The Dog and The Sailor - A Gay Folktale - Erased Queer Stories Throughout History
Photo from Amazon.
Between 2012 and 2022, the population of Americans who identified at LGBTQ+ increased by about 4%, more than 13.5 million people (Jones, 2022). There are many arguments on why this number has and continues to increase so dramatically. An answer is hard to determine and finding one is made more difficult by the lack of recorded LGBTQ+ history to look back on. Yet with careful examination, it is evident that queer people have existed for long before midway through the twentieth century. This series hopes to cover the countless stories of LGBTQ+ people from before pen first met paper, to the beginning of the Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969.
It should be noted, this series is meant to be informative and wishes only to highlight the lives of queer people throughout history, not to point with malice to any historical figures or practices which could have contributed to the erasure of these stories. In a similar vein, many of these stories may not have been well documented because of a lack of labels at the subject’s time in history, or because a person lived in a society which did not view homosexual relationships as abnormal, such as in ancient Greece which “featured at least five different varieties of same-sex relations” (Hubbard, 2020).
This edition of Erased Queer Stories features The Dog and The Sailor, a queer folk tale about true love and a prince turned into a dog.
This Story’s Story:
The Dog and The Sailor’s story is one of both queer uniqueness and the richness of folklore. Before the invention of the printing press, stories, in all their forms, were passed down generation to generation orally, normally when sitting around the fire (Wakefield, 2020). This kind of storytelling, which allowed for stories to be adapted over decades and even centuries of retellings, is the origin of many of the myths and folktales we worship still today, whether it be in telling our children fairy tales or watching an animated Disney adaptation. In the spirit of this series, if LGBTQ+ people have existed for millennia, one must ask, where are all of the queer folktales? Well, according to Pete Jordi Wood, author and illustrator of The Dog and the Sailor, they were erased in 1950 by one Stith Thompson.
In 1950, Thompson helped create the Aarne–Thompson–Uther (ATU) Index, described by Wood as “a catalogue of the world’s folklore with a system which logs different variations of tales across borders around the world.” In it, lesbianism and homosexuality are listed at “Unnatural Perversions,” with things like bestiality and incest. Thompson even, according to Wood, admitted to the omission of certain stories he deemed unnatural. Due to this, these stories were left out of the single most expansive catalog of folk literature to ever exist, and were, effectively, lost to time.
However, one slipped through the cracks. When Wood was studying for his master’s degree in illustration, looking at folktales from a queer perspective, he found one that stood out: The Dog and the Sea. This folktale existed in multiple languages but not in English—the key fact that saved this tale from extinction. As most folktales go, beginning as oratory tales, there were many variations of this story. Wood felt they all expressed the same story: a queer story.
Synopsis
The general shared plot between all the story’s many iterations includes this: a beautiful witch curses a kingdom. A dog and a wanna-be sailor depart to try to stop her, and the sailor is only able to beat her because he can resist her charm. And when the curse is lifted, his companion transforms into a beautiful prince. Wood believes the sailor can be interpreted to have various identities on the sexuality spectrum, ranging from asexual to gay. Wood also states, “There’s a bunch of sexual innuendos,” furthering the queer subtext of the tale.
Wood decided to reimagine the story in English—in doing so, adding to the centuries-old tradition of storytelling.
His story follows a similar structure: a young witch named Valéria was isolated from her community. So she granted herself unfathomable riches and turned herself into a beautiful princess. Her beauty bewitched everyone in the kingdom's castle—from the guards to even the King. The kingdom bowed to her, and yet she was not content. The young prince, Nikolai, one day steals her purse, but when she pursues, he is resistant to her charm. Due to his resistance, she transformed him into a dog, and the rest of the kingdom into various wild beasts, finally submerging the kingdom under the sea. Several years later, a boy named Ruan visits the docks every day, wishing to become a sailor. And he does, for many years, until his ship sinks and he is left among the wreckage. Floating in the sea, Ruan meets a dog swimming as well, and, surprisingly, it spoke. The Dog gives him a purse filled with gold coins. Ruan uses it to build a ship and assemble a crew. One day, a cat hears Ruan and the Dog talking. But the cat is not just any cat; it is a spy for Valéria. She summons a monster to attack the ship. The crew fought back, but Ruan hid. When the fight was over, Ruan found the Dog injured, he wished for something to heal his friend, and the purse granted his wish, using up the last of its magic. The Dog convinces Ruan to visit his kingdom under the sea. They confront Valéria, and she makes demands: but Ruan does not budge. His “NO” reverberated through the castle, destroying the curse. Yet Ruan and the Dog show kindness to Valéria, and the Dog transforms into a handsome prince. With his mother’s blessing, Ruan proposes to the Prince and they live happily ever after.
Effect
As a queer person, learning about this story gave me another level of confidence in my queer identity. This story, and dthe story behind it, echo the story of so many LGBTQ+ stories: The need to hide but ultimately surviving. Not to mention, this story does wonders in breaking down heteronormativity, creating more inclusive spaces in age-appropriate ways. Wood agrees. This story perfectly encapsulates the purpose of Erased Queer Stories, and I, for one, am glad to have uncovered it.
References
Jones, J. M. (2022, February 17). LGBT Identification in U.S. Ticks Up to 7.1%. Gallup News. Retrieved October 30, 2025, from https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-ticks-up.aspx
Wakefield, L. (2020, August 21). Queer folklore was erased from history by homophobes, but one ‘fabulously gay’ fairytale has survived. thepinknews.com. Retrieved February 4, 2025, from https://www.thepinknews.com/2020/08/21/queer-fairytale-folklore-history-homophobe-aarne-thompson-uther-index-pete-jordi-wood/
Warehem, J. (2020, August 21). Why This Charming Gay Fairytale Has Been Lost For 200 Years. Forbes. Retrieved October 30, 2025, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiewareham/2020/08/21/why-this-charming-gay-fairytale-has-been-lost-for-200-years-stith-thompson/?sh=6e4e41696163
