The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [225]
The initial situation the story presents us with thus sets up a polarity. On one hand there is the ageing King/Father who is losing his powers and whose kingdom has passed into shadow. On the other is the mysterious, elusive Firebird as a symbol of that which alone can restore it to wholeness again: the Self. To realise it is the task which now passes to the younger generation.
The three boys set out into the world, taking three different paths, and shortly after they have separated each is confronted by the same test. A little vixen emerges from the forest and - in a motif found in many folk tales - asks each of the princes for a share of his food. The two older sons shoot at the fox with their bows and it vanishes. Ivan willingly hands over half his food, and the vixen says she will reward him by helping him find the Firebird.
We have now, by the double-negative form of the Rule of Three, learned two important things about Ivan, in contrast to his older brothers. Firstly he keeps his eyes open: he is aware. When watching in the garden he did not fall asleep. Secondly, unlike his brothers, he is goodhearted. He is not blinded by egotism. In other words, he is open to the `feminine' value. The result is that he wins a mysterious ally, a feminine `helpful animal' who, like Dick Whittington's cat or Aladdin's genies, is going to prove crucial to the unfolding of his story.
The vixen leads Ivan to a mysterious remote castle made of bronze, where the Firebird lives in a room with two cages, one golden, the other of wood. The fox tells Ivan that he must go into the castle alone, and that whatever he does, he must put the Firebird into the wooden cage and not that of gold. Of course whenever such a prohibition is issued in a story (as when Peter Rabbit is told not to go into Mr McGregor's garden, or Bluebeard orders his wife not to go into a certain room in his castle, or Adam and Eve are told in Genesis not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge) we know it will be disobeyed. Otherwise there can be no story. Inevitably Ivan considers the Firebird too beautiful to be placed in the humble wooden cage. But no sooner has he placed it in that made of gold than guards rush in to take him before the owner of the castle, a fearsome and angry king. When Ivan explains that he was not trying to steal the Firebird on his own account but only to restore his father's health, the king says he will give him the Firebird; but only on condition that Ivan obtains for him in exchange another great treasure, the Horse with the Golden Mane.
This second episode is virtually a repeat of the first. The vixen leads Ivan to another remote castle, this time of silver, where again Ivan disobeys her prohibition and is brought before the castle's fearsome owner. Again he explains that he was not stealing on his own behalf, and he is told he can have the horse if he brings back to its owner a third great treasure, the Golden Princess from a faraway golden castle beside the sea.
So comprehensively structured round the Rule of Three is The Firebird that, when the vixen leads Ivan to the golden castle, his third great test turns out itself to consist of three more tests. The owner of the castle is the terrible `Queen of the Sea' and she has three beautiful daughters, the third and youngest of whom is the Golden Princess. Now at last Ivan