The Next Disney Movie That Will Never Be: Bear King Valemon

First posted July 2019.

Author's Note

This was part of a larger series, the rest of which is lost to link rot, in which I discussed folktales that would make very cool movies and as such Disney will never make them. There's also a reference to an earlier essay about "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" which also no longer exists, and I didn't back it up. Apologies and a reminder to back up your stuff!!

Though it’s been out in the States for a while, Midsommar has only just made its way to the UK and I saw it this past Tuesday. Knowing the general themes, I was on the lookout for references to Scandinavian folktales, and at first it seemed it was clever of me to do so, as I quickly noticed the painting of a large brown bear and a small girl wearing a crown in Dani’s apartment. I wondered if that might be a reference to the Norwegian folktale “Bear King Valemon,” (also known as “White-Bear-King-Valemon” by people who are overly fond of hyphens) and it turns out it is not even slightly. But as it’s on my mind anyway, I thought I’d talk about it a bit.

I should note first that it’s very similar to “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” which I’ve talked about previously here. It’s another Beauty and the Beast archetype and many of the larger plot details are very similar.

The story begins with a king who has three daughters. The elder two are “mean and ugly,” while the youngest is “sweet and fair.” However sweet and fair she might be, consumerism is a harsh mistress to us all, and after seeing a golden wreath in her dreams, the princess becomes consumed with need. We’ve all got our niche interests, I suppose. The king discovers that his youngest daughter is wasting away over want of a golden wreath, so he sets all the goldsmiths in the land to making wreaths in the hope that one of them will satisfy her.

Though none of the goldsmiths’ wreaths will do, she does find one that she likes. Unfortunately, it belongs to a giant polar bear, King Valemon. She offers him whatever he wants in return for it, and he responds that the only thing he will take in return is herself. She figures this is worth it, for reasons unknown, and they schedule her kidnapping for the following Thursday.

The king, who has never read His Dark Materials, figures a polar bear is no problem for his vast armies, and is remarkably chill about his daughter trading her life for a golden wreath. When Valemon arrives, he handily wipes out half the king’s army before the king sends out his eldest daughter in place of the one he actually likes.

Valemon doesn’t bother to check that he’s got the right princess until they have travelled “far, and farther than far,” and he asks her if she has ever sat softer or seen clearer. She says she has, and he goes, “Well, beans,” and turns around and takes her back.

The king, having learned precisely nothing, once again sends his army out to be halved by the bear before sending out his middle daughter. The bear, having learned precisely nothing, does not check that he’s got the right princess until they are arriving at his castle. The truth comes out again, and Valemon turns around again.

‘Surely,’ you think, ‘surely the king will not send out the last dregs of his army to get murdered by a polar bear.’

So the king sends out the last dregs of his army to get murdered by a polar bear. He does surrender the correct princess before his entire army is wiped out, but only just barely. At no point do we get the youngest princess’s thoughts on this—whether she always intended to attempt to deceive Valemon or she really would’ve been cool with going with him but her father was being a tool about it, we just don’t know.

They arrive at Valemon’s castle, which is much finer than the king’s. The princess lives in comfort, if not happiness. She’s at least sharp enough to realise that the bear transforms into a man at night, but she cannot see his face in the dark. Over time, she has three children who are taken away from her and hidden by Valemon, and she grows sadder and sadder. She asks if she can visit home, and Valemon says, “Yes, but remember to listen to what your father says, and do not do what your mother tells you to do.”

Unfortunately for Valemon, it is Opposite Day. The queen gives her daughter a candle and tells her to use that to see Valemon’s face at night and the king tells her to absolutely not do that. So she does it, of course, and lo, it turns out Valemon was cursed by a troll-hag to turn into a bear during the day and he was one month away from being free of the curse, but now he has to go marry the troll-hag.

Despite the princess’s pleas, Valemon goes to honour his curse. At first the princess is able to cling to his fur as he runs, but eventually she loses her grip and tumbles–naked, battered and bruised—into the depths of the forest. She finds her way to a small village, where she asks if anyone has seen the bear king Valemon.

“Were you supposed to marry him?” asks one of the townswomen.

“Well, I had three of his kids, so I kind of assumed.”

They tell her he did pass by, but he was so fast she’ll never catch him. A little girl who was sitting nearby playing with magic scissors that create endless amounts of clothes decides the nice naked lady could probably use them more than she could, so she gives the princess the scissors.

The princess continues asking around after Valemon and acquires a magic flask that never empties and a magic tablecloth that creates limitless amounts of food as she makes her way closer to the troll-hag’s castle. The trail leads her to a steep mountain cliff. She asks after Valemon in the cottage at the bottom of the cliff, and she is told he climbed the cliff, which she clearly can’t do. She notices the horde of hungry children in the cottage and sees their mother putting pebbles in a pot to pretend to make food for them. Using her magic tablecloth and flask, she feeds the whole family, and the mother gratefully offers her husband’s craftsman services to make her a set of claws so she can climb up the mountain after Valemon. It’s certainly an artistic choice.

So using her new claws, she climbs up to the troll-hag’s castle. She discovers that the troll-hag intends to marry Valemon in three days’ time, and sets herself up making clothes with the magic scissors just outside the castle. The troll-hag sees the scissors and offers to buy them, but the princess says the only thing she will accept in trade is a night with Valemon, who appears to be full-time human now. The troll-hag agrees, but drugs Valemon so he won’t wake up the whole time the princess is there.

The next day, she enacts the same trade with the troll-hag for the bottomless flask, and unfortunately, because no one learns anything in this story, she is utterly shocked when the exact same thing happens again that night. Her loud wailing and crying is heard by an artisan next door, however, who figures out who the princess is and tells Valemon about it the next morning.

The princess makes one more trade for the magic tablecloth, and thankfully Valemon is there to do something different because the princess sure doesn’t seem to have thought this through. Valemon tricks the troll-hag into thinking he took the sleeping potion and concocts a plan with the princess for their escape.

The next morning, when the troll’s bridal procession makes its way across the bridge, a trapdoor opens and she and all her troll bridesmaids fall into the river. Valemon and the princess grab all the gold they can carry from the castle and run off into the countryside to hold their own wedding. “Oh, and by the way,” Valemon says, opening a door as they loot the castle, “Here are our kids.” The story then tells us that the princess immediately understands that Valemon hid their children away so they could help her find him, which…didn’t…happen…so…as long as she’s happy, I guess?

As I mentioned, “Bear King Valemon” is very similar to “East of the Sun, West of the Moon.” The main differences are the way that the princess first encounters the bear, the happiness of the heroine before the discovery, the presence of the children, and the ending. The bulk of the story is the same, though, which probably speaks to the tales coming from oral tradition. The stories are different enough that they were separated by the story collectors Asbjørnsen and Moe, but likely originate from different tellers of the same story.

All that said, if anyone was thinking of making a film version of this story, I’d honestly prefer “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” just for minor details like the magic of the heroine’s journey. The 1991 film The Polar Bear King takes its title inspiration from Valemon, but the story itself follows “East of the Sun” more closely. Either way, I don’t think it’s likely that we’d see a major production of this story in film, but you never do know. No one tell Disney they can throw a polar bear king into Frozen 3, though. My heart can’t take it.