The wolf and the seven young goats

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Illustration by Karl Fahringer (1874–1952)
Illustration by Otto Ubbelohde , 1909

The wolf and the seven young goats (often just the wolf and the seven little goats ) is a well-known animal fairy tale ( ATU 123). It is in the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm at number 5 (KHM 5) and is influenced from the 5th edition by The seven Gaislein in August Stöber's Elsässisches Volksbüchlein (1842, No. 242). Ludwig Bechstein also adopted it after Stöber in his German book of fairy tales as The Seven Little Goats (1845 No. 56, 1853 No. 47).

action

Illustration by Leutemann / Offterdinger

The mother goat has to leave the house and gives her seven little kids not to let anyone into the house while she is away. After she leaves, the big bad wolf comes by and requests entry. However, the little kids recognize by the rough voice that the wolf and not their mother is standing in front of the door and do not let him in. The wolf then eats chalk to soften his voice and returns to the kid's house. However, since the wolf lays its black paw on the window sill, the little goats recognize the attempted fraud and do not let him in. For the third attempt, the wolf lets the baker put dough on the foot and then forces the miller to dust it with flour. So he succeeds in deceiving the little kids who then open the door. The bad wolf rushes in and eats six of the seven little goats, one of which can hide in the grandfather clock. When the mother comes back home, the kid slips out of its hiding place and reports on the attack and the siblings eaten. The wolf is still sleepy on the meadow in front of the house, whereupon mother goat hurries back into the house and fetches scissors and sewing kit. With the scissors she opens the wolf's belly, and it turns out that all the little goats are still alive and can spring from the wolf's belly. The mother instructs her children to collect stones that she sews into the wolf's belly. When the wolf wakes up again and goes to the well to drink, the weight of the stones pulls him in and drowns.

style

Illustration by Leutemann / Offterdinger

Compared to Jacob Grimm's handwritten original version, the first print from 1812 is embellished with verbatim speeches, which means that the French fragment in German that is still reproduced in the note is integrated into the text. The last hand edition from 1857 is told even more vividly, especially after the return of the goat mother, as well as the saying of the wolf:

“What rumbles and pounds
around in my stomach
I thought there were six hostages
so it is nothing but bricks. "

The alliteration “so he eats you all skin and hair” is part of Grimm's standard repertoire (cf. KHM 23 , 119 , 134 , 70a , DS 213 , 2 Makk 7.7  EU ), Jacob Grimm in particular also knew it from the German antiquities . “Not long reading” and “atone for one's lust” were well-known phrases ( Weish 19.12  EU , Ps 78.29  EU ).

origin

Postcard series by Oskar Herrfurth

Grimm's note noted “From the Main area” (probably from the Hassenpflug family ). In a Pomeranian story (probably based on Hendel-Schütz ), a child is devoured by the child's ghost, but it devours stones with it and falls heavily to the ground, so that the child jumps out. They call Stöber's Volksbüchlein “S. 100 ”, Boners Edelstein No. 33, Reinhart Fuchs 346, Bukard Waldis chap. 24, Hulderich Wolgemuths Esopus , Haltrich No. 33, Lafontaine IV 1, 15, and remember a French fairy tale fragment (probably after the Hassenpflug family) where the wolf says to the miller: "meunier, meunier, trempe moi ma patte dans ta farine blanche" . “Non, non!” “Alors je te mange” (“Müller, Müller, dip my paw in your pure flour.” “No, no!” “Then I'll eat you.”). Psamathe places the wolf on Peleus' and Talamon's herds, and it turns to stone.

The fairy tale also found its way into the popular small edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales and later in Ludwig Bechstein's German Fairy Tale Book , which, however, adheres exactly to Stöber's version, only translating it into High German. It has been reprinted in many reading books. According to Hans-Jörg Uther , it is one of the many examples of how children are brought up in fairy tales, earliest in the Liber fabulorum Aesopi by Romulus from the 5th century: “ Listening to the instructions of the parents is good for the children, like the following Fable teaches. ”Corresponding to the title in Ulrich Boner's Edelstein (around 1350, no. 33):“ von Kinden oborsami ”, also in Heinrich Steinhöwel's fable ( Esopus , no. 92). There “fatherly commandments” are kept, here the animal children fail in front of the stranger, which emphasizes the mother's role as educator and savior. Grimm's fairy tales also observe the principle of exception - a kid has to survive in order to be able to tell a story (e.g. also KHM 49 , 62 , 91 ). Psychological interpreters were then more interested in the conflict with the wolf - seen as a father, for example.

