The queen bee

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The queen bee is a fairy tale ( ATU 554). It is in the children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm from the 2nd edition of 1819 at position 62 (KHM 62), previously with others at position 64, and comes from Albert Ludewig Grimm's collection of children's fairy tales (1808, pp. 113-134) .

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The fairy tale The Queen Bee , which is not very detailed, describes the benefits of a simple-mindedness paired with a friendly disposition. When the stupid finds his two older brothers who do not return home from their adventures, they ridicule him that he "wanted to get through the world with his simplicity, and they two could not get away and would be much smarter". This simplicity, however, benefits the stupid when he is unable to consent to the destruction of an anthill , the killing of a duck and finally the looting of a beehive . When the three brothers arrive in an enchanted castle, in which they are given tasks that can hardly be solved, the stupid animal friends benefit. While the supposedly experienced brothers both fail at the task of collecting a thousand pearls from the king's daughter and turn to stone, the spared ants help the stupid here. He then has to fetch a key from a pond with the help of the ducks and finally find out the youngest of the three completely alike royal daughters in order to break the spell that the queen bee helps. The youngest daughter then becomes the stupid's wife, the other two marry his brothers.

origin

Illustration by Otto Ubbelohde , 1909
Illustration by Otto Ubbelohde , 1909

Grimm's note notes “From Hessen”, but Jacob Grimm's handwriting from 1809 goes back to The Three King Sons from Albert Ludewig Grimm's Children 's Fairy Tale (No. 6). He shortened a lot of what sounds like legend with Albert Ludwig Grimm: There the action takes place “in the Orient”. The father gives the sons “a horse and a knight's dress and a sword” and admonishes them to “show themselves knightly”, but they live “dissolute and untidy”. A dream shows the father that the youngest can save her (cf. 1 Mos 41  LUT ). The descriptions of the castle and the paintings on which the tasks are depicted are much more detailed and seem more concrete. The male reports how his daughters Rubia, Briza and Pyrola were cursed by their mother 2000 years ago. The festival is also described, the brothers and the father join in. Later someone else rules, the land falls victim to the flood, "and only this legend is left of him." The youngest son is also in the original text "obedient and good, but not as clever as his brothers". Wilhelm Grimms adds the name "Dummling" and the slight increase that the second brother already finds 200 pearls.

The annotation reproduces a fairy tale that was in the 1st edition as No. 16 Mr. Fix and Ready and mentions it in Dutch in Wolf's Wodana No. 4 de grateful Dieren , in Hungarian in Gaal No. 8, in Persian in Touti Rameh (No. 21 at Iken ): A king dies, the older son takes the crown, the younger emigrates. He saves a frog from a snake by shouting and compensates it with his own flesh. In return they serve him when he has to fetch the king's ring from the lake and heal his daughter from a snakebite. The Grimms also name Straparola's fairy tales from Livoret (3, 2) and reproduce one from "the Jewish Maasähbuch (chap. 143 by Rabbi Chanina)": The king becomes aware of the king's daughter through a raven who puts a golden hair from her on the Drops her armpit (like with Tristan ), which he had torn from her. Chanina helps a raven, a dog and a fish on the way. The raven fetches the water of paradise and hell for him, the fish lets the swallowed ring spit out, the dog tears the pig, which devours him again. Chanina comes in the royal favor and is murdered by horsemen. The young queen resuscitates him with the heavenly water and burns the king, who also tries, with the hellish water. To do this, compare KHM 126 Ferenand trü and Ferenand untrü , KHM 17 The White Snake , in Prohle's children's fairy tale No. 7 Soldier Lorenz .

