The drummer

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The drummer is a fairy tale ( ATU 400, 518, 313). From the 5th edition of 1843 onwards, it is in the children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm in place 193 (KHM 193).

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A young drummer finds three pieces of fine linen by a lake, of which he takes one without thinking about it. As he falls asleep, a king's daughter appears to him, who has been banished to the Glasberg by a witch. Without her shirt, like her two sisters, she cannot fly away from the lake in which they bathed. He gives it to her and promises to help her. All she can say is that the Glass Mountain is behind the ogre forest. He goes into the forest and wakes up a giant with his drum, whom he tells that this is a signal to many others who are coming to kill him. They jumped away when he tried to grab them, but when he was asleep they climbed up on him and smashed his skull in with iron hammers. The giant promises to leave her alone in the future and carries him with two others to the Glasberg, but not to the very top.

Two men are fighting over a magic saddle that can be used anywhere. The drummer takes it from them with ruse and wishes to go to the Glasberg. He asks for shelter from an old woman with a brown face, a long nose and red, sharp eyes. To do this, the next day he has to scoop out the fish pond in front of the house with a thimble and the next but one, he has to cut down the forest behind with tools made of lead and sheet metal that don't last. Both times a girl comes to help him at noon. He lays his head in her lap, and when he wakes up all the fish have been caught and all the wood is in order. Only a fish and a branch lie alone. With that he beats the old woman when she asks. On the third day he is supposed to burn all the wood in a heap. He also goes fearlessly into the flames when she has him fetch a log that doesn't burn. Then he changes into the king's daughter. He throws the old woman into the fire when she tries to grab her.

The king's daughter offers him her hand and wishes them both with a wish ring in front of the city gate. When he visits his parents and kisses her on the right cheek despite his bride's warning, he forgets her. They build a princely palace from the gems from the witch's house and arrange a marriage. The sad king's daughter, who has meanwhile lived lonely in a cottage in the forest, wants a dress like the sun, then like the moon, then like the stars. With this she bought herself three times from the bride to be allowed to sleep in front of the groom's room. But only the people in the house hear their calls because the bride is pouring a sleeping potion into his wine and tell him. The third time he pours the sleeping potion behind the bed. When he hears her voice, he remembers, repents and leads her immediately to his parents that they are getting married. The other bride is happy with the clothes.

origin

Jacob Grimm received the fairy tale in 1838 in a letter from Karl Goedeke , who noted that he had heard it from his aunt, "a simple citizen's wife", who in turn had it from an Eichsfeld rag collector. This manuscript has been preserved as an exception and was mainly stylistically revised by Wilhelm Grimm for printing. Grimm's comment mentions a “fairy tale by Kühn und Schwarz No. 11. p. 347” and explains the shirt on the bank as the dress of a swan maiden . Wilhelm Grimm further embellished the text for the 6th edition. The giant now explains: "I squeeze wolves and bears together, but I cannot protect myself from the earth worms"; the fairy: "... but if you are afraid, the fire grabs you and consumes you" (cf. Frau Trude ). The 7th edition hardly differs, "Linnen" is now more understandable "Linen", the wood "gaped" instead of "cleft" (on the other hand the shirt in Die Sterntaler continues to be "made of the finest linen").

Lutz Röhrich compares to present motif sequence Swan Maiden - Mahrtenehe Greek tales of Neraiden . Hans-Jörg Uther did not see the text devised until the 19th century from familiar epics and fairy tales. The length of the text results from joining the motifs cursed virgin (AaTh 400), magical escape (AaTh 313) and false bride. For the Glasberg cf. in Grimm the king of the golden mountain , the crystal ball and the raven (here also: sleeping potion), to the witch with red eyes Jorinde and Joringel , on the bridal nights Cinderella , the iron stove , the singing, jumping Löweneckerchen , Allerleirauh , the two Künigeskinner , the true one Bride (here also: three tasks of the witch). Cf. in Giambattista Basiles Pentameron II, 7 Die Taube , III, 9 Rosella , V, 3 Pinto Smauto . Compare the three nuts in Ludwig Bechstein's German book of fairy tales from 1845.

interpretation

The characteristic of the drummer, whose impulsive assertiveness is indicated in his (military) instrument, is continuous. He puts the linen in his pocket in order to immediately forget it, he reacts immediately to the threat of the giant and the witch with a slap in the face and immediately goes to his parents' bed at night to marry the forgotten bride. All of the crucial turning points of the plot are after dark, with passion being compared to fire. Homeopaths compare the fairy tale with the symptom picture of Belladonna , to which the head reference, impulsivity and hallucinations fit. Günter Grass ' novel The Tin Drum could also be inspired by this fairy tale.

