The poor miller's boy and the kitten

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The poor miller's boy and the kitten is a fairy tale ( ATU 402). It is in the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm at position 106 (KHM 106).

content

An old miller wants to give his mill to that of his servants who can get the best horse. Hans, the youngest, don't want the other two with them because they don't trust him and he doesn't want the mill, so they leave him in a cave at night. In the forest a brightly colored kitten promises him a horse if he serves him for seven years. In her enchanted little castle there are many kittens who play music while eating. When he doesn't want to dance with her, they put him to bed. He has to chop up wood, make hay and finally build a house with tools made of copper, gold and silver. The cat shows him the horses, sends him home and brings his own after three days. At home he is laughed at because his old, torn clothes no longer fit, and he has to sleep in the goose barn. In the morning the princess comes in a carriage with his horse, which is better than the blind one and the lame one of the other two. She leaves the mill to the miller and takes Hans into the house he built, which has become a castle.

language

The narrator comments on the misconduct of the elderly ("yes! You will not be fine!") And concludes: "That is why nobody should say that someone who is silly cannot become anything right". Verbatim speeches were also inserted by the Brothers Grimm: “I am old and want to sit down behind the stove” (cf. KHM 35 , only 2nd edition), “That does it very gently”.

origin

Illustration by Otto Ubbelohde , 1909

Grimm's note notes “From Zwehrn” (by Dorothea Viehmann ) and compares KHM 63 Die Drei Federn , where the Dummling's brothers bring bad lines out of disdain, like bad horses here. They report a "different story from Paderbörnische" (from the von Haxthausen family ): The dumbbell faithfully serves a gray man chopping wood and gets the most beautiful horse. The brothers put him in a lime kiln. The male takes him out and anoints him healthy. Then he gets the best shirt. The brothers shoot him and accuse him of the father of the devil's covenant. Now he has to get the best bread and receives a divining rod from a little mother with whom he shares his meal. As he holds it over the water, a turtle comes that makes him money and, after a year, the best bread. In return he gets father's mill and next to the turtle he finds a princess whom he has released from her mother's curse. When he once dropped the turtle into the fire, his wife spits in his face and he buries himself in a deep cave with the inscription “No one shall find me here but God alone”. The sick king happens to come and get well. He lets dig and reconciles them. The Brothers Grimm name further references: Zingerle "S. 171 ", Colshorn No. 15, a Swedish folk song, Cavallius " S. 300 ", French from Aulnoy La Chatte blanche , Polish from Lewestam " S. 101 ”, in Albanian for Hahn “ 2 ”.

According to Heinz Rölleke , the fairy tale as well as The Three Feathers about Dorothea Viehmann , perhaps about the anonymous Braunschweig fairy tales (1801), ultimately go back to Aulnoy La Chatte blanche . The “other story from Paderborn” agrees with Johann Gustav Gottlieb Büsching's Mährchen von der Padde (1812) and influenced the text. Wilhelm Grimm later worked in a version that his son Herman narrated on September 5, 1833. He did not do otherwise with texts by Dorothea Viehmann. The poor miller's boy and the kitten also appeared in the small edition of the collection, probably the cute cats made it popular. According to Hans-Jörg Uther , it is often replaced by Puss in Boots . The present fairy tale focuses less on the brotherly rivalry than on the adventures of the youngest. His refusal to dance with a cat doesn't create any tangles here.

Stupid fairy tale near Grimm: KHM 33 The three languages , KHM 54 The satchel, the hat and the horn , KHM 57 The golden bird , KHM 62 The queen bee , KHM 63 The three feathers , KHM 64 The golden goose , KHM 97 The water of life , KHM 165 The Griffin , KHM 54a Hans Dumm , KHM 64a The white dove . Fairy tale with animal bridegroom: KHM 1 The Frog King or the Iron Heinrich , KHM 88 The singing, jumping little lion , KHM 108 Hans my hedgehog , KHM 127 The iron stove , KHM 161 Snow White and Rose Red , KHM 59a Prince Swan , KHM 82a The Three Sisters , KHM 99a The Frog Prince , KHM 119a The Lazy and the Hard-Working , KHM 129a The Lion and the Frog .

interpretation

Illustration by Otto Ubbelohde , 1909

For Rudolf Meyer , silver and cats stand for a moon-like life of instinct. Edzard Storck calls it powers “of the imagination and the heart”, the colorful kitten means “the liveliness of the inner life, which blossoms into inner heart strength”. He quotes Paul : “If anyone among you thinks to be wise in this world time, he must first become a gate in order to then really arrive at wisdom” ( 1 Cor 3:18  EU ) and “Who wants us from the love of Christ divorce Is it tribulation or distress, persecution or hunger or lack of clothing ...? ”( Rom. 8.35  EU ). For Ortrud Stumpfe , the cat, with which the miller's boy does not dance, is “a symbol of the power gliding with pleasure through life, which enjoys self-love”, silver is the power of the moon and passion, gold is the lighting up of the powers of consciousness.

Movie

literature

  • Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm : Children's and Household Tales. Complete edition . With 184 illustrations by contemporary artists and an afterword by Heinz Rölleke. 19th edition. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf / Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-538-06943-3 , pp. 514-518 .
  • Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm : Children's and Household Tales. With an appendix of all fairy tales and certificates of origin not published in all editions . Ed .: Heinz Rölleke . 1st edition. Original notes, guarantees of origin, epilogue ( volume 3 ). Reclam, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-15-003193-1 , p. 198-200, 487 .
  • Hans-Jörg Uther : Handbook to the "Children's and Household Tales" by the Brothers Grimm. Origin, effect, interpretation . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 , pp. 237-239 .
  • Lothar Bluhm , 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. S. Hirzel, Stuttgart / Leipzig 1997, ISBN 3-7776-0733-9 , pp. 117 .

Web links

Wikisource: The poor miller's boy and the kitten  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans-Jörg Uther : Handbook on the "Children's and Household Tales" by the Brothers Grimm. Origin, effect, interpretation . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 , pp. 238 .
  2. ↑ Lothar Bluhm , Heinz Rölleke : “Speeches of the people 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. S. Hirzel, Stuttgart / Leipzig 1997, ISBN 3-7776-0733-9 , pp. 117 .
  3. ↑ Heinz Rölleke, Albert Schindehütte: Once upon a time…. The true fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and who told them. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-8218-6247-7 , pp. 147-148.
  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. 237-239.
  5. ^ Rudolf Meyer: The wisdom of German folk tales. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 1963, pp. 124-125.
  6. ↑ Edzard Storck: Old and new creation in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Turm Verlag, Bietigheim 1977, ISBN 3-7999-0177-9 , pp. 180, 305, 318, 416.
  7. ↑ Ortrud Stumpfe: The symbolic language of fairy tales. 7th edition. Aschendorff, Münster 1992, ISBN 3-402-03474-3 , p. 32.
  8. ↑ defa-stiftung.de