The wolf and the human

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The wolf and man is an animal fairy tale ( ATU 157). From the second edition of 1819 onwards, it is at position 72 (KHM 72) in the children's and house tales by the Brothers Grimm .

content

The fox tells the wolf about the strength of man. The wolf doesn't believe it. The fox shows him a soldier who has resigned, “That was one time”, then a schoolchild, “That wants to be another first”, then a hunter with a double shotgun. The fox retreats while the wolf attacks the human. He shoots the shot in the face and hits him with the hunter , and he runs back to the fox, howling.

language

The short text contains a particularly large number of verbatim speeches: First the wolf says "if I only got to see a person once, I wanted to attack him", at the end he says: "... it flew around my nose like lightning and hailstorm, and when I was very close, he pulled a bare rib out of his body, so he hit me in such a way that I almost stayed dead. "The fox replies" what a boast you are (cf. KHM 71 ) : you throw the ax so far that you cannot get it again. "

origin

Grimm's note notes from the Paderbörnischen (from the von Haxthausen family ) and reproduces a variant from Baiern (from Ludwig Aurbacher ; preserved in Grimm's estate): The fox lets the wolf attack a hussar, who tears it to pieces with a saber. The wolf thinks he couldn't get to eat because he licked him with his bare tongue. In an old German poem from the 13th century (Keller's Stories No. 528) the lion's son wants to know an animal that is stronger. The father warns him about the man who knocks down the young lion with a long “tooth” and “rib from the side” (spear and sword). You also mention Haltrich No. 30, a poem by Franz von Kobell (Munich 1846, p. 81) , Kölle No. 9 and your own comment on KHM 48 The Old Sultan .

Hans-Jörg Uther compares Aesop's popular fable Der Jäger and Der Tieger in Avian and Babrios. Early modern versions always interpret the weapon, as here, as pars pro toto , as Jacob Grimm also commented in Reinhart Fuchs in 1834 . In KHM 75 The Fox and the Cat , the fox is the haughty animal. On dangerous people cf. KHM 157 The sparrow and his four children .

Interpretation and comparison

The perception of the wolf shows the human being as a being with divine power. Throwing lightning bolts was the characteristic of ancient chief deities such as Zeus and Thor . The rib from the man's body is reminiscent of the biblical Genesis .

The characteristics of the fox as cunning and cunning is very similar in The Wolf and the Fox (No. 73) and The Fox and the Gevatterin (No. 74). The wolf, which appears in well-known fairy tales such as The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats and Little Red Riding Hood , is greedy, but also clumsy and cowardly ( The old Sultan , The Wolf and the Fox ).

The children's and house fairy tales contain a whole series of short fabulous or fluctuating texts that seem to serve to characterize individual fairy tale creatures: the dog and the sparrow , the three lucky children , the fox and the cat , the fox and the geese , fairy tales of the toad , the fox and the horse , the owl , the moon .

literature

  • Grimm, brothers. Children's and Household Tales. Complete edition. With 184 illustrations by contemporary artists and an afterword by Heinz Rölleke. Pp. 392-393. 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. Pp. 135–136, 474. Revised and bibliographically supplemented edition, Stuttgart 1994. (Reclam-Verlag; ISBN 3-15-003193-1 )
  • Hans-Jörg Uther: Handbook to the children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. de Gruyter, Berlin 2008. ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 , pp. 171-173.

Web links

Wikisource: The Wolf and Man  - Sources and Full Texts

See also

Individual evidence

  1. Lothar Bluhm and Heinz Rölleke: “Popular speeches that I always listen to”. Fairy tale - proverb - saying. On the folk-poetic design of children's and house fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm. New edition. S. Hirzel Verlag, Stuttgart / Leipzig 1997. ISBN 3-7776-0733-9 , p. 95.
  2. Rölleke, Heinz (ed.): Fairy tales from the estate of the Brothers Grimm. 5th improved and supplemented edition. Trier 2001. pp. 72, 112-113. (WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier; ISBN 3-88476-471-3 )
  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. 171-173.