interpretation

Postcard series by Oskar Herrfurth

Sigmund Freud tells of a boy's fear of being eaten like one of the seven little goats by the wolf who represents his father ( Oedipus complex ). Even Otto Rank has the "wolf" as a father figure suspected. The anthroposophist Friedel Lenz sees here a fateful tale of fall and redemption: the innocent curiosity of the seven essential organs falls victim to the devouring materialism, which hardens like stones, only the beating heart provides refuge. Wilhelm Salber uses the text to describe reciprocal transformations, some of which remain indigestible. The need to include everything in one's own compulsion to love leads to fossilization, but permitted exceptions are perceived as intrusions. Decisions are passed on to others in order to preserve childlike freedom under conditions of obedience. Eugen Drewermann sees the old goat as a single mother who represents both the good goat mother and the bad wolf. She is a poor goat and not a powerful "cow" like the heavenly cow Hathor .

Research into fairy tales has drawn parallels to the myths about Zeus and Kronos from the Greek culture (cf. Zeus myth ): The wolf corresponds to the father Kronos; the goat of the mother Rheia , at the same time also the goat Amaltheia , who nourishes the rescued youngest son Zeus; the seventh little kid thus corresponds to Zeus; the watch case the cave hideout; the bricks to the great stone that Rheia lets Kronos devour; the fall in the well the fall in the Tartarus .

Bechstein

Postcard series by Oskar Herrfurth

Ludwig Bechstein's The Seven Little Goats is shorter, without chalk and dough, the wolf only disguises his voice and sticks his feet in the flour, even without sparing the youngest, so some dialogues are omitted. Bechstein translated the fairy tale from Stöber's Elsässisches Volksbüchlein into standard German. At last the wolf says:

“What is rumbling, what is pumping in my stomach?
I meant I had young kids
And now it's nothing but bricks! "

Parodies

Postcard series by Oskar Herrfurth

Janosch's picture story plays with the charms of the disreputable and forbidden: warned by their mother, the little goats catch the wolf with honey and hide it in the wall clock, then it eats the goat and the buck, and there is never any more goat cheese. Iring Fetscher thinks ironically that Grimm's tradition should imply capitalist behavior on animals in order to justify it in humans, and he invents a prehistory of the visitation of wolf children by goats, who had accepted the civil envy of their owners. Ilse Aichinger attributes her own motivations to Wolf, Geißlein, Müller, Brunnen etc. With Doris Mühringer , the eaten wolf prefers to go home instead of being slit open. Wolfram Siebeck turns the kids into a bitchy sing-out group, which seduces the evil intellectual into protest songs, whereupon their manager unfortunately doesn't bring any subsidies, they chase the intellectual into left radio editorial offices, where he has to "drink miserably".

theatre

Postcard series by Oskar Herrfurth
  • The wolf and the seven little goats , Switzerland, Tokkel stage puppet theater, conversion of the fairy tale into puppet play. (Source: Tokkel-Bühne Puppet Theater )
  • The wolf and the little goats , Germany, Reutlingen, Sturmvogel theater, interactive children's theater

Movie

Postcard series by Oskar Herrfurth

Philatelic

On February 6, 2020, the first day of issue, Deutsche Post AG issued three postage stamps in the series Grimm's fairy tales based on the fairy tale The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats with an additional cent in aid of charitable welfare. The design comes from the graphic artist Michael Kunter .

literature

  • 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. Revised and bibliographically supplemented edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 1994. ISBN 3-15-003193-1 , pp. 27, 444-445.
  • Heinz Rölleke (Ed.): The oldest fairy tale collection of the Brothers Grimm. Synopsis of the handwritten original version from 1810 and the first prints from 1812. Edited and explained by Heinz Rölleke. Cologny-Geneve 1975, pp. 46-51, 352. (Fondation Martin Bodmer; Printed in Switzerland).
  • 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. 12-15.
  • Lothar Bluhm and Heinz Rölleke: “Popular sayings 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 , pp. 44-45.
  • Oskar Negt : The stubborn child and the dispossessed senses. in: Freibeuter No. 5 (1980), pp. 118ff. ("Comment" on the fairy tale text)

