Array The Brothers Grimm - Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm - A New English Version

As he said that, the bird threw down the little red shoes.

Marleenken put on the shoes, and found they fitted her perfectly. She was delighted, and she danced and skipped into the house and said, ‘Oh, what a beautiful bird! I was so sad when I went out, and see what he’s given me! Mama, look at these lovely shoes!’

‘No! No!’ cried the woman. She jumped to her feet, and her hair stood out all round her head like flames of fire. ‘I can’t stand any more! I feel as if the world were coming to an end! I can’t stand it!’

And she ran out of the door and out on to the grass, and — bam! The bird dropped the millstone on her head, and she was crushed to death.

The father and Marleenken heard the crash and ran out. Smoke and flames and fire were rising from the spot, and then came a breath of wind and cleared them all away; and when they were gone, there was little brother standing there.

And he took his father by one hand and Marleenken by the other, and all three of them were very happy; and so they went inside their house and sat down at the table and ate their supper.

Tale type:ATU 720, ‘The Juniper Tree’

Source:a story written by Philipp Otto Runge

Similar stories:Katharine M. Briggs: ‘The Little Bird’, ‘The Milk-White Doo’, ‘Orange and Lemon’, ‘The Rose Tree’ ( Folk Tales of Britain )

For beauty, for horror, for perfection of form, this story has no equal. Like ‘The Fisherman and His Wife’, it is the work of the painter Philipp Otto Runge, and came to the Grimms in manuscript form and in the Pomeranian dialect of Plattdeutsch or Low German.

A comparison with the several versions of the story in Katharine M. Briggs’s Folk Tales of Britain will show how much Runge improved the basic thread of the narrative. Her versions are thin and insubstantial: this is a masterpiece.

The prelude, with its lovely evocation of the seasons changing as the wife’s pregnancy develops, associates the child in her womb with the regenerative powers of nature, and especially with the juniper tree itself. After the mother’s death comes the first part of the story proper, the gruesome tale of the stepmother and the little boy up to the appearance of the bird, which would be simple Grand Guignol were it not for the unusual depths of malice shown in the character of the mother. The parallels with Greek drama (Atreus feeding Thyestes his own sons) and Shakespeare (Titus Andronicus feeding Tamora hers) are interesting too. The father’s eating the son is capable of many interpretations: a student of mine once suggested that the father is unconsciously aware of the threat posed to his son by the stepmother, and is putting him in a place where he’ll be perfectly safe. I thought that was ingenious.

After the horror of the first part of the story proper, everything is sunshine and light. At first we can’t understand what the bird is doing, but the golden chain and the red slippers are pretty, and the comedy of the goldsmith running out of the house and losing his own slipper is diverting. Finally we come to the mill, and the second part of the story ends with the bird improbably but convincingly flying away with the millstone as well as the slippers and the chain. Then we begin to understand.

The final part of the story is reminiscent of the climax of ‘The Fisherman and His Wife’, with the storm paralleling the climax of guilt and madness felt by the wife. This time, the storm is internal: the father and Marleenken feel nothing but delight and pleasure as the little boy is returned to them, while the mother is demented with terror.

There is an interesting point connected with the actual telling of this story, which bears out its literary nature. It matters a great deal to remember exactly the sequence of events as the woman’s pregnancy develops, and the number of apprentices who stop chipping at the millstone with each line of the verse, and the precise way the mother’s terror is interlined with the bird’s singing and the gifts of the chain and the slippers. The precision of Runge’s narration deserves — and rewards — complete faithfulness.

What a privilege it is to tell this story.

Once there were a king and queen who said to each other every day, ‘Wouldn’t it be good to have a child?’ But for all their wishing, all their praying, all their expensive medicine and special diets, no child came.

Then one day, when the queen was bathing, a frog crept out of the water and sat on the bank and said to her, ‘Your wish will be granted. Before a year has passed, you’ll bring a daughter into the world.’

The frog’s words came true. After a year the queen gave birth to a baby girl who was so beautiful that the king couldn’t contain his joy, and he ordered a great celebration to which he invited not only his royal relatives from every nearby country, but also friends and distinguished people of every kind. Among those were the thirteen Wise Women. The king wanted them there so that they’d be well disposed towards his daughter, but the trouble was that he only had twelve gold plates for them to eat off. One of the Wise Women would have to stay at home.

The feasting and celebrating went on for some time, and it ended with the Wise Women presenting the new princess with special gifts. This one gave her virtue, that one gave her beauty, a third gave her wealth, and so on; everything anyone could wish for was hers.

The eleventh one had just given her gift (patience) when there was a disturbance at the door. The guards were trying to keep someone out, but she swept them aside and came in anyway. It was the thirteenth Wise Woman.

‘So you didn’t think me worth inviting?’ she said to the king. ‘What a mistake that was! Here’s my answer to that insult: in her fifteenth year, the princess will prick her finger on a spindle and fall down dead.’

And she turned on her heel and swept out.

Everyone was shocked. But the twelfth Wise Woman, who hadn’t given her gift yet, stepped forward and said: ‘I can’t completely undo that evil wish, but I can soften it. The princess will not die, but fall asleep for a hundred years.’

The king, wanting to protect his daughter, issued a command that every spindle in the land should be burned. As the princess grew up it was clear that all the Wise Women’s gifts were there in full abundance: never had anyone known a girl kinder, more beautiful, more clever or more sweet-tempered. She was loved by everyone who knew her.

Now on the day when the princess turned fifteen, it happened that the king and the queen were away, and the girl was alone in the castle. She wandered about from one place to the next, looking into this room or that, into the cellar, up on the rooftop, going wherever she wanted; and at last she came to an old tower where she’d never been before. She climbed up the dusty spiral staircase and found a small door at the top with a rusty key in the lock.

Curious, the princess turned the key and at once the door sprang open. In the little room sat an old woman with a spindle, busily spinning flax.

‘Good morning, old lady,’ said the princess. ‘What’s that you’re doing?’

‘I’m spinning,’ said the old woman.

Of course, the princess had never seen anyone spinning before.

‘What’s that little thing bouncing around at the end of the thread?’ she said.

The old woman offered to show her how to do it. The princess took hold of the spindle, and a second later she felt a prick in her finger — and down she fell on the bed that lay ready, fast asleep.