The flounder

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The plaice is an animal fairy tale ( ATU 250A). It is in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm from the 4th edition of 1840 instead of 172 (KHM 172) and is based on Johann Jakob Nathanael Mussäus ' The election of a king among fish in the yearbook of the Association for meklenburgische history and antiquities of the 1840th Ludwig Bechstein took it over from the same source in his New German Fairy Tale Book 1856 as The Fish King (No. 25).

content

There is chaos among the fish. They therefore want to choose the king who can swim fastest to help the weaker. The herring is ahead in the race. The plaice cries enviously “De nackte Hiering?”. Since then, her mouth has been crooked as a punishment.

Origin and processing

Illustration by Otto Ubbelohde , 1909

In addition to KHM 171 The Wren , the text shows a king's choice of fish and is also from Johann Jakob Nathanael Mussäus , who published it in 1840 as The King's Choice among the Fishes . Instead of a simple initial motivation that everything else has a king too, Grimm describes how the fish swim around each other and eat each other. “How wonderful it would be if one of us practiced law and justice in this cold water kingdom!” Becomes “How wonderful it would be if we had a king who practiced law and justice with us.” The action remained the same. Grimm's later editions do not differ.

An older template is not known. Such declarations were particularly widespread in the 19th century, here as a warning tale against arrogance. In contrast to Ludwig Bechstein's later adaptation, Der Fischkönig ( New German Fairy Tale Book 1856, No. 25), Wilhelm Grimm, who was more monarchistic, refrained from allusions to the political situation in Germany. Bechstein found Mussäus' and Grimm's text "almost too short." He throws in ironic remarks: "The star seers, also a species of fish, prophesied that nothing sensible would come out of the choice of a king, as with so many in the human world;" König cannot assert himself: "There are too many king-eaters."

Stories of origin about the ugly flatfish that made other fish or saints grimace existed before Grimm v. a. in marine areas, and are less common in sole , Chinese perch , the Brazilian aramança or the Japanese trepang . The present mixture of AaTh 250 A flounder with the king's choice of animals is said to occur mainly in the North and Baltic Seas.

literature

  • Brothers Grimm: 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. Reclam, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-15-003193-1 , pp. 259, 507.
  • Heinz Rölleke (Ed.): Grimm's fairy tales and their sources. The literary models of Grimm's fairy tales are synoptically presented and commented on (= literature series literary studies. Volume 35). 2nd Edition. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier 2004, ISBN 3-88476-717-8 , pp. 328–329, 573–574.
  • Hans-Jörg Uther: Handbook to the children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 , pp. 358-360.
  • Hans-Jörg Uther (Ed.): Ludwig Bechstein. New German fairy tale book. After the edition of 1856, text-critically revised and indexed. Diederichs, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-424-01372-2 , pp. 156-159, 291.
  • Hannjost Lixfeld: Flounder. In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales. Volume 4. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1984, pp. 1373-1374.
  • Manfred Eikelmann: The king's choice of animals. In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales. Volume 8. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1996, pp. 181-186.

Web links

Wikisource: Die Scholle  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinz Rölleke (Ed.): Grimm's fairy tales and their sources. The literary models of Grimm's fairy tales are synoptically presented and commented on (= literature series literary studies. Volume 35). 2nd Edition. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier 2004, ISBN 3-88476-717-8 , pp. 328–329, 573–574.
  2. ↑ Hans-Jörg Uther: Handbook on the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm. de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 , pp. 358-360.
  3. ^ Hans-Jörg Uther (Ed.): Ludwig Bechstein. New German fairy tale book. After the edition of 1856, text-critically revised and indexed. Diederichs, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-424-01372-2 , pp. 156-159, 291.
  4. ^ Hannjost Lixfeld: Flounder. In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales. Volume 4. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1984, pp. 1373-1374.
  5. ↑ Manfred Eikelmann: King's Choice of Animals. In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales. Volume 8. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1996, pp. 181-186.