Persinette

Persinette is a human girl whose name — literally 'Little Parsley' (Persinette) — derives from the parsley that triggered her family's conflict with a fairy. According to the literary tale by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force (1698), Persinette's parents eat parsley taken from a fairy's garden to satisfy cravings; the fairy claims the child in compensation. The fairy raises and names the girl, and at age twelve moves Persinette into a silver tower in the forest where she is secluded. The fairy is both guardian and captor in the narrative, exercising control over Persinette's life and movements.

Within the tale Persinette is described as very beautiful and notable for extraordinarily long golden hair; one account in the story gives the measure of her hair as thirty-eight yards long, which the fairy and later the prince use as a means of ascent to the tower. Beyond beauty and the exceptional length and colour of her hair, the provided sources supply no other specific physical details.

Persinette is presented as a mortal human rather than a supernatural agent. Her notable narrative functions and actions include living in enforced seclusion in a tower, singing (which attracts the prince), becoming pregnant and giving birth to twins, and weeping; the tale describes a restorative episode in which Persinette's tears of joy falling on the blinded prince restore his sight. The wider story world includes fairy magic enacted by the fairy guardian — magical provisioning of food in a seaside hut and later transformations (food to stone or crystal; herbs to toads or venomous creatures; birds to draconic or harpy forms) — but these are powers of the fairy, not Persinette herself.