The White Bear

Okay, it's unfinished, but it's part of my portfolio for art school! It's one illustration from the Norwegian folk tale East of the Sun West of the Moon. The jist of the story is that a white bear who is actually the beautiful prince of the elves takes the lovely daughter of a poor man to his palace. If he can last with her for one year without her finding out his secret, then he can marry her and break the curse the queen of the trolls has put him under: he has to marry her in a year unles he can find a wife who will love him through his spell. He must walk as a bear by day and a beautiful man by night. The beautiful girl he chooses grows curious when she feels a man's pressence in her bed every night, never being able to see him because the candles are always blown out. When she wakes him by spilling the tallow of acandle she has lit to look at him, his spell is screwed up and the queen of the trolls takes her away to her palace east of the suna nd west of the moon. It is up to the girl to save him, and that she does, by finding the troll queen's palace and being the only one able-under conditions set by the prince-to wash the tallow out of the shirt he wore when the girl spilt it on him. Being a good Christian woman, the girl washes the tallow away and in defeat the troll queen disappears and the prince and the poor man's daughter live happily ever after, sailing here and there on the back of the North Wind.