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Author
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Comment
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jennioire
Registered User
(3/10/06 9:17 am)
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origins of grimms' 'the juniper tree'
hey everyone,
Im just wondering if there have been any recorded tales that can
be regarded as contributing to the grimms' 'the
juniper tree'?
any light anyone could shed on the matter would be much appreciated,
jenni:)
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Rosemary Lake
Registered User
(3/10/06 5:08 pm)
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Re: origins of grimms' 'the juniper tree'
The motif of killing someone by getting them to look inside a heavy trunk and dropping the lid on them is found in some old Italian versions of Cinderella. There the person killed was a stepmother iirc.
Cooking a child and serving the dish to the father goes back to Greek drama (Medea etc), and is attempted in some old fairy tales -- such as "Sun, Moon, and Talia" iirc -- and perhaps in a Grimm story of a baby found in an eagle's nest.
An innocent person murdered by a family member and then letting outsiders know what happened occurs in old English and European tales, where usually the victim's body has become part of a musical instrument which sings the story of the murder. I'm not sure whether in some of those the victim is resurrected at the end.
I don't recall a single tale combining these that might be a predecessor of "The Juniper Tree." Also, to me its style seems much more 'literary' than most of the stories in Grimm.
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(3/12/06 6:27 am)
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Re: origins of grimms' 'the juniper tree'
I think there's quite a tradition of parents eating children, from the titan Cronus to Titus Andronicus.
There's a tiny bit of info on the ashliman site - www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm047.html... but not much.
He doesn't seem to have anything on type 720 but googling type 720 brought up www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/luck.htm - "Pepper and Salt" and "Waxy Candles".
There's an English version of "The Juniper Tree" called "The Rose Tree" and I think the errand to buy candles appears in that.
I think there are other stories featuring a victim returning as a bird to wreak revenge - Can anyone name any? (I can't.)
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Don
Registered User
(3/12/06 4:26 pm)
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Re: origins of grimms' 'the juniper tree'
Grimms' version of "The Juniper Tree," originally collected by the painter Philipp Otto Runge, came to the Grimms through a complicated route. Its history and path into Grimms collection are described by Maria Tatar in Off with Their Heads! (p. 220 and note 16 on p. 228). Her book is widely available.
Edited by: Don at: 3/12/06 4:27 pm
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