Snow White and Rose Red

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Snow white and rose red, depiction by Alexander Zick
Depiction by Alexander Zick
Depiction by Alexander Zick

Snow white and rose red is a fairy tale ( ATU 426). It is in the children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm from the 3rd edition from 1837 at position 161 (KHM 161), in the small edition from 1833. Wilhelm Grimm first published Schneeweißchen and Rosenroth in 1827 in Wilhelm Hauff's Mährchen-Almanach . It is based on The Ungrateful Dwarf in Karoline Stahl's Fables, Fairy Tales and Stories for Children from 1818.

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One mother has two very lovely daughters, Snow White and Rose Red. They resemble the white and red rose trees in your garden. Snow white is quieter than rose red and more often at home. The girls in the forest are not in danger from the animals, and even when they sleep right next to an abyss, they are protected by their guardian angel . One winter a bear looks for shelter with them every evening, and the children, although they are afraid at first, gain confidence and play with him as the bear likes. When things get too bad for him, he growls, “Leave me alive, you children. Snow white, rose red, kill the suitor for you. "

In the spring, the bear has to leave again to protect its treasures from the dwarfs. He tears his fur on the door frame. Snow-white thinks she sees gold shimmering through. Later the girls meet a dwarf three times in the forest, who is stuck with his beard on a felled tree and then on a fishing line, then a bird of prey tries to carry him away. They help him every time, but he is ungrateful and scolds him for damaging his beard and skirt. At the fourth meeting, the dwarf becomes angry because snow-white and rose-red surprise him in front of a heap of precious stones. The bear comes and kills the dwarf. When they recognize the bear, he turns into a king's son, from whom, they learn, the dwarf stole his treasures and whom he had cursed. Snow white marries the king's son and Rosenrot his brother.

interpretation

The contrast between the innocent children and the greedy dwarf is particularly pronounced, even for a fairy tale. The characters of the strong bear and the good mother are also noticeably clichéd.

Despite their closeness, the two children have opposing symbols. Red are the berries that they pick in the forest, where Rosenrot likes to romp around. In contrast, the pigeon and the lamb in the room are white in winter. Rose red opens the door, Snow White closes it and says goodbye to the bear.

The beard , which the children trim the dwarf , signifies strength in many old stories, as with Samson in the Old Testament (cf. KHM 196 ), and in the Middle Ages it was also a sign of royal dignity. The bear also has thick fur here, which falls off when the dwarf dies. His farewell with gold under his skin parallels the dwarf with the gold sack, just like his fight with the fish the guardian angel on the abyss.

The dwarf fights once against a being of the earth (tree), once of the water (fish) and once of the air (bird). This combination of the three-part fairy tale structure with the four-element teaching can be seen in many Grimm fairy tales, e.g. B. in The True Bride .

The double image of sisters in snow white and rose red is particularly appealing , in which both are equally beautiful and equally good. This aspect is extremely rare in the two-sister fairy tales. In these fairy tales there is mostly a constellation like that of Goldmarie and Pechmarie in Frau Holle , where one is good and vulnerable, the other vicious and jealous, the latter mostly still actively supported by her alter ego, the evil stepmother. Through this special position, Schneeweißchen and Rosenrot have become an archetype of a sisterly relationship in which both can positively determine their selves, even if they differ, without harming each other.

Bruno Bettelheim states that the often repulsive side of the animal bridegroom from fairy tales such as in Das singende jumpingende Löweneckerchen (KHM 88) is not missing here either - he is driven out in the form of the dwarf. The fact that Schneeweißchen marries the prince and Rosenrot his brother emphasizes the unity of the protagonists. As long as the woman rejects sexual desire, the partner remains animalistic in both eyes. For Eugen Drewermann the unbrokenness of the fairy tale pictures is an opportunity to question the contradicting adult point of view and to become like children ( Mk 10.15  EU ). In Mother Nature's house, winter and summer live hand in hand, the opposing pair of siblings. The totemism or psychological symbolism of the two rose trees shows the unity of nature and man, innocence and longing, preservation and devotion, grace and dignity, growing up in childliness, which succeeds in a fear-free environment. So they only become aware of the abyss at the end of childhood afterwards. The integration of the wild bear must initially frighten the one-sided maternal world. According to Freud, it is a question of fear of the id; according to Jung , the fatherly is the fourth, undeveloped function, note the sexual symbolism of her games around the fire. The conscience of your child's guardian angel has become an obsolete dwarf who is no longer taken so seriously, but still has to be kept alive for a while, for example against the eagle-like intellectualism of the city (fear of superego), until adult love forces the decision. Wilhelm Salber observes changes between dual states that complement each other or can be hostile.

origin

Snow white, rose red and the bear

Wilhelm Grimm's note refers to Karoline Stahl's The ungrateful dwarf (which he already summarized in the annotation volume of 1822), for the verse of the bear on Johann Friedrich Kind's novella Das Butterlings-Cabinet in the paperback Minerva for the year 1813 . According to his handwritten note, the mention of the suitors (in the original plural) inspired his additions. He first spreads the childish family idyll and then introduces the animal bridegroom (cf. KHM 88 , 127 ). Karoline Stahl focuses on the evil dwarf, who is also more widely embellished in Grimm. His tirades, z. B. “Crazy sheep's heads” (from 1833), “you Lorche” (from 1827) are unusually high in Grimm's fairy tales. Wilhelm Grimm worked the text from issue to issue like no other. He shows his personal ideas and met the taste of the public.

