Grimm Reviews – “King Thrushbeard”

My introductory post.  

“King Thrushbeard”

There once was a beautiful princess who was so full of herself that she always rejected her suitors and made fun of them. The King held a big feast where all the marriageable men were lined up, but the princess made fun of each and every one of them. One king had a peaked chin and she stated that he had “a chin like a thrush’s beak.” So everyone began calling him King Thrushbeard.

But her father was so upset with her that he said he would give her to the first beggar who came to his door. A few days later, a ragged ballad-singer came by. When he was finished singing for the King, he asked for a small reward and the King gave him the princess.

So the princess was married to the ballad-singer and the King sent them away. They went through a wood, a meadow and a town, and the princess asked each time who they belong to, and the ballad-singer replied that they belonged to King Thrushbeard, and they could have been hers.

They arrived at the ballad-singer’s small house. He had no servants, so the princess had to do the cooking and cleaning, things she had never done before. When their food ran out, the ballad-singer said she should make baskets. But the twigs were too hard, so the ballad-singer said she should try spinning. But the thread cut her fingers, so the ballad-singer said she should sell some earthenware pots he had in town.

The first day, people bought her pots because she was so beautiful, and they lived on that money for some time. When that ran out, the ballad-singer got more pots for her to sell. But a drunken soldier rode by and smashed all of her pots.

So the ballad-singer took her back to her father’s castle to be a kitchen maid. She kept little pots in her pockets for the leftover food which she took home to her husband.

One night there was a banquet and she stood to the side watching all the finely dressed people. There King Thrushbeard saw her and took her hand and took her to the dance floor, where all her little pots fell and food was scattered on the floor and everyone laughed at her.

The princess ran off, but King Thrushbeard caught her and explained that he had disguised himself as a ballad-singer, and as a soldier to knock her down a peg. And then everything was happy.

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So, the two of them lived as man and wife for, a several weeks at least, but she never noticed he wore a disguise? Or was she too distraught to look at her husband? And what sort of kingdom did Thrushbeard have that he could play beggar for weeks without anything happening? 

Grimm Reviews – “The Jew Among Thorns”

My introductory post.  

“The Jew Among Thorns”

There once was a miser who didn’t pay his servant for several years, and when the servant wanted his pay so he could go off and see the world, the miser severely underpaid him. The servant didn’t understand money and thought he had a fortune, so he set off singing and dancing down the road.

Along the way he met an old man who asked for money because he was old and could no longer work. The servant gave him his money, and the old man granted him three wishes. The three things the servant wished for were a gun that never missed, a fiddle that made everyone dance, and that nobody would be able to refuse him any favor he asked.

The servant set out and he came upon an old Jew who wanted a bird that was sitting up in a tree. The servant shot it with his gun and it fell into some thorn-bushes, and he told the Jew to fetch it himself.

The Jew crawled into the thorns to get the bird, and the servant began playing his fiddle. The Jew started jumping and dancing all about as the thorns ripped his skin and clothes. To make him stop, the Jew offered up a purse full of gold.

So the servant took the purse and went on his way. Once he was out of sight, the Jew cursed him and ran to town to get the judge.

Men went out and found the servant and brought him back to the town. He said the Jew had given him the money of his own free will, but the judge didn’t buy that because “no Jew would do that.” The servant was convicted of robbery and sentenced to hang.

As he was being led to the gallows, the servant asked the favor of playing his fiddle one last time. The servant began to play and everyone there began to jump about and dance. He played for a long time until the judge offered to spare his life if he stopped. The servant stopped playing and went to the Jew and asked where he had gotten the purse of gold. The Jew said he had stolen it, so the judge sent him to the gallows.

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Why do I have the feeling this story will never be made into a kid’s movie? I think the oddest twist in this for me is that the servant is described as good hearted. I mean, he gave all his money to some beggar he met on the road. But the very next man he meets on the road, he sends into a thorn bush and makes him dance about. So I guess the “moral” of this story is that you can be both good hearted and cruel, as long as you’re cruel to Jews.

Grimm Reviews – “The Old Beggar-Woman”

My introductory post.  

“The Old Beggar-Woman”

There once was an old beggar woman. She stopped at a house where a boy was warming himself by the fire. He invited her in and she stood so close to the fire her rags began to burn, but she didn’t notice. And the boy just watched instead of crying all the water from his body to put it out.

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That’s the “story.” Seriously. Other than, don’t stand so close to a fire that you catch on fire, I’m not sure what the point of this is.