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The Golden Bird
"The Golden Bird" (German: Der goldene Vogel) is a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm (KHM 57) about the pursuit of a golden bird by a gardener's three sons.
It is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as type ATU 550, "Bird, Horse and Princess", a folktale type that involves a supernatural helper (animal as helper). Other tales of this type include "The Bird 'Grip'", "The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener", "Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf", "How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon", and "The Nunda, Eater of People".
A similar version of the story was previously collected in 1808 and published as Die weisse Taube ("The White Dove"), provided by Gretchen Wild and published along The Golden Bird in the first edition of the Brothers Grimm compilation. In the original tale, the youngest son of the king is known as Dümmling, a typical name for naïve or foolish characters in German fairy tales. In newer editions that restore the original tale, he is known as "The Simpleton".
Every year, a king's apple tree is robbed of one golden apple during the night. He sets his gardener's sons to watch, and though the first two fall asleep, the youngest stays awake and sees that the thief is a golden bird. He tries to shoot it, but only knocks a feather off.
The feather is so valuable that the king decides he must have the bird. He sends his gardener's three sons, one after another, to capture the priceless golden bird. The sons each meet a talking fox, who gives them advice for their quest: to choose an old and shabby inn over a rich and pleasant one. The first two sons ignore the advice and, in the pleasant inn, abandon their quest. The third son obeys the fox, so the fox advises him to take the bird in its wooden cage from the castle in which it lives, instead of putting it into the golden cage next to it, because this is a signal. But he disobeys, and the golden bird rouses the castle, resulting in his capture. The king of the castle agrees to spare him and give him the golden bird only if he can retrieve the golden horse. The fox advises him to use a dark gray leather saddle rather than a golden one which is a signal again, but he fails again by putting a golden saddle on a horse, resulting in his capture by a different castle. This castle's king sent him after the princess from the golden castle. The fox advises him not to let her say farewell to her parents, but he disobeys, and the princess's father orders him to remove a hill in eight days as the price of his life. The fox removes it for him, and then, as they set out, he advises the son how to keep all the things he has won since then. It then asks the son to shoot it and cut off its head. When the son refuses, it warns him against buying gallows' flesh and sitting on the edge of rivers.
He finds that his older brothers, who have been carousing and living sinfully in the meantime, are to be hanged (on the gallows) and buys their liberty. They find out what he has done. When he sits on a river's edge, they push him in, take the bird, horse and princess and bring them to their father. However, all three grieve for the youngest son. The fox rescues the prince, and when he returns to his father's castle dressed in a beggar's cloak, the bird, the horse, and the princess all recognize him as the man who won them, and become cheerful again. His older brothers get punished for their bad deeds, and he marries the princess.
Finally, at the request of the fox, the third son cuts the head off of the fox. The fox is revealed to be a man, the brother of the princess who had been enchanted by a witch after being lost for a great many years.
The tale type is characterized by a chain of quests, one after the other, that the hero must fulfill before he takes the prizes to his father. In many variants, the first object is the bird that steals the golden apples from the king's garden; in others, it is a magical fruit or a magical plant, which sets up the next parts of the quest: the horse and the princess.
The Golden Bird
"The Golden Bird" (German: Der goldene Vogel) is a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm (KHM 57) about the pursuit of a golden bird by a gardener's three sons.
It is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as type ATU 550, "Bird, Horse and Princess", a folktale type that involves a supernatural helper (animal as helper). Other tales of this type include "The Bird 'Grip'", "The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener", "Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf", "How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon", and "The Nunda, Eater of People".
A similar version of the story was previously collected in 1808 and published as Die weisse Taube ("The White Dove"), provided by Gretchen Wild and published along The Golden Bird in the first edition of the Brothers Grimm compilation. In the original tale, the youngest son of the king is known as Dümmling, a typical name for naïve or foolish characters in German fairy tales. In newer editions that restore the original tale, he is known as "The Simpleton".
Every year, a king's apple tree is robbed of one golden apple during the night. He sets his gardener's sons to watch, and though the first two fall asleep, the youngest stays awake and sees that the thief is a golden bird. He tries to shoot it, but only knocks a feather off.
The feather is so valuable that the king decides he must have the bird. He sends his gardener's three sons, one after another, to capture the priceless golden bird. The sons each meet a talking fox, who gives them advice for their quest: to choose an old and shabby inn over a rich and pleasant one. The first two sons ignore the advice and, in the pleasant inn, abandon their quest. The third son obeys the fox, so the fox advises him to take the bird in its wooden cage from the castle in which it lives, instead of putting it into the golden cage next to it, because this is a signal. But he disobeys, and the golden bird rouses the castle, resulting in his capture. The king of the castle agrees to spare him and give him the golden bird only if he can retrieve the golden horse. The fox advises him to use a dark gray leather saddle rather than a golden one which is a signal again, but he fails again by putting a golden saddle on a horse, resulting in his capture by a different castle. This castle's king sent him after the princess from the golden castle. The fox advises him not to let her say farewell to her parents, but he disobeys, and the princess's father orders him to remove a hill in eight days as the price of his life. The fox removes it for him, and then, as they set out, he advises the son how to keep all the things he has won since then. It then asks the son to shoot it and cut off its head. When the son refuses, it warns him against buying gallows' flesh and sitting on the edge of rivers.
He finds that his older brothers, who have been carousing and living sinfully in the meantime, are to be hanged (on the gallows) and buys their liberty. They find out what he has done. When he sits on a river's edge, they push him in, take the bird, horse and princess and bring them to their father. However, all three grieve for the youngest son. The fox rescues the prince, and when he returns to his father's castle dressed in a beggar's cloak, the bird, the horse, and the princess all recognize him as the man who won them, and become cheerful again. His older brothers get punished for their bad deeds, and he marries the princess.
Finally, at the request of the fox, the third son cuts the head off of the fox. The fox is revealed to be a man, the brother of the princess who had been enchanted by a witch after being lost for a great many years.
The tale type is characterized by a chain of quests, one after the other, that the hero must fulfill before he takes the prizes to his father. In many variants, the first object is the bird that steals the golden apples from the king's garden; in others, it is a magical fruit or a magical plant, which sets up the next parts of the quest: the horse and the princess.
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