Shapeshifting Lover: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:shapeshiftlover 9tailfox 9281.jpg|link=My Girlfriend Is a Nine Tailed Fox|frame|How'd he wind up with a [[Humanity Ensues|fox]] like her? It's ... complicated.]]
A [[Oral Tradition|folklore]] trope which appears throughout the world a lot. The story typically goes something like this:
{{quote|''"A man spies a group of [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|magical shapeshifters]] bathing. Seeing that they must shed their creature skin when they [[Humanity Ensues|transform from a creature into a beautiful woman]], he steals one of the skins. [[Shapeshifter Mode Lock|Unable to transform]] and join her sisters, one poor creature is left behind. The man makes the abandoned one his wife. One day, many years later (sometimes after bearing children), she finds the skin and may finally return to her kin."''}}
It's a motif, sometimes known as "The Animal Bride" tale, that crops up all over the world. Though the details of the story are different, the core story is more or less the same.
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See Also: [[Interspecies Romance]], [[Our Mermaids Are Different]], and [[Humanity Ensues]]. Compare [[Beast and Beauty]], [[Baleful Polymorph]], [[Boy Meets Ghoul]], "[[The Frog Prince]]". [[I Thought It Meant|Unrelated to]] [[Power Perversion Potential]] and [[Shapeshifting Squick]]. Not to be confused with [[Shapeshifting Seducer]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Considering that ''[[Princess Tutu]]'' is influenced quite a bit by the ballet version of [[Swan Lake]], it's probably no surprise that the anime indirectly references this legend, as well. Tutu sometimes appears as a swan to people, and was in love with the Prince from her fairytale—but ''she's'' the one who has to hide something, instead of the Prince.
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* Setsuna of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' is, in fact, a [[Half-Human Hybrid]] of the Tengu variety; after revealing her tengu traits she tries to skip out (per 'law of her people' and probably personal insecurities) on the crew. Negi convinces her to stick around.
* Every member of Tsukune's [[Unwanted Harem]] in ''[[Rosario + Vampire]]'' is merely disguised in human form, the exception being [[Cute Witch|Yukari]], whose species looks human by default. Their true forms are all [[Cute Monster Girl|cute monster girls]].
* Crane Wife is parodied in ''[[
* An episode of ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' has the ghost of a beautiful woman seducing James and Brock. This gets awkward when the ghost turns out to be a male Gastly.
** Not as awkward as you'd think — it turns out in the end that the Gastly's in it to propagate the REAL ghost's legend, and to make a little money on the side (it even materializes a cash register as it's talking to said real ghost). How does he make money, you ask? He disguises himself as a crazy old lady and sells fake wards and charms).
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== [[Film]] ==
* In one segment of ''[[Tales from the Darkside]]'', a failed artist, Preston, witnesses a gargoyle, who makes him swear never to reveal what he has seen. Shortly thereafter, he meets Carola; they fall in love and marry and have two kids. {{spoiler|He eventually tells her about the gargoyle. She ''is'' the gargoyle; she and the kids transform, kill the man, and fly into the night.}}
* ''[[Green Snake]]'', based on a Chinese folk tale, involves a serpent-spirit who seduces a young man by posing as a beautiful maiden.
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* There is an Inuit legend about a petrel who is in love with a beautiful maiden, and transforms himself into a man so that he may marry her; however, his eyes are still those of a petrel and so he wears snow goggles to hide them. When the maiden takes them off, she sees his eyes and the spell is broken.
* Swan Maidens - Common to mainland Europe, and Russia. The women (occasionally men too) in question are normally swans, but they leave their feathered cloaks behind when they bathe as humans. This has influenced many stories, modern and old including the ballet ''[[Swan Lake]]'', Swanmays in ''[[Three Hearts and Three Lions]]'' and ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', [[Anita Blake]]'s Swan Men, etc.
** [[Fairy Tale]]s incorporating this in the Quest for the Lost Wife include [https://web.archive.org/web/20160429131052/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/swanmaiden/index.html The Swan Maiden] and [http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/swan.html#meier The Three Swans].
** Fairy tales that end with the wife's escape include [
* Selkies - [[Celtic Mythology|Celtic]] and Nordic legendary seal people. If a man captures a female Selkie's skin, she is in his power and must be his wife, but she will return to the sea as soon as she finds her seal skin. In some versions of the story, the children follow their mother and transform into seals, or alternatively, drown. In others, most famously the film ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131113182735/http://madnessmonster.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/jaaaaaaaamie-review/ The Secret of the Roan Inish]'', the children cannot change as they are ([[Half-Human Hybrid|mostly]]) normal humans and are left behind (and confused unless their father explains what happened). The male Selkies are seducers of women. There is a similar American Indian story of a seal boy. This again crops up often in modern fiction and other works, and has also inspired a ''Dungeons and Dragons'' race.
* Melusine - There are ''many'' versions of this romantic French tale. In one version, Melusine fell in love with a human and appeared to him as a beautiful woman. When they were married, she made her husband promise that she would have some time to herself each week. Wouldn't you know it, one day he breaks his promise and sees that she is actually [[Our Dragons Are Different|a dragon]] (depending on other variants, she's even half-snake). Melusine is forced to go back to her family, but her children stay with the humans and a group of French nobility claimed to be her descendants for many years.
* The hero of [
** ''Hans My Hedgehog'' is yet another variant. It is probably best known for being dramatized in an episode of the cult favorite [[Jim Henson]] series, ''[[The Storyteller (TV series)|The Storyteller]]''.
* In ''[
* In ''[
* In the variants of the [[Chivalric Romance]] ''The Swan Children'', the bride is more or less clearly a swan-maiden; she gives birth to children who are first [[Moses in the Bulrushes|exposed]] and then [[Involuntary Shapeshifting|transformed into swans]] by removing the chains they wear about their necks. When this is discovered, the children are changed back by restoring—except that one chain was melted down, trapping that child in swan form.
* Tennyo (Heavenly Maidens) - Japanese imports of Indian and Chinese Buddhist figures. The males are called Tennin. They don't change from animals but they do need a feathered garment (a hagoromo) to fly back to the heavens. The Noh play ''Hagoromo'' features the core story where the the garment in question is stolen.
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