The life time
The lifetime is a fluctuation ( ATU 173). From the 4th edition of 1840 onwards, it is in place 176 (KHM 176) in the children's and house tales by the Brothers Grimm .
content
God gives donkey, dog, monkey and human life thirty years each. But the donkey has to carry heavy loads, the dog's teeth fall out and the circus monkey always has to be funny. You are soliciting eighteen, twelve and ten years inheritance. People who want more get it. Therefore, after his human years he has to bear other burdens, then he becomes toothless, and finally the children ridicule.
origin
The parable told, according to Grimm's remark "a farmer from Zwehrn near Kassel on the field in 1838" (submitted was Carl Friedrich Münscher ; Dr. Wilhelm Müller 1841 perhaps from the same source). A version in Babrios , No. 74 (probably 2nd century) is more illogical: horse, bull and dog are allowed to warm themselves in people's homes and are given barley, legumes and leftovers. In return they give him years of life. That's why people are first high-spirited like horses, then hardworking like bulls, then sullen in old age. Also comparable to Jehuda Levy Krakau Ben Sef's Hebrew poem in the Königsberg magazine Hamasef 1788. 2, 388.
Posthumously in 1865 Wilhelm Grimm published a study on the Greek and Jewish tradition of the subject. The earliest German-language evidence is Klara Hätzlerin's songbook from 1471 (No. 100). Allegorical equation of human life with animals is common. Iconographically , it appears as a staircase of life with animals below. In the 19th century they give way to the idea of the ups and downs of life.
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. 260, 508 .
- Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm : Fairy tales from the estate of the Brothers Grimm . Ed .: Heinz Rölleke . 5th edition. WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier 2001, ISBN 3-88476-471-3 .
- 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. 364-366 .
- Anja Schöne: Human lifetimes . In: Kurt Ranke (ed.): Encyclopedia of fairy tales . Concise dictionary for historical and comparative narrative research . tape 8 : Clergy – Maggio. de Gruyter, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-11-014339-9 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm : Fairy tales from the estate of the Brothers Grimm . Ed .: Heinz Rölleke . 5th edition. WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier 2001, ISBN 3-88476-471-3 , p. 61-62, 111 .
- ↑ Anja Schöne: Lifetimes of the people . In: Kurt Ranke (ed.): Encyclopedia of fairy tales . Concise dictionary for historical and comparative narrative research . tape 8 : Clergy – Maggio. de Gruyter, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-11-014339-9 , p. 842-846 .