The yellow dwarf

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The yellow dwarf is a fairy tale written by Baroness Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy between 1697 and 1698 . The main character is a malicious and ugly dwarf .

action

A beautiful princess turns away all suitors who come by the thousands to her parents' castle. In order to bring the girl to her senses, her mother wants to ask the Einödfee for advice. For this purpose the Queen sets out. On the way she sits down tired under an orange tree and falls asleep. When she wakes up again, she is surrounded by the two lions of the desert fairy and fears for her life. Only a yellow dwarf in the branches of the tree wants to help her, but the price is high because he demands the hand of the princess. In agony, the queen agrees and wakes up lying in her own bed.

Assuming that it was all just a bad dream, she pays no further attention to the story, but becomes more melancholy day by day, which worries the princess. She also got the idea to ask the Einödfee for advice. Like her mother, she sets off and she also falls asleep under the orange tree and when she wakes up she sees the two lions of the desert fairy and the yellow dwarf. This tells the princess the reason for her mother's sadness and so she learns of the promise. In her hopeless situation, she promises the dwarf to marry him and immediately wakes up in her bed. She finds a strange ring on her finger that she can no longer remove. Nevertheless, she too thinks the story with the yellow dwarf is a dream and turns to a royal candidate for marriage, the king of the gold mines. When the two are about to get married, the yellow dwarf suddenly appears. He challenges the groom to a duel and then kidnaps the princess into his realm.

The desert fairy, who had seen everything, lures the brave king into a palace that borders the rough sea. She fell in love with him and tried by all means to win him over. A mermaid offers the king her help and so he can reach the place where the yellow dwarf is keeping his princess captive. The king receives a magic sword from the mermaid, which he should never put down until he has defeated the dwarf. When the king finally stands in front of his princess and throws himself at her feet, he lets the sword out of his sight for a moment. The dwarf immediately takes it and thrusts it into the heart of the king. The princess also breathes her life out of grief. The mermaid then transforms the loving couple into two palm trees, which can now only touch each other gently with their branches in the wind.

reception

  • Because of a tumor, the dwarf and court jester Nicolas Ferry became very malicious at the end of his life and was therefore compared to the yellow dwarf of the fairy tale by those around him.
  • The card game Nain Jaune was named after the fairy tale.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The yellow dwarf story at maerchenatlas.de, accessed on February 7, 2017.