Web links

Wikisource: The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats  - Sources and full texts
Commons : The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinz Rölleke (ed.): The oldest fairy tale collection of the Brothers Grimm. Synopsis of the handwritten original version from 1810 and the first prints from 1812. Edited and explained by Heinz Rölleke. Cologny-Geneve 1975, pp. 46-51, 352. (Fondation Martin Bodmer; Printed in Switzerland).
  2. ↑ 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 , pp. 44-45.
  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. Revised and bibliographically supplemented edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 1994. ISBN 3-15-003193-1 , pp. 27, 444-445.
  4. ↑ 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. 12-15.
  5. ↑ Sigmund Freud: Inhibition, Symptom and Anxiety. In: Alexander Mitscherlich, Angela Richards, James Strachey (eds.): Sigmund Freud. Study edition. Volume VI. Hysteria and fear. 9th edition, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-10-822726-2 , p. 249.
  6. ↑ Rank, Otto: Psychoanalytical contributions to myth research: Collected studies from the years 1912 to 1914 , Severus Verlag 1919, ISBN 978-3-9423-8241-0 , page 109ff
  7. ^ Friedel Lenz: Visual language of fairy tales. 8th edition. Free Spiritual Life and Urachhaus publishing house, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-87838-148-4 , pp. 50–54.
  8. ^ Wilhelm Salber: Märchenanalyse (= Armin Schulte (Hrsg.): Work edition Wilhelm Salber, psychological morphology. Volume 12). 2nd Edition. Bouvier, Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-416-02899-6 , pp. 16-17, 20, 78-81, 152.
  9. ↑ Drewermann, Eugen: Landscapes of the Soul or How to Overcome Fear Grimm fairy tales interpreted in terms of depth psychology, Patmos Verlag, 2015, pp. 265–408
  10. ↑ See Heinrich Tischner: Fairy Tales Explained - The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats
  11. ^ Hans-Jörg Uther (Ed.): Ludwig Bechstein. Storybook. After the edition of 1857, text-critically revised and indexed. Diederichs, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-424-01372-2 , pp. 388-389.
  12. ↑ Janosch: The wolf and the seven little goats. In: Janosch tells Grimm's fairy tale. Fifty selected fairy tales, retold for today's children. With drawings by Janosch. 8th edition. Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim and Basel 1983, ISBN 3-407-80213-7 , pp. 66–73.
  13. ↑ Iring Fetscher: Who kissed Sleeping Beauty awake? The fairy tale confusion book. Hamburg and Düsseldorf 1974. Claassen Verlag. ISBN 3-596-21446-7 , pp. 19-23.
  14. ↑ Ilse Aichinger: The wolf and the seven young goats. In: Wolfgang Mieder (ed.): Grim fairy tales. Prose texts from Ilse Aichinger to Martin Walser. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt (Main) 1986, ISBN 3-88323-608-X , pp. 82–83 (1974; first published in: Jochen Jung (ed.): Bilderbogengeschichten. Fairy tales, sagas, adventures. Newly told by our authors Zeit. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1976, pp. 13-14.).
  15. ↑ Doris Mühringer: The wolf and the seven little goats. In: Grim fairy tales. Prose texts from Ilse Aichinger to Martin Walser. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt (Main) 1986, ISBN 3-88323-608-X , pp. 84–85 (first published in: Hans-Joachim Gelberg (Ed.): Neues vom Rumpelstiltskin and other house fairy tales by 43 authors . Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1976, pp. 197-198.).
  16. ↑ Wolfram Siebeck: The seven little goats. In: Grim fairy tales. Prose texts from Ilse Aichinger to Martin Walser. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt (Main) 1986, ISBN 3-88323-608-X , pp. 86-87 (first published in: Wolfram Siebeck's best stories. Fischer, Frankfurt 1979, pp. 218-219.).
  17. ↑ Children's theater and evening program | Sturmvogel Theater Reutlingen. Retrieved August 9, 2017 .
  18. ↑ Brand set accessed on February 18, 2020