The mermaid
The water mermaid is a fairy tale ( ATU 313). It is in the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm at position 79 (KHM 79). Up to the 5th edition the title was Die Wassernix .
content
Two siblings fall into a well while playing. There a mermaid lets the girl spin the confused flax and fill a hollow barrel with water, and the boy chop down a tree with a blunt ax. The children only get hard dumplings to eat. When the mermaid is in the church, they flee and one after the other throw a brush, a comb and a mirror behind them, each of which gives a mountain over which the mermaid has to climb. For the Spiegelberg she first has to get her ax and the children escape.
Grimm's remarks
The fairy tale has been included since the first edition. The note reads from Hanau , compares Der Liebste Roland and Frau Holle and refers to Jacob Grimm's treatise Irminstrasse . In it he examines the etymological and mythological meaning of the Milky Way and the otherworldly reference of streets as ways of predatory spirits in various myths.
origin
The wording of the last edition of 1857 is practically identical to that of the first edition in 1812. In Jacob Grimm's handwriting, which was sent to Brentano in 1810, the children simply fall into the water, without playing at the well, even without flax spiders, rock-hard dumplings, church and verbatim speech . The Spiegelberg is called the Glasberg . The original oral version thus sounds more vague, which also fits better with the interpretation as a dream motif. The magical escape , in which magical objects are thrown in the path of a mostly female magical persecutor, otherwise appears as the final phase of various fairy tales with a false bride ( The iron stove , the singing jumping lion , the mermaid in the pond ), bad mother-in-law ( De two Künigeskinner , The six servants ) or stepmother ( Fundevogel , Der Liebste Roland ).
literature
- Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm : Children's and Household Tales. Complete edition . With 184 illustrations by contemporary artists and an afterword by Heinz Rölleke. 19th edition. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf / Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-538-06943-3 , pp. 404-405 .
- 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. 140, 476-477 .
- Rölleke, Heinz (ed.): The oldest fairy tale collection of the Brothers Grimm. Synopsis of the handwritten original version from 1810 and the first prints from 1812. Edited and explained by Heinz Rölleke. Pp. 284-285. Cologny-Geneve 1975. (Fondation Martin Bodmer; Printed in Switzerland)
- Grimm, Jacob: Irmenstrasse and Irmensäule. A mythological treatise by Jacob Grimm. Vienna 1815.