The psychiatrist Wolfdietrich Siegmund calls this a real tale for patients who have become discouraged or comfortable. Neurotics , inhibited by opposing impulses, experience relief from fairy tale helpers who say, for example: "Put your head in my lap and sleep a little, and when you wake up, everything is done!"

Eugen Drewermann analyzes the Oedipus conflict of the hero who can only dream and not live love, so the plot oscillates between dream and life. Similar to The Golden Bird , mythological motifs are psychologically linked. The beautiful in the lake is reminiscent of the love of the moon and the sun, here as a drummer, his round instrument imitates the pulse of the (world) mother. He's taking exactly one shirt with him, so he's already expecting her. Instead of sun chariots, giants carry him; H. its impulses, through stages of maturation, giants otherwise carry the vault of heaven. The saddle flight can be interpreted as intuition or, according to Freud, as a sexual fantasy. The fact that he doesn't even ask the old woman about the girl, or about the type of tasks to be performed, reveals his courage as an omnipotent fantasy out of fear of the woman or fear of failure, which is also suggested by the pond and spoon. First insight into the impossibility of acquiring the tolerance in the house, d. H. Right to exist on earth, to earn from one's own strength ( Fundevogel ), makes one receptive to the light of love. It is not diligence that makes the tasks dwindle, but an attitude of trusting calm. The old woman turns into a young girl, with his afternoon nap the initial dream vision is reversed. At home it's all about outward appearances; in reverse of the opening scene, the woman asks the drummer to recognize who she is without pomp or clothes - the existential question of love.

literature

  • Grimm, Brothers: Children's and Household Tales . Complete edition. With 184 illustrations by contemporary artists and an afterword by Heinz Rölleke. Pp. 782-791. Düsseldorf and Zurich, 19th edition 1999. (Artemis & Winkler Verlag; Patmos Verlag; ISBN 3-538-06943-3 )
  • Grimm, Brothers: 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. Revised and bibliographically supplemented edition, Stuttgart 1994. P. 273, P. 514. (Reclam-Verlag; ISBN 3-15-003193-1 )
  • Uther, Hans-Jörg: Handbook to the children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Berlin 2008. pp. 395-397. (de Gruyter; ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 )
  • Ward, Donald: Glasberg. In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales. Volume 5. pp. 1265-1270. Berlin / New York 1987.

Web links

Wikisource: The Drummer  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rölleke, Heinz (ed.): Fairy tales from the estate of the Brothers Grimm. 5th improved and supplemented edition. Trier 2001. pp. 63-68, 111-112. (WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier; ISBN 3-88476-471-3 )
  2. ^ Röhrich, Lutz: Fairy tale - myth - legend. In: Siegmund, Wolfdietrich (ed.): Ancient myth in our fairy tales. Kassel 1984. pp. 22-23. (Publications of the European Fairy Tale Society Vol. 6; ISBN 3-87680-335-7 )
  3. ↑ Hans-Jörg Uther: Handbook on the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm. de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 , pp. 395-397.
  4. ^ Martin Bomhardt: Symbolic Materia Medica. 3. Edition. Verlag Homeopathie + Symbol, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-9804662-3-X , p. 249.
  5. ↑ Frederik Hetmann: dream face and magic trace. Fairy tale research, fairy tale studies, fairy tale discussion. With contributions by Marie-Louise von Franz, Sigrid Früh and Wolfdietrich Siegmund. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-596-22850-6 , pp. 122, 123-124.
  6. ↑ Eugen Drewermann: Dear little sister, let me in. Grimm's fairy tales interpreted in terms of depth psychology. dtv, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-423-35050-4 , pp. 112-186.