The sparrow and his four children

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The sparrow and his four children is a fable ( ATU 157B). It is in the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm from the second edition of 1819 at position 157 (KHM 157), previously at position 35, and comes from Johann Balthasar Schupp , originally from Johannes Mathesius .

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Four sparrow cubs are thrown from the nest by boys. In autumn they meet their worried father again in a field. The first was in gardens. The father warns him of people who “carry long green poles that are hollow on the inside and have a hole at the top”. The son says that there was also a sheet of paper stuck on with wax. The father concludes with merchants, praises his experience and admonishes him again. The second was at court. The father warns him to go to the stable. The son says that stable boys weave bird snares there. The father also praises his cunning and urges caution. The third was on the way. The father warns him about stone throwers. The boy says that some of them already had stones with them, from which the father deduces miners. The father wants to keep the youngest and weakest with him, but he answers trusting God because he was in the church. The father is impressed and ends with the poem:

"For whoever commands the Lord his thing,
be silent, suffer, wait, pray, need Glimpf, do slowly,
keep faith and a clear conscience,
Gore wants to be his protection and helper. "

origin

Grimm's note noted Schupp's Fabelhans as the source . S. 837. 38 and also mentions Wackernagel's reading book 2, 210 , Rollehagen's Froschmeuseler and Thierfabeln in the master songs (Berlin 1855) .

Wilhelm Grimm left out Schupp's unclear introductory sentence ("To conclude, my sparrow hears too / because the mouse dung and tanner always want to add it to the pepper."), Changed the third sentence, whereby unfledgedly too fledged , below Cobald zu Kobold , and otherwise only very carefully modernized the language and orthography. The template also includes a longer moralization about God's protection with a warning against pride.

Schupp took over the fable from Johannes Mathesius , who used it to illustrate the Jotham fable of the election of the trees ( Judges 9: 7-15) in his sermon for Carnival in 1563 . On God's protective function cf. Proverbs 30, Psalm 84 : 4-5, Luke 12:24, 1 Peter 5 : 7, Matthew 6:26.

Explanation: The stable boy's hebritz are mountain ash , i. H. Rowan berries as a trap. On the cracked sparrow compare KHM 58 The Dog and the Sparrow , on the assertion against the overpowering human being also KHM 72 The Wolf and the Man .

literature

  • Heinz Rölleke (ed.): Brothers 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. 251, 503. Revised and bibliographically supplemented edition, Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-15-003193-1 .
  • Heinz Rölleke (Ed.): Grimm's fairy tales and their sources. The literary models of the Grimm fairy tales are presented synoptically and commented on . Literature series, vol. 35, 2., verb. Edition, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Trier 2004. pp. 254-259, 567-568, ISBN 3-88476-717-8 .
  • Hans-Jörg Uther: Handbook to the children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm . de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, pp. 327–328, ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 .

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