The golden key
The golden key is a fairy tale ( ATU 2260). In the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm it is at position 200 (KHM 200).
content
A poor sled boy wants to warm himself in the cold by the fire. He finds a small golden key under the snow and an iron box under the ground. He expects “precious things” , finds the small keyhole and unlocks it. The narrator ends, you have to wait until he has opened it.
origin
The golden key is always in the last position in Grimms Märchen from the second part of the first edition from 1815, and from the penultimate edition from 1850 in the 200th position. According to their note, the Brothers Grimm had it from Hessen (Wilhelm Grimm's note from Marie Hassenpflug ). You mention a similar fairy tale from Adolf Gutbier's German language book about chickens and chickens who find a little key in the dung and a box with a short red silk fur in it, and if it had been longer, the fairy tale would have been longer .
The Brothers Grimm related the puzzle (Neck fairy tale that disappoints the listener's expectations) allegorically to the fairy tale treasure that needs to be raised and deciphered. The fox and the geese have similar functions.
literature
- Grimm, Brothers: Children's and Household Tales. Complete edition. With 184 illustrations by contemporary artists and an afterword by Heinz Rölleke. S. 809, 19th edition, Artemis & Winkler Verlag, Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf and Zurich 1999, 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. P. 274, 516. Revised and bibliographically supplemented edition, Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-15-003193-1 )
- Uther, Hans-Jörg: Handbook to the children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Berlin 2008. p. 407. (de Gruyter; ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 )
- Haase, Donald: Key. In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales. Volume 12. pp. 82-88. Berlin, New York, 2007.
