The three sisters
The three sisters is a fairy tale ( ATU 552, 302). In the Brothers Grimm 's children's and house tales, it was only in the 1st edition from 1812 at position 82 (KHM 82a) and comes from Johann Karl August Musäus ' Die Bücher der Chronika der Drey Sisters from 1782.
content
A king wastes his immeasurable wealth until he has to live on potatoes in a forest castle. Once he wants to hunt a hare in the forest where there are supposed to be terrible animals. He is about to eat potatoes when a bear comes along and wants to eat him because he is sitting by his honey tree. Only in exchange for the king's oldest daughter, who the bear wants to pick up after seven days, does he even give him a hundredweight of gold. The king plans to cheat on him, but early in the morning a handsome prince comes with a splendid carriage, six horses and golden riders and leads the daughter into the enchanted forest, so that the father can only shout out: “ Goodbye ! You fräulein trust / Go there, you bear bride! ” For this he finds a hundredweight of gold, with which he begins his former life again until everything is used up and he has to return to the forest castle.
He promises his second daughter to hunt an eagle with a falcon and the third to fish a whale, which they fetch after seven weeks or seven months. He is so saddened by the loss of the youngest that he remains thrifty this time. The Queen has a son Reinald, the child prodigy. When he was sixteen, he went looking for his sisters and found the first in a bear cave, the second in an eagle's nest and the third in a crystal palace in the lake. Her husbands would eat him if they didn't hide him, they are only human every seventh day, week or month and give him three bear hairs, three eagle feathers and three fish scales when he is in need. He wandered for another seven days and came to a castle with a steel gate, in front of it a steel black bull on which his sword and lance were breaking. He takes his miraculous gifts; then a bear defeats the bull, from which a bird flies up, an eagle beats him, but he drops an egg into a lake, and a fish spits it ashore. Inside is a key, with which he opens the gate and finds a sleeping maiden in the back room. She wakes up when he breaks a black board. It is the sister of his three brothers-in-law. They were all changed by an evil wizard because the princess had denied him love. The brothers come home and Reinald marries the redeemed princess.
origin
Grimm's text is an oral retelling of Johann Karl August Musäus ' Die Bücher der Chronika der Drey Sisters (1782, No. 1), which is why it was omitted from the 2nd edition. Grimm's remark from 1812 states that Musäus kept what seemed popular. The fairy tale researcher Hans-Jörg Uther states that Wilhelm Grimm shortened Musäus' text by approx. 80%, simplified the sentences and deleted satirical allusions.
The plot is also similar in Giambattista Basiles Pentameron IV, 3 The Three Animal Kings . From Grimm's fairy tales, cf. KHM 88 The singing, jumping little lion , KHM 9 The Twelve Brothers , KHM 163 The glass coffin , KHM 161 Snow-white and rose-red , KHM 197 The crystal ball .
Another version of Reinhald the child prodigy was published in 1819 by Johann Andreas Christian Löhr .
literature
- 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. Pp. 533-534. Revised and bibliographically supplemented edition, Stuttgart 1994. (Reclam-Verlag; ISBN 3-15-003193-1 )
- 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. 469-470.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Uther, Hans-Jörg: Handbook to the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm. Berlin 2008. pp. 469-470. (de Gruyter; ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 )