Trandafiru is a Romanian fairy tale collected by Arthur Carl Victor Schott and Albert Schott in the mid-19th century and sourced from Banat. It is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, albeit with a gourd instead of a snake as the form of the enchanted husband: a human maiden marries an animal that is a prince in disguise, breaks a taboo and loses him, and she has to seek him out.

The story shares motifs with other tales of the region, like Serbian Again, The Snake Bridegroom, and Hungarian The Serpent Prince: the heroine must search for her husband under a curse not to bear their child until he touches her again. Other Romanian tales of the same classification are The Enchanted Pig, wherein the animal husband is a pig, and Enchanted Balaur, wherein the animal husband is a snake.

A man has a gourd for a son, who is a vegetable by day and man by night, named Trandafiru. One day, the gourd asks his parents to go and ask for the hand of the emperor's daughter. Worried about the reaction of the emperor when they see a pumpkin, the gourd son assuages their fears and becomes a man when night falls, so he can meet the princess. And so it happens: the emperor's daughter marries him and lives with him, despite him being a gourd by day and a man by night.

One day, the princess's mother visits her daughter and, despising the gourd as her son-in-law, convinces her to burn the gourd shape in the oven. The princess's mother-in-law asks her what is she doing with the oven, and she lies that she is preparing to make bread, then takes her husband's gourd shape and places it in the oven to burn it. Inside the oven, Trandafiru's voice curses his wife not to give birth to their child, until he lovingly embraces her again. The story then explains that, as the gourd burned, Trandafiru's soul was carried over by spirits to another kingdom, where he became their king.

Back to the princess, after grieving for some time, she puts an iron circle around her belly to endure the pains of the long pregnancy, then departs on her quest. Her first stop is the house of Holy Mother Wednesday, who, despite not knowing the location of Trandafiru, gives the princess a golden distaff and sends her to the house of Mother Holy Friday. Again, Holy Friday's help is of little use, but she gives the princess a golden reel to help in her quest. Lastly, the princess arrives at Holy Mother Sunday's house. Holy Mother Sunday tells the princess she is near her husband's location, and advises her to stand by the marble fountain with the golden gifts, one for each day, and draw the attention of the Empress (the false bride), then use the gifts to bribe the Empress for a night in the Emperor's (Trandafiru's) bedchamber. Before the princess goes to the fountain, Holy Mother Sunday gives her a golden hen with golden chicks.

Now knowing what to do, the princess goes to the fountain and uses the gifts to bribe the Empress for three nights with her husband. As for Trandafiru, he is put to sleep for two nights with a sleeping potion given by the Empress, so on the third night he pretends to be asleep to see who has come to his room for the past nights. Trandafiru awakes and embraces his wife, who is able to give birth to "two golden children". Trandafiru leaves the room to punish the Empress for her greed and love for gold, then crowns the princess his true empress.

The tale is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 425A, "The Animal (Monster) as Bridegroom". In this tale type, the princess burns the husband's animal skin and she must seek him out, even paying a visit to the Sun, the Moon and the Wind and gaining their help.

In tale type ATU 425A, the heroine journeys far and wide to encounter her husband, and finds him at the mercy of a second spouse. The supernatural husband, now human, is put to sleep by the magic potion of the second spouse, so that the heroine has no chance of rescuing him.