The sweet porridge

This article describes the fairy tale. For the German fairytale film by Frank Stoye see Der süße Brei (2018) .

Postage stamp of the Deutsche Post, with a scene from the fairy tale (1985)

The sweet porridge is a fairy tale ( ATU 565). It is in the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm in place 103 (KHM 103). Until the 2nd edition the title was Vom süßen Brei .

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A child who lives alone with his poor mother goes begging for food. An old woman gives him a magic pot that prepares sweet millet porridge on the command “potty, boil” and stops when she says “potty, stand” . From then on they never have to go hungry again. One day the girl is out of the house and the mother orders the pot, "Potty boil," and the pot cooks porridge. She didn't memorize the second saying, and so he doesn't stop there. The whole city is already buried under pulp when the child comes home and says "Potty, stand" . Then it stops boiling.

origin

Grimm's comment notes from Hesse (by Henriette Dorothea Wild ) and compares an ancient legend of the never-ending pitcher that only innocence can control, and an Indian tale of the pot that cooks endlessly from a grain of rice, as well as Goethe's The Sorcerer's Apprentice . Porridge or bread stands for food in general and was eaten at Mardi Gras in Thuringia so that there was no shortage of the year. Asbjörnsen Thl is compared to a festival of sweet porridge as wages for workers. 2 from the mill that grinds everything.

The sweet Brey is the name of a story about poor feeding in Erasmus Francisci's The Infernal Proteus , which the Brothers Grimm knew. For the poor pious girl see KHM 153 Die Sterntaler , for the miraculous gift KHM 36 , 130 , 158 , 159 . Hans Sachs published in 1530 the well-known vision of millet mountain at the entrance to paradise .

Lutz Röhrich notes that the mention of millet in fairy tales seems to have stuck with the medieval eating habits of the lower classes. With magical formulas it is important to preserve the exact wording.

For interpretation

The motif of the fairy tale was once well-known, widespread and bitter: hunger . The fairy tale is also older than the first import of affordable (cane) sugar , and before that, sweets ( honey , syrup , sweet cherries, etc.) were extremely scarce - so the natural sweetness of the cooked millet grains makes the porridge particularly wonderful. In addition, the swelling capacity of millet is similar to that of rice .

Sometimes only a miracle can help - that is the " consolation " motif, for the sake of which such fairy tales have been spoken orally for a long time . The entertaining, grotesque image of the city full of pulp could carry along with the teaching: miracles are entrusted to someone - you shouldn't deprive the recipient of a special gift from behind, not even a mother from her child. That brings badness. Only the child can do it - a small strengthening of the child's self-confidence .

The old woman's boiling vessel is the nourishing function of the mother archetype . Friedel Lenz starts from the ancient Indian meaning of the sun and moon as heavenly porridge, which only the child's soul can learn to grasp again. Rudolf Geiger also emphasizes the rejuvenated wisdom of childlike confidence in relation to the old, whereby Walter Scherf criticizes that this does not correspond to the constellation of other versions, mostly it is about a poor and a rich brother. The leading version is The Mill that Grinds on the Seabed according to Jørgen Moe .

Cultural-historical transformations

2018: Der süße Brei , Germany, fairy tale film of the ZDF series Märchenperlen . Director: Frank Stoye with Svenja Jung and Merlin Rose . Since it is the shortest fairy tale of the Grimms, a number of new aspects have been added to the film, e.g. B. the pot broke once and the girl "Jola" has to put the pieces together.

At Janosch , first the mother gets married, then the daughter. The four of them build a pulp factory and increase their luxury more and more. In addition, they forget the word to stop the pot and are buried under the pulp.

See also

• The three woodcutters

literature

• 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. 195-196, 486 .
• 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. 232-234 .

Web links

Wikisource: The Sweet Porridge  - 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. 232-234 .
2. ^ Lutz Röhrich: Fairy tales and reality. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1956, p. 76, p. 103.
3. ↑ Hedwig von Beit: Symbolism of the fairy tale. Francke, Bern 1952, pp. 167-168.
4. ^ Friedel Lenz: Visual language of fairy tales . 8th edition. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-87838-148-4 , p. 66-68 .
5. ↑ Walter Scherf: The fairy tale dictionary . tape 2 : L-Z. Beck, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-406-39911-8 , pp. 1167-1168 .
6. ↑ ZDF and MDR shoot the fairy tale film "Der süße Brei" on April 10, 2018 at presseportal.zdf.de; accessed on December 4, 2018.
7. ↑ Janosch: The sweet porridge. 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. 183-191.