The six servants

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Illustration by Věnceslav Černý, 1902

The six servants is a fairy tale ( ATU 513A, 900). It is in the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm at position 134 (KHM 134).

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An evil queen, who knows magic, lures many suitors into perdition with the promise that she will give her daughter to the person who will solve her problems. A prince who wants to free his daughter as “the most beautiful girl under the sun” is held back by his father. After the young man lay sick for seven years, the father allows him to go on his way.

On the way, the king's son hires six servants with extraordinary abilities: 1. an extremely fat one, 2. an extremely tall one, 3. a listener, 4. someone who sees through everything, 5. one blindfolded whose gaze is beyond everything, and 6 one who cannot stand it “in the middle of the ice because of the heat and in the middle of the fire because of the cold”.

At the court of the wicked queen, the king's son fulfills three tasks: with the help of the all-seeing servant, the fat man and the tall man, he fetches the queen's ring from the Red Sea, he eats 300 oxen and drinks 300 barrels of wine with the help of the fat man, and he spends the time from evening to midnight with the king's daughter in a chamber, which leads to complications (the king's son falls asleep, the angry old queen kidnaps the daughter, the listener hears her complaining in a rock cave, the tall one brings the one with the explosive power- Look over and bring the king's daughter back before midnight).

The enraged queen incites her daughter against the supposedly unworthy suitor, so that she has yet another task: she erects a huge pyre on which either the bridegroom or a servant must wait. This time the one who gets cold in the fire solves the problem.

The successful prince, who still keeps his identity a secret, sets out with the bride on his way home. The wicked queen sends an army, which the servants defeat. Then the couple gets to a swineherd. Here the prince's son sets the bride a task: he pretends to be the son of the swineherd and maintains this lie for a week. Finally the bride is brought to the royal palace, where the bridegroom reveals himself to be the king's son. Now the wedding is celebrated.

interpretation

The fairy tale follows the structural pattern of the hero's journey with five stations:

  • Because of a lack (longing for the beautiful daughter of the queen) the protagonist leaves home. The seven years of illness clearly refer to the scheme of the seven ages , whereby puberty (14 to 21 years) is important.
  • The protagonist gathers forces on the way, which are personified by the six servants. These characters are therefore not to be seen independently, but can be viewed in a subjective fairy tale interpretation as parts of the hero's personality.
  • At the foreign royal court, the protagonist meets the anima in two guises: a dangerous old sorceress or queen and a desirable, beautiful young bride. The constellation is reminiscent of the relationship between Herodias and Salome , with a mother who also protects her daughter excessively and completely isolates her (imprisonment in the rock cave).
  • The way back is survived well despite the dangers.
  • The protagonist has proven suitable for marriage. One could also speak of “integration of the feminine side”, which is expressed in the image of the wedding. The hero's journey ends with a psychological transformation of the protagonist on a higher level in the personality development, that of the autonomous, mature individual.

It seems interesting that the total of five tasks that the various figures pose represent a kind of dress rehearsal for the wedding. A ring has to be procured, a symbol of the king's willingness to commit and an indication of the ring change at the wedding ceremony at the altar. Then he has to have a huge meal in analogy to the wedding feast. Thirdly, he has to guard the bride until midnight, a reference to the dangers of the wedding night, which are particularly well survived here because the groom can free the bride from her emotional isolation. The trial by fire that the princess demands refers to a first marriage quarrel in which the flames of passion flare up, but the partner keeps a "cool head": the servant, who gets cold in the fire and hot in the ice, personifies the potential for equalization - Can, "stay cool" where others get heated and argue, and show "warmth of heart" where the interpersonal mood becomes too icy ... The last test at the swineherd, which the groom demands of the bride, is a test of whether the Princess is serious about marriage and is loyal to the man “in good and bad days”.

Origin and parallels

The children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm contain the fairy tale from the Paderbörnischen (von Haxthausen family) since the first edition of the second part (1815, since no. 48) in position 134. The notes still refer to those on the very similar fairy tale KHM 71 Sixes come all over the world , as well as the Hymiskviða of the Edda (verse 12) and Villemarqué Contes bretons 2, 120 . See also KHM 22 Das Rätsel , KHM 114 The Clever Little Tailor , KHM 181 The Sea Bunny , KHM 85b Princess with the Louse .

The Russian fairy tale The Flying Ship is very similar to The Six Servants . Its protagonist Iwanuschka is likely to be in an earlier phase of life than the prince's son. He solves the tasks of the tsar, but rejects the tsarevna: “He didn't like her”. With a load of gold, he and his companions go to an island. The formation of an all-male society refers to a stage of life in which a relative autonomy is gained, but there is still no interest in women.

A group of servants, helpers or companions who stand by the protagonist and symbolize his potential and abilities in a depth psychological interpretation can be found in several myths and fairy tales:

The motif of the enemies hurrying to drown in the floods is reminiscent of the exodus from Egypt .

cartoon

  • SimsalaGrimm , German cartoon series 1999, season 1, episode 6: The six servants .

literature

  • Brothers Grimm: Children's and Household Tales. With 184 illustrations by contemporary artists and an afterword by Heinz Rölleke . Complete edition, 19th edition. Artemis and Winkler, Düsseldorf et al. 2002, ISBN 3-538-06943-3 , pp. 625-631.
  • Brothers Grimm: Children's and Household Tales. With the original notes of the Brothers Grimm. Volume 3: Original notes, guarantees of origin, epilogue (= Universal Library 3193). With an appendix of all fairy tales and certificates of origin, not published in all editions, published by Heinz Rölleke. Reprint, revised and bibliographically supplemented edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-15-003193-1 , pp. 229, 496.

Web links

Wikisource: The Six Servants  - Sources and Full Texts