According to Hans-Jörg Uther , the material comes from the Orient. Carl Lindahl According calls Freud in Totem and Taboo animal helpers the family romance of primitive man, others understand them as different aspects of the opinion of the hero and the narrator and listener. Stupid tales are in Grimm KHM 33 The three languages , KHM 54 The satchel, the hat and the horn , KHM 57 The golden bird , KHM 62 The queen bee , KHM 63 The three feathers , KHM 64 The golden goose , KHM 97 The water of life , KHM 106 The poor miller's boy and the kitten , KHM 165 The Griffin , KHM 54a Hans Dumm , KHM 64a The white dove . The death sleep is of course more central in KHM 50 Sleeping Beauty . There are also thankful animals in KHM 17 The White Snake , KHM 57 The Golden Bird , KHM 60 The Two Brothers , KHM 126 Ferenand Trü and Ferenand Untroubled , KHM 191 The Sea Bunny . Cf. in Giambattista Basiles Pentameron V, 4 The golden trunk .

interpretation

For anthroposophist Rudolf Meyer , Dummling shows the right awe and wisdom of the heart, which can be learned from non-human intelligences. Edzard Storck means with Novalis ( Die apprentices to Sais , II) that nature is petrified for top-heavy people, but after Angelus Silesius you have “the creator” and everything follows you. Spiritual love penetrates every thing in a redeeming way, instructs the “stone tablets”, animals are role models ( Prov. 6,6  EU ), which Rilke also thinks : “We are the bees of the invisible ...” ( letters from Muzot ). Ortrud Stumpfe writes similarly of the care and renewal of the vital forces through illumination in love. The bee is said to be selfless service in the rhythm of an order structure ( Artemis ), the honey the most intensive extract of nature.

Bruno Bettelheim explains Freudian older brothers than just the time passed, whereby they do not respond to higher values and could just as well be made of stone. The stupid, symbol of the ego , obeys the superego , but also needs the help of animal nature. Ants, ducks and bees represent the elements earth, water and air.

Receptions

In Ludwig Bechstein's German book of fairy tales , the version modified in 1853 (No. 5, previously No. 6) , The Enchanted Princess borrows heavily from Grimm's Die Bienenkönigin .

In Janosch's parody, the brothers get mediocre grades, boring jobs and rich women, only the simple-minded animal lover lives with a beautiful girl like in paradise, she calls herself a queen bee.

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. Revised and bibliographically supplemented edition, Reclam, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-15-003193-1 , pp. 122–124, 470.
  • Heinz Rölleke (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. Cologny-Geneve 1975 (Fondation Martin Bodmer, Printed in Switzerland), pp. 102-105, 358-359.
  • Heinz Rölleke (Ed.): Grimm's fairy tales and their sources. The literary models of the Grimm fairy tales are presented synoptically and commented on . 2., verb. Edition, series of literature studies vol. 35, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Trier 2004, ISBN 3-88476-717-8 , pp. 76–95, 556–557.
  • 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. 152-153.
  • Carl Lindahl: Grateful (helpful) animals. In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales. Volume 3. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1981, ISBN 3-11-008201-2 , pp. 287-299.

Web links

Wikisource: The Queen Bee  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans-Jörg Uther: Handbook on the children's and house tales of the Brothers Grimm. de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 , pp. 152-153.
  2. ^ Carl Lindahl: Grateful (helpful) animals. In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales. Volume 3. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1981, ISBN 3-11-008201-2 , p. 297.
  3. ^ Rudolf Meyer: The wisdom of German folk tales. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 1963, pp. 117–123.
  4. ↑ Edzard Storck: Old and new creation in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Turm Verlag, Bietigheim 1977, ISBN 3-7999-0177-9 , pp. 270-274.
  5. ↑ Ortrud Stumpfe: The symbolic language of fairy tales. 7th edition. Aschendorff, Münster 1992, ISBN 3-402-03474-3 , pp. 26-27.
  6. ↑ Bruno Bettelheim: Children need fairy tales. 31st edition 2012. dtv, Munich 1980, ISBN 978-3-423-35028-0 , pp. 90-92.
  7. ^ Hans-Jörg Uther: Sources and Notes. In: Hans-Jörg Uther (Ed.): Ludwig Bechstein. Storybook. After the edition of 1857, text-critically revised and indexed. Eugen Diederichs Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-424-01372-2 , p. 382.
  8. ↑ Janosch: The queen bee. In: Janosch tells Grimm's fairy tale. Fifty selected fairy tales, retold for today's children. With drawings by Janosch. 8th edition. Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim and Basel 1983, ISBN 3-407-80213-7 , pp. 74-75.