The white and the black bride
The white and black bride is a fairy tale ( ATU 403). It is in the children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm at position 135 (KHM 135). Until the 2nd edition the title was The White and Black Bride .
content
A woman with daughter and stepdaughter meets God in the form of a poor man who asks her for directions. Mother and daughter are rude, but the stepdaughter shows him the way, so that he curses the former for becoming black and ugly, but for the latter leaves three wishes. She wants beauty like the sun, a wallet that will never be empty, and the eternal kingdom of heaven. When the other two realize it, they hate her. The stepdaughter's brother named Reginer paints a picture of his sister. The king, whose wife has just died, hears about the picture in Reginer's room, who is his coachman, and wants to marry her. On the carriage ride to the castle, the stepmother Reginer clouds her eyes and the stepdaughter's ears. When Reginer turns to his sister, she doesn't understand him, and the stepmother lets her give the golden dress, then the bonnet to the wrong daughter, then lean out of the car and they push her into the river. The king is angry about the ugliness of his bride and has Reginer thrown into a pit with otters and snakes, but the witch makes him marry her daughter after all. The bride on the right comes up the gutter three times in the evening in front of the kitchen boy as a talking duck when the wrong bride is sitting on the king's lap. After the third time, the kitchen boy tells the king. He chops off the duck's head with his sword. The true bride stands before him. She tells him everything and lets him free her brother. The king unwittingly lets the stepmother speak her own judgment, after which she and her daughter are dragged away by a horse in a barrel with nails.
Comparisons
Brothers Grimm: KHM 13 The three little men in the forest , KHM 24 Frau Holle , KHM 89 The goose girl , KHM 201 Saint Joseph in the forest . To decapitate the animal also KHM 6 The faithful John , KHM 57 The golden bird . Giambattista Basiles Pentameron : II, 9 The bar , IV, 7 The two small cakes , V, 9 The three lemons . Ludwig Bechstein : Zitterinchen in German fairy tale book .
Grimm's note
Grimm's note noted from the Meklenburg and Paderborn . In the former, the brother is killed and buried in the horse stable. In the evening the duck sings, "Open the door and let me warm myself. / my brother is buried under the horses. / cut off the duck's head! ” This happens and the brother is buried (cf. KHM 28 ). They bring the horse stable with the horse Fallada in KHM 89 Die Gänsemagd in connection and with the coachman Reginer in the above version, who was probably originally also the stable master. In the legends of Bohemian prehistoric times (Prague 1808) the witch breaks the carriage window, so that the air and light-sensitive beauty becomes a golden duck. This is also the case with Gerle . They also compare Rosette in Aulnoy , Blanchebelle in les illustres fées , Lai von der Esche in Marie de France , The girl from the sea in Dr. Bertram (Finland), in Pentameron 4, 7, KHM 89 Die Gänsemagd , a fable by Queen Berta that expresses the contrast between black and white by name (the white one, biort ), Schwanhild (Norway), an old German story about a white man and black Dieterich, a folk song by Geyer and Afzelius 1, 81 with a white and a black daughter. The fact that the drowned one lives on as a snow-white duck also corresponds to the motif of the swan maiden ( AaTh 400). Drowned people in the Norse legend return home to the fire with wet clothes at night.
interpretation
False bride and stepmother represent depth psychologically shadow figures who displace the true self. Hedwig von Beit notes that Brother Reginer, as a groom, is also the shadow of the king (of the animus ) (like animal helpers in KHM 17 , 57 , 60 , 62 , 85 , 89 , 126 , 169 , 191 , 16a , 74a , 104a ).
According to psychiatrist Wolfdietrich Siegmund , we are dealing here with the call of the beautiful and the ugly.
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. 631-635 .
- 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. 229-230, 496 .
- 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. 122-126, 360-361. Cologny-Geneve 1975. (Fondation Martin Bodmer; Printed in Switzerland)
- von Beit, Hedwig: Symbolism of the fairy tale. Bern, 1952. pp. 762-764. (A. Francke AG, publisher)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Frederik Hetmann: dream face and magic trace. Fairy tale research, fairy tale studies, fairy tale discussion. With contributions by Marie-Louise von Franz, Sigrid Früh and Wolfdietrich Siegmund. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-596-22850-6 , p. 122.