The fairy tale The Three Cursed Princes by Božena Němcová provides an interesting narrative variation on Snow White and Rose Red . Here, however, the fairy tale does not move about two, but about three beautiful sisters: the first marries an enchanted bear king, the second an enchanted eagle king and the third sister, who is not yet known in snow white and rose red , marries an enchanted fish king. The three are redeemed by the little brother of the three sisters, who has to free the beautiful little sister of the three animal kings from an evil mountain wizard. He keeps the beautiful girl trapped in a coffin in a mountain in a magical sleep. The mountain magician, in turn, has the features of the Rumpelstiltskin-like male made of snow-white and rose-red. See KHM 82a , 163 .

The conception of the animal shape as a result of a magic spell that is lifted for redemption is comparatively new. In primitive peoples, the transformation to and from animals appears to be a natural trait of humans. Snow white and rose red have a similar theme here as KHM 1 The Frog King , KHM 88 The singing, jumping little lion , KHM 108 Hans my hedgehog , KHM 111 The bear skin , KHM 82a The three sisters , KHM 129a The lion and the frog . For the once sleeping guardian angel cf. KHM 201 Saint Joseph in the forest .

Receptions

Wilhelm Hauff used the fairy tale in his fairy tale almanac for the year 1827 for sons and daughters of educated classes .

Johann Heinrich Lehnert adapted Wilhelm Grimm's version of the fairy tale in 1829 in his fairy tale wreath for children .

Barbara Frischmuth wrote a parodic dialogue: Rosenrot confesses to Snow White that she is unhappy with her beautiful husband and her childhood analysis showed that she desired the dwarf.

Till Lindemann processed the Rosenrot material in a song for his band Rammstein .

Margo Lanagan uses the material in her dark fantasy youth novel Ligas Welt .

literature

  • Drewermann, Eugen: Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let your hair down. Grimm's fairy tales interpreted in terms of depth psychology. Munich 1992. pp. 11-60. (dtv-Verlag; ISBN 3-423-35056-3 )
  • Grimm, Brothers: Children's and Household Tales . Complete edition. With 184 illustrations by contemporary artists and an afterword by Heinz Rölleke. Pp. 674-685. Düsseldorf and Zurich, 19th edition 1999. (Artemis & Winkler Verlag; Patmos Verlag, ISBN 3-538-06943-3 )
  • Grimm, Brothers: 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, Stuttgart 1994. S. 255, S. 504. (Reclam-Verlag, ISBN 3-15-003193-1 )
  • Megas, Georgios; Ranke, Kurt: Bart . In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales . Volume 1. pp. 1280-1284. Berlin, New York, 1977.
  • Rölleke, Heinz (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, Trier 2004. pp. 272–285, 570. (Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier; series of literature studies, vol. 35; ISBN 3-88476-717-8 )
  • Rölleke, Heinz: Girls and Bear . In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales. Volume 8. pp. 1350-1353. Berlin, New York, 1996.
  • Schumacher, Ulrich and Lotz, Rouven (eds.): Schneeweißchen and Rosenrot , with illustrations by Emil Schumacher from 1948, Wienand Verlag, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-86832-091-6
  • Uther, Hans-Jörg: Handbook to the children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm . Berlin 2008. pp. 333-336. (de Gruyter; ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 )

theatre

  • Snow white and rose red . A fairy tale game in 3 pictures by Robert Bürkner
  • Snow white and rose red . A children's, youth and school play by Wilfried Reinehr, published by Reinehr-Verlag

Film adaptations

Web links

Wikisource: Snow White and Rose Red  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bruno Bettelheim: Children need fairy tales. 31st edition 2012. dtv, Munich 1980, ISBN 978-3-423-35028-0 , pp. 334-335.
  2. ↑ Drewermann, Eugen: Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let your hair down. Grimm's fairy tales interpreted in terms of depth psychology. Munich 1992. pp. 11-60. (dtv-Verlag; ISBN 3-423-35056-3 )
  3. ^ Wilhelm Salber: fairy tale analysis (= work edition Wilhelm Salber. Volume 12). 2nd Edition. Bouvier, Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-416-02899-6 , pp. 112-114.
  4. ↑ Božena Němcová: The King of Time - Slovak fairy tales translated from Slovak by Peter Hrivinák; Bratislava 1978; Pp. 233-250.
  5. ^ Röhrich, Lutz: Fairy tales and reality . Second expanded edition, Wiesbaden 1964. pp. 92–99. (Franz Steiner Verlag)
  6. ↑ Barbara Frischmuth: Snow white and rose red. In: Wolfgang Mieder (ed.): Grim fairy tales. Prose texts from Ilse Aichinger to Martin Walser. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt (Main) 1986, ISBN 3-88323-608-X , pp. 247-249 (first published in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, No. 302, December 24/25, 1977, p. 37).