Fox you stole the goose

This article covers the song. For the novel, see Fox, you stole the goose (novel) .

Youth stamp of the Deutsche Bundespost (1958)

Fox, you've stolen the goose is one of three stanzas existing German-language children's song .

The lyrics were written by Ernst Anschütz to the melody of an older folk song and published in 1824 under the title Warning . It is one of the most famous children's songs in German-speaking countries.

content

In the text, a thieving fox is threatened with the fact that the hunter will shoot him if he does not bring back the goose he has caught or stolen from people. At the end of the last stanza he is advised to limit himself to looking for food to mice, that is, to prey in the wild.

melody

Ernst Anschütz based his text on the popular song Who Stole the Goose, which was known at the time . The ascending line of the melody first, is based - as for example in all my ducks or bunnies in the pit - on the major - scale .

text

1. Fox, you stole the goose,
|: give it back! : |
|: Otherwise the hunter will get you
with the rifle. : |

2. His big, long shotgun
|: shoots the shot at you,: |
|: that the red ink colors you
and then you are dead.: |

3. Dear little fox, let me advise you,
|: don't be a thief; : |
|: take, you don't need roast goose, just
use the mouse. : |

Others

In Japan, Fox You Stole the Goose is also popular. In 1947 Yoshiu Katsu wrote a text that is also about a fox ( Kogitsune "little fox") on the same melody. This version can still be found in Japanese primary school music books to this day. In contrast to the German version, some cultural differences are taken into account; the fox is not a "thief" there but a lovable creature who adorns itself and makes itself pretty and is described as pitiable because it is threatened by the cold in winter. The hunter, who is “foreign to the culture” for Japan, does not appear in the Japanese version either.

A short film by Alfred Stöger from 1936 is named after the song . In 1997 Edith Walther published the German translation of the 1991 book A Season for Murder by Ann Granger under the title Fuchs, du hast die Gans stolen . The German deathcore band We Butter the Bread with Butter has reinterpreted this song on their 2008 album The Monster from the Closet .

literature

• Ernst Klusen : German songs. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-458-04855-2 , p. 721 u. 852
• Theo Mang, Sunhilt Mang (ed.): The song source . Noetzel, Wilhelmshaven 2007, ISBN 978-3-7959-0850-8 , pp. 672 f .
• Heinz Rölleke (Ed.): The folk song book . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-462-02294-6 , pp. 343 .

Web links

• Fuchs, you stole the goose in the song project of Carus-Verlag and SWR2

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ernst Anschütz: Musical school hymn book. Issue 1. Reclam, Leipzig 1824, p. 38 ( digitized version of the Herzog August library ).
2. ↑ Junko Hayakawa: The Reception of German Songs in Japan. In: Song and popular culture - Yearbook of the German Folk Song Archive Freiburg. 55th year - 2010, ISSN  1619-0548 , ISBN 978-3-8309-2395-4 , pp. 183–198, here pp. 195–198 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
3. ↑ Film Archive of the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation ( Memento of 26 September 2007 at the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ Fox, you've stolen the goose (1936) in the Internet Movie Database (English)