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

When the dance was over her half hour was up, so she tried to slip away. They had a little struggle, because he wanted to hold on to her, but she was too quick for him and ran out before he could stop her.

When she got back to her cubbyhole, she didn’t have time to take the dress off, so she put her fur cloak on over it and then dirtied herself, but in her haste she missed one finger, which remained clean. Then she hurried to make the soup, and while the cook was upstairs she put her golden bobbin into it just as before.

When the king found the bobbin he didn’t waste time calling the cook, but sent for Thousandfurs directly. As soon as she came, he saw her one white finger, and the ring he’d put on it while they were dancing. He seized her hand and held it fast, and as she struggled the fur cloak came open a little and revealed the glitter of the starry dress. The king pushed back the hood of her cloak, and her gold hair fell down; and then he pulled the cloak off altogether, and revealed the lovely princess he’d been dancing with not half an hour before. When her face and hands were washed, no one could deny that she was more beautiful than anyone who had ever lived.

‘You shall be my dearest bride,’ said the king. ‘And we shall never part.’

Their wedding was celebrated soon afterwards, and they lived happily for the rest of their lives.

Tale type:ATU 510B, ‘Peau d’Asne’

Source:a story told to the Grimm brothers by Dortchen Wild

Similar stories:Giambattista Basile: ‘The Bear’ ( The Great Fairy Tale Tradition , ed. Jack Zipes); Italo Calvino: ‘Wooden Maria’ ( Italian Folktales ); Charles Perrault: ‘Donkey-Skin’ ( Perrault’s Complete Fairy Tales ); Giovanni Francesco Straparola: ‘Tebaldo’ ( The Great Fairy Tale Tradition , ed. Jack Zipes)

This tale begins very well: the king promising his wife to marry no one less beautiful than she is after she dies, and then falling in love with his own daughter… But halfway through, when the princess runs away, we see no more of the obsessed father; the story changes altogether and becomes a variant of ‘Cinderella’. What happened to the incest theme? It seems to me that running away is no way for a story to deal with something so dramatic. It deserves a better resolution than that.

Straparola’s version realizes that, and makes the king, Tebaldo, pursue his daughter relentlessly. Taking a hint from that, I would continue the tale the Grimms have given us by letting the good king and his new bride live happily and have two children. One day a merchant would arrive at the palace with a case full of pretty toys. He would give a toy to the boy and another to the girl, and say, ‘Remember me to your mother.’ They would run to show her a golden spinning wheel, a golden bobbin. Troubled, she would order this merchant to be brought to her, but he would have vanished.

Next day would be Sunday, and she would see him in the crowd as the royal family goes to the cathedral. He would look at her and smile, and there would be no doubt: her father. For the first time, she would confess to her husband the horror that led her to flee her home and become Thousandfurs. He would be appalled, and order that this merchant be sought out and arrested.

That evening, the queen would go to confession, afraid that she is somehow to blame for her father’s abominable lust. The priest would assure her that she is innocent, but that she is misjudging her father, whose love for her is pure and holy. Furthermore, love between fathers and daughters is sanctified by holy scripture, as in the case of…

At that point she would recognize his voice and run, calling for help, only to find herself locked inside the church with her father. Her screams would arouse the guard, and they would break down the door to find the false priest on the point of ravishing her.

At the orders of the king, the villain would be taken away and hanged. After his death his arms and legs would be cut off and buried separately in unconsecrated ground.

That night the queen would wake from troubled dreams to find earthy fingers probing her lips: her father’s right arm. Mad with terror, she would scream for her husband, only to find him in the bed next to her on the point of death by strangulation: her father’s left arm. No one can help but herself. She would tear the arm away from her face and thrust it into the fire, and then do the same with the other from her husband’s throat, and pile on more wood till they blazed up and finally crumbled into ashes.

I think that would work quite well.

Once upon a time there was an ancient castle in the middle of a deep forest, where an old woman lived all by herself. She was a powerful witch. Every day she turned herself into a cat or an owl, and every evening she turned herself back into her human form. She knew how to capture birds and other game, which she would slaughter and then roast and eat. If any man came within a hundred steps of the castle, she would cast a spell over him, making him unable to move until she freed him. If an innocent girl came that close, however, the old woman would change her into a bird and force her into a wicker basket. Then she would carry the basket up to a room in the castle, where she kept more than seven thousand other birds of this kind.

Now at that time there was a girl called Jorinda, who people said was the most beautiful girl in the whole kingdom. She was betrothed to a handsome boy called Joringel. It wasn’t long before their marriage, and they loved nothing more than to be in each other’s company.

One afternoon they wanted to be alone, so they went for a walk in the forest. ‘We must be careful not to go too close to the castle,’ Joringel said.

It was a lovely evening; the sun shone warmly on the tree trunks against the dark green of the deep woods, and turtledoves cooed mournfully in the old beech trees. From time to time Jorinda wept, though she didn’t know why. She sat down in the sunlight and sighed, and Joringel sighed too. They felt as sad as if they were close to death. In the intensity of their emotions they lost track of where they were, and couldn’t find the way home.

When the sun had not quite set, when it was half below and half above the mountains, Joringel, searching for the right path, parted the leaves of a bush and saw the wall of the castle only a few yards away. It was such a shock that he nearly fainted. In the same moment he heard Jorinda beginning to sing:

But she couldn’t complete the verse. Instead Joringel heard a nightingale pouring out its song, and he saw to his horror that there was indeed a nightingale perching on a branch just where Jorinda had been standing. Not only that, but a night owl with glowing eyes was flying around her. It flew around three times, crying: ‘ To-whoo! To-whoo! To-whoo! ’

And Joringel himself had been turned to stone. He couldn’t move, couldn’t cry out, couldn’t even blink. It was almost dark by then. The owl flew into a bush and he lost sight of it, but then the leaves rustled and out came a bent old woman, haggard and yellow, with blood-red eyes and a crooked nose whose tip almost touched her chin. Mumbling to herself, she snatched the nightingale from the branch and carried it away.

And Joringel couldn’t cry out, couldn’t move a muscle. The nightingale was gone.

Before long the old woman came back empty-handed. In a cracked old voice she said, ‘When the moon shines into the basket, Zachiel, set him free.’