The Boys with the Golden Stars
| The Boys with the Golden Stars | |
|---|---|
The boys with the golden stars, by Ford, H. J., in Andrew Lang's The Violet Fairy Book (1901). | |
| Folk tale | |
| Name | The Boys with the Golden Stars |
| Also known as | Doi feți cu stea în frunte The Twins with the Golden Star |
| Aarne–Thompson grouping | ATU 707 (The Three Golden Children, or The Three Golden Sons) |
| Region | Romania |
| Related | |
The Boys with the Golden Stars (Romanian: Doi feți cu stea în frunte, lit. 'Two Boys with Stars on Their Foreheads') is a Romanian fairy tale collected in Rumänische Märchen. Andrew Lang included it in The Violet Fairy Book. An alternate title to the tale is The Twins with the Golden Star.
The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children", albeit following a specific narrative that is found in Romania, Moldova, and Hungary, as well as in other Eastern European and Balkanic countries. These tales refer to stories where a girl promises a king she will bear a child or children with wonderful attributes, but her jealous relatives or the king's wives plot against the babies and their mother.