marry a corpse. She and her brothers later find a house in the jungle. Inside, there lies the body of a man with innumerable pins on it. The princess holds a vigil on the man, is replaced by a slave and buys a doll to be her confidant. Indian scholar A. K. Ramanujan collected a Kannada tale titled The Dead Prince and the Talking Doll. In this tale, the heroine (a king's daughter) is predicted by a beggar to have a dead man as husband. The king decides to avert this fate for his daughter and departs from the kingdom. Meanwhile, the story takes a turn to explain how a prince from a neighbouring kingdom fell deathly ill and seemed to die, so his father put his body in a bungalow outside his kingdom, only to be accessed by his destined bride. The action returns to the first king and his family: they pass by the bungalow and his daughter enters it, the door closing behind her. She discovers the body of the prince and holds a long, 12 year vigil on him. The girl longs for a female companion and an acrobat girl appears outside the bungalow. She contorts herself and enters the building. Some time later, a bird chirps outside that the time of the vigil is at an end and the girl should take the leaves from a certain tree, make a juice out of it and give it to the prince. The acrobat girl obeys the bird's instructions and passes herself off as the prince's saviour, making the princess her servant. Later, the princess asks the prince for a talking doll, to whom she tells her story, and the prince overhears it. Ramanujan cited it as an example of "woman-centered folktale". See also Pentamerone The Lord of Lorn and the False Steward The Goose Girl The Young Slave The Maiden with the Rose on her Forehead The Bay-Tree Maiden Sleeping Beauty References Further reading Cardigos, Isabel (2007). "Em Busca Do Belo Adormecido No Mundo Dos Contos Tradicionais". In: Povos E Culturas, n. 11 (Janeiro), 11-31. https://doi.org/10.34632/povoseculturas.2007.8780. (In Portuguese) "L'épingle qui endort". In: Cosquin, Emmanuel. Les Contes indiens et l'occident: petites monographies folkloriques à propos de contes Maures. Paris: Édouard Champion. 1922. pp. 95-190. Dawkins, R. M. (1949). "The Story of Griselda". In: Folklore, 60:4, pp. 363-374. DOI: 10.1080/0015587X.1949.9717955 Goldberg, Christine. "The Knife of Death and the