, S. (1936). Folklor shqipëtar. In Durrës (reprinted in Folklor shqiptar 1, Proza popullore, 1963). Translated by Elsie, R.