The three craft boys
The three craft boys is a Schwank ( ATU 360, 1697). It is in the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm at position 120 (KHM 120).
content
Three craft boys who go hiking together meet the devil on the way. This reassures her that he is not after her, but needs her to hunt down the soul of a bad sinner. It offers them prosperity for their whole life if they say nothing but “the three of us” , “about the money” , “and that was right” one after the other . The three move on and stop at a landlord to whom, as agreed with the devil, they answer every question the same way and pay excessively for his entertainment. They are thought to be crazy. A rich merchant also stops by the landlord and lets him keep his money because he doesn't trust the three craftspeople. At night the landlord murders him out of greed and accuses the boys. They seem to confess by their always the same sayings, are sentenced to death and are to be judged. The devil bids them endure and comes up at the last moment, when the three are already on the scaffold , as a fine gentleman. You can speak and prove the truth with the innkeeper's morgue. Then he is condemned and beheaded. The devil has the soul he wanted, and the three craftspeople get their promised wages.
origin
The fairy tale has been part of Grimm's children's and household tales since the second part of the first edition of 1815. Your note notes a story from Zwehrn (by Dorothea Viehmann ) and one from the Leine area (probably Georg Goldmann ) as the source . In the latter the host buries the victim, but a friend sees his horse standing and recognizes his clothes when the dog scrapes him out. They list further references: Meier No. 64; Müllenhoff No. 22; Pröhle No. 169; French in Bonaventure des Périers ' Les nouvelles Récréations et joyeux devis ; Hungarian bull p. 25.
According to Hans-Jörg Uther , the oldest version is in John Bromyard's Summa predicantium of three Welsh people who wanted to memorize English words. In the 16th century it was often lazy students who learned a Latin sentence by heart ( Philippe de Vigneulles ' Cent nouvelles Nouvelles ), in the late 18th century the afterlife figure appears ( The silent confessions in Georg Gustav Fülleborn's folk tales of the Germans ), typical of Grimm's time as a pact with the devil (cf. KHM 100 , 101 ).
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. Reclam, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-15-003193-1 , p. 212, p. 491.
- 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. 266-268.
