The real bride

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The true bride is a fairy tale ( ATU 313). It is in the children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm from the 5th edition from 1843 at position 186 (KHM 186) and comes from the magazine for German antiquity by Moriz Haupt , who published the fairy tale from Upper Lusatia there in 1842. Ludwig Bechstein took it over from the same source in his German fairy tale book from 1845 under the title Helene .

content

A beautiful and hardworking girl is tormented by her stepmother with increasingly difficult tasks. First it has to wear off twelve pounds of feathers in one day, then empty a lake with a holey spoon, then build a castle. Each time an old woman comes and helps him while he sleeps. While inspecting the castle cellar, the stepmother falls to her death. The girl becomes engaged to a prince. When he wants to get his father's approval for the wedding, she kisses him on the left cheek and waits under a linden tree before going to look for him after three days. Since nobody knows about him, she lives a sad shepherdess for a few years. Her lover, who is about to marry another king's daughter, rides past her twice without recognizing her. At the three-day festival she dances with him one evening in a dress with suns, then in one with moons and finally in one with stars. When she kisses him on the left cheek, he recognizes her. You get married in the castle of the true bride.

style

Illustration by Otto Ubbelohde , 1909

The fairy tale is divided into three parts: the evil stepmother (like KHM 21 Cinderella , KHM 130 One-Eye, Two-Eyes and Three-Eyes ), the search hike as a lonely shepherdess (KHM 69 Jorinde and Joringel , KHM 181 The Mermaid in the Pond ) and finally the festival nights (KHM 21 Cinderella , KHM 65 Allerleirauh , KHM 88 The singing, jumping Löweneckerchen , KHM 113 De zwei Künigeskinner , KHM 127 The Iron Stove , KHM 193 The Drummer ). The first and the last section are again a sequence of three tasks or three nights. The three tasks seem to represent the elements air, water and earth (cf. KHM 17 , 33 , 62 , 193 , 107a ), which is repeated in the mention of the weather vane, the water in the pots and the cellar.

In the middle section, the girl as shepherdess speaks a poem to her little calf:

" Calf, little calf, kneel down,
don't forget your shepherdess again,
as the prince forgot the bride
who was sitting under the green linden tree. "

The little calf seems to represent a child or her husband. When she speaks the poem for the second time near him, he pauses, “holds his hand in front of his eyes, as if he wanted to remember something, but he rode on quickly and was soon gone.” Basile's tragic fairy tale Viso sounds clear here to.

origin

Illustration by Otto Ubbelohde , 1909

The fairy tale can be found in the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm from the 5th edition of 1843. The 6th edition only changed a few formulations: the weather vane turns "like a golden maiden with a flying robe". The prince with the shepherdess, reflecting, holds his hand over his eyes. For the 7th edition of the last hand, the chandeliers now hang “from the stage” instead of “in the halls”. Grimm's comment only notes the source “from Upper Lusatia” in Moriz Haupt's Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum (No. 2, 1842, pp. 481–486). The castle is not described in detail there and is no longer mentioned at the end. She speaks the poem once alone and once within earshot, but "softly and with a trembling voice". It goes like this:

“ Calf, kneel down
and don't forget your honor, as
prince Lassmann forgot poor Helene
when she was sitting under the green linden tree. "

Comparisons

Illustration by Otto Ubbelohde , 1909

Cf. in Giambattista Basiles Pentameron II, 7 Die Taube , III, 3 Viso , III, 9 Rosella . Cf. in Ludwig Bechstein's German fairy tale book Siebenschön , The boys with the golden stars and in the edition of 1845 The three nuts and Helene .

interpretation

Edzard Storck sees the tasks as purification, the castle as the body with its inner life, the linden tree as the tree of life in paradise, the starry dress is the true wedding robe ( Mt 22  EU ). According to Wilhelm Salber , excess and make one another feel small. He brings the example of a thirty-year-old who only found her “true form” in the undemanding fulfillment and complaining of strange tasks.

watch TV

  • In 1987 the fairy tale was filmed by Jim Henson as part of his program The Storyteller . This version sticks closely to the story of the Brothers Grimm, but the stepmother is replaced by an evil troll , instead of an old woman a white lion helps with the tasks and the prince is not taken care of by another princess but by the ugly daughter of the Trolls bewitched. Both trolls are killed by the intervention of the lion in the basement of the bridal palace.
  • In the fairy tale film series Six in One Stroke , the fairy tale was filmed as "Helene, the true bride" in 2020.

literature

  • Moriz Haupt: A fairy tale from Upper Lusatia . In: Moriz Haupt (Hrsg.): Journal for German antiquity . Second volume. Weidmann, 1842, ISSN  1619-6627 , p. 481-486 ( online ).
  • 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. 755-761 .
  • 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. 267,511 .
  • Heinz Rölleke : Grimm's fairy tales and their sources. The literary models of the Grimm fairy tales are synoptically presented and commented on (=  series of literature studies . Volume 35 ). 2nd Edition. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Trier 2004, ISBN 3-88476-717-8 , p. 440-453, 579 .
  • Hans-Jörg Uther : Handbook to the "Children's and Household Tales" by the Brothers Grimm. Origin, effect, interpretation . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 , pp. 382-383 .

Web links

Wikisource: The True Bride  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Moriz Haupt: A fairy tale from Upper Lusatia . In: Moriz Haupt (Hrsg.): Journal for German antiquity . Second volume. Weidmann, 1842, ISSN  1619-6627 , p. 481-486 ( online ).
  2. ↑ Edzard Storck: Old and new creation in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Turm Verlag, Bietigheim 1977, ISBN 3-7999-0177-9 , pp. 212-218.
  3. ^ Wilhelm Salber : Märchenanalyse (=  work edition Wilhelm Salber . Volume 12 ). 2nd Edition. Bouvier, Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-416-02899-6 , pp. 180-183 .