The hospitable calf's head
The hospitable calf's head is a fairy tale . It is at number 15 in Ludwig Bechstein's New German Book of Fairy Tales and comes from Johann Jacob Mussäus ' Meklenburgische Volksmährchen (No. 13: Hans and the Calf's Head ) in the yearbook of the Association for Meklenburg History and Archeology from 1840.
content
Three brothers go out into the world. The youngest is left behind by the others and after a nap in the forest finds a house where food is set and a bed is ready. To do this, he has to tell a calf's head lying in a cradle about home. When he gets homesick, he receives a horse, hunting clothes, money and a magic pipe so that he can find the way. At home, the brothers are jealous, they returned home after having used up their money and supplies and now have to work hard with their father. At night they attack the youngest, but he repels them and goes back to the calf's head. He lets him chop off his snake-like body and becomes a princess who was enchanted with her servants.
Remarks
The left Hans, completely phlegmatic , sits down on a stone and makes a snack. Literal speeches characterize his simple-minded nature: “Wherever I am, there is nobody but me ... and I do nothing. But if I go further ... ”. Because he is “not as stupid” as his brothers think, he fits the calf's head, which has “far more soulful insight” than “the overly wise people generally believe calf heads”. For Hans as a stupid cf. at Bechstein The enchanted princess , the tailor Hanschen and the knowing animals , in Grimm's fairy tales z. B. The Queen Bee , The Three Feathers or The Golden Bird .
literature
- Hans-Jörg Uther (Ed.): Ludwig Bechstein. New German fairy tale book. After the edition of 1856, text-critically revised and indexed. Diederichs, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-424-01372-2 , pp. 82-93, 289.