The moon
The moon is a fairy tale . It is in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm from the 7th edition of 1857 instead of 175 (KHM 175) and is based on Heinrich Pröhle The moonlight , no. 39 in his collection fairy tales for the youth of 1854. Carl Orff composed in 1937 / 38 the opera Der Mond, based on this fairy tale .
action
Four lads from a country without a moon , where it is dark at night , set off on a journey and arrive at a country where a luminous ball hangs on an oak tree and emits light at night. When asked what it was, a farmer replied that their mayor (now the mayor) had bought this so-called moon and that he is now pouring oil on it every day for a fee to keep it glowing. The boys decide to steal the moon and take it back to their country. There they also hang it on an oak tree and demand a corresponding fee from the municipality. As the boys grow old and realize that they are about to die, they one by one decide that each of them wants to take a quarter of the moon to their grave with them. In this way the moon reaches the underworld and wakes the dead with its unusual light. These become active again and begin to have fun loudly. When Saint Peter saw this noise, he called the heavenly hosts together, believing that the dead would attack. Since there was no attack, Peter went personally to the underworld, calmed the dead and took the moon with him to heaven , where he hung it.
origin
Wilhelm Grimm finds the material so beautifully ancient in his note that he compares the Kalevala (rune 47). Lousi captured the sun and the moon. In a fairy tale from the area of Archangel near Rudbek 2.1-28 and Schiefner 605 , the sun, moon and dawn are in the power of three dragons for three years and only shine when they come to the shore to fetch a king's daughter, up to three young men defeat.
The fairy tale researcher Hans-Jörg Uther estimates today that Pröhle invented the text like so many others. But it was precisely its mythological derivations that are now outdated that interested Wilhelm Grimm. He decorated the template a little, especially the dancing dwarfs in the moonlight (cf. KHM 182 The Gifts of the Little People ).
Edits
Carl Orff composed the opera Der Mond, based on this fairy tale, in 1937/38 . Orff wrote not only the music, but also the libretto , which contains the full text of the fairy tale, which is recited by a narrator.
literature
- Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: Children's and Household Tales. Complete edition. With 184 illustrations by contemporary artists and an afterword by Heinz Rölleke. 19th edition. Patmos, Düsseldorf and Artemis & Winkler, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-538-06943-3 .
- Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: Children's and Household Tales. Last hand edition with the original notes by the Brothers Grimm. With an appendix of all fairy tales and certificates of origin, not published in all editions, published by Heinz Rölleke. Volume 3: Original Notes, Guarantees of Origin, Afterword. Pp. 259–260, 508. Revised and bibliographically supplemented edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-15-003193-1 .
- Rölleke, Heinz (Ed.): Grimm's fairy tales and their sources. The literary models of the Grimm fairy tales are presented synoptically and commented on. 2., verb. Edition, Trier 2004. pp. 338–341, 575. (Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier; series of literature studies, vol. 35; ISBN 3-88476-717-8 )
- Uther, Hans-Jörg: Handbook to the children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Berlin 2008. pp. 363-364. (de Gruyter; ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 )
