The old woman in the forest
The old woman in the forest is a fairy tale ( ATU 442). It is in the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm at position 123 (KHM 123).
content
A poor maid is the only one to survive a robbery while driving through the woods. It doesn't know what to do on its own. A white dove comes and brings him little golden keys to unlock trees so that he can find everything he needs when he wants to eat, sleep or dress. Finally the pigeon asks the girl to go into a hut and, ignoring the old woman there, to pick out a simple ring from among many splendid ones and bring it to him. The girl follows this request and finds the ring in the beak of a bird in the cage that the old woman is trying to carry out. As it waits outside for the pigeon, the prince's son, who has been transformed into a tree by the old witch, takes it in his arms, and they marry and become happy.
origin
Grimm's note is taken from Paderbörnische . You heard about it from the von Haxthausen family between July 23 and 26, 1813 . It is very similar to Jorinde and Joringel , which the fairy tale researcher Hans-Jörg Uther suspects as a direct model. The combination of motifs was hardly found in folk tradition, although a separate fairy tale type AaTh 442 was established. In 1933, Lutz Mackensen suspected an internationally widespread type of fairy tale with a Circe motif in an otherwise German-Scandinavian motif combination.
Similar fairy tales: KHM 3 Marienkind , KHM 21 Cinderella , KHM 47 Vom Machandelbaum , KHM 65 Allerleirauh , KHM 69 Jorinde and Joringel , KHM 88 The singing, jumping Löweneckerchen , KHM 93 The Raven , KHM 127 The Iron Stove , KHM 169 The Forest House .
interpretation
In terms of depth psychology, Hedwig von Beit interprets tree and dove as the prince's division into a vegetating and a spiritualized half as a result of the predominance of the devouring mother . It can only be liberated by transferring the true self (the simple ring ) to a woman and thus raising the contrast and union between animus and anima on a human level.
Even Walter Scherf believes that the girl loosen her lover from a demonic mother-son bond must, and compares Cistl in Koerbl from Zingerle fairy tales from Tyrol .
Ulla Wittmann thinks of fairy tales about the animal husband ( Beauty and the Beast , KHM 88 , 127 ), the unconscious partner ( Animus ). The ring overcomes the split between conscious and unconscious through transcendence and wholeness. It has to be withdrawn from the unconscious, here lonely old people, in a silent meditative manner.
cartoon
- Gurimu Meisaku Gekijō , Japanese cartoon series 1987, episode 30: The old woman in the forest .
literature
Primary literature
- Grimm, Brothers: Children's and Household Tales. Complete edition. With 184 illustrations by contemporary artists and an afterword by Heinz Rölleke. Pp. 586-588. Düsseldorf and Zurich, 19th edition 1999. (Artemis & Winkler Verlag; Patmos Verlag; 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. Revised and bibliographically supplemented edition, Stuttgart 1994. P. 217, P. 492. (Reclam-Verlag; ISBN 3-15-003193-1 )
reference books
- Uther, Hans-Jörg: Handbook to the children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Berlin 2008. pp. 271-272. (de Gruyter; ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 )
- Scherf, Walter: The fairy tale dictionary. First volume A – KS 18–20. Munich, 1995. (Verlag CH Beck; ISBN 3-406-39911-8 )
- Mackensen, Lutz: Alte im Wald, Die. In: Concise dictionary of German fairy tales. Published with the special assistance of Johannes Bolte and the collaboration of numerous specialist colleagues from Lutz Mackensen. Volume IS 49-50. Berlin and Leipzig 1930/1933. (Walter de Gruyter & Co.)
Depth psychological interpretations
- From Beit, Hedwig: Contrast and renewal in fairy tales. Second volume of «Symbolism of Fairy Tales». Second, improved edition, Bern 1965. pp. 102-103.
- Wittmann, Ulla: I fool forgot the magic things. Fairy tales as a way of life for adults. Interlaken 1985. pp. 143-147. (Ansata-Verlag; ISBN 3-7157-0075-0 )
