The devil and his grandmother

Picture by Albert Weisgerber from Children's and Household Tales from the collection of the Brothers Grimm ( Gerlach's youth library ).

The devil and his grandmother is a fairy tale ( ATU 812). It is in the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm at position 125 (KHM 125).

content

Three poorly paid soldiers desert and hide in the grain. But the army surrounds the field until they fear they will starve. A dragon carries them out. The devil gives them a little whip that makes money. For this they should belong to him after seven years if they cannot solve a riddle. They live in abundance but do no wrong. Eventually two of them fear that they will not be able to solve the riddle, but one is carefree and, on the advice of an old woman, goes to a stone house in the forest. The devil's grandmother hides him there while she hears out the devil about the riddle: “In the great North Sea lies a dead monkey, that's supposed to be her roast; and the rib of a whale shall be its silver spoon; and an old, hollow horse's foot, that's supposed to be your wine glass. ” The soldier tells the others. You can answer the devil's questions and keep the whip.

Grimm's note

Grimm's note notes from Zwehrn (by Dorothea Viehmann ) and supplies a variant from German Bohemia : One of the three soldiers curses under a pear tree “I wanted the devil to get us!” He comes and concludes the contract. You are allowed to walk around hell until after a year it poses its riddles. The soldier, whom the two others accuse of being careless, overhears from a pear tree how the devil calms Lucifer down, what kind of difficult riddle he has: a good cloth, a beautiful horse and a gold cup, but she has a stinking goat skin, a billy goat and are a pitch cup. The soldier advises it, and the devil must bring money to the place of conclusion of the contract.

Very similar fairy tales: KHM 29 The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs , KHM 165 The Griffin . Cf. in Giambattista Basiles Pentameron II, 2 Verde Prato , IV, 6 The three crowns , IV, 8 The seven pebbles , V, 2 The months , V, 9 The three lemons .

cartoon

Gurimu Meisaku Gekijō , Japanese cartoon series 1987, episode 21: The devil and his grandfather

literature

Brothers Grimm: Children's and Household Tales. Complete edition. With 184 illustrations by contemporary artists and an afterword by Heinz Rölleke. Pp. 593-596. Düsseldorf and Zurich, 19th edition 1999. (Artemis & Winkler Verlag; Patmos Verlag; ISBN 3-538-06943-3 )
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. 218–219, 493. Revised and bibliographically supplemented edition, Stuttgart 1994. (Reclam-Verlag; ISBN 3-15-003193-1 )

Individual evidence

↑ Children's and household tales from the collection of the Brothers Grimm .

Web links

Wikisource: The Devil and His Grandmother - Sources and full texts

[1] Children's and household tales from the collection of the Brothers Grimm .