The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales (Penguin Classics)

by Franz Xaver von Schonwerth

  TWO BROTHERS

  Rather than giving us a weary retread of a story pitting two brothers against each other, this tale animates the action with whips and swords, lifesaving pets, and limbs that fly through the air. Evil resides purely in the old beggar woman, whose abject exterior conceals violence and aggression. The brothers can reconcile precisely because the blame for all evils—from petrifaction to delusional behavior—is placed on her shoulders.

  TRICKING THE WITCH

  The witch who kidnaps three princesses has trouble keeping secrets to herself. The clever trio learns how to work magic, and the youngest of the three uses it to keep the witch and her accomplices (the two sisters) at bay in a chase that has the frenzied, bolting energy of a cinematic sequence. The rose and rosebush, church and priest, lake and duck are standard features of the chase in similar tales, but the girl in this tale does not throw magic objects (combs, brushes, and mirrors) in the path of her pursuers, as she does in variants of the tale type known as “The Magic Flight.” Like Rapunzel, the three girls are kept captive by a witch or enchantress and liberate themselves when they come of age, in a plot that resonates with adolescent longings from times past as well as today.

  THE ENCHANTED FIDDLE

  Here is a tale that reminds us of the power of words. A mother’s words, spoken in anger, turn out to work magic, with unintended consequences. That tale type, “The Dance among the Thorns,” features a boy who is dismissed from work or driven away from home. He meets up with a helper/donor who grants him three wishes, usually a musket with perfect aim and an enchanted fiddle. The third wish varies tremendously, with some fellows electing a place in heaven, others forcing their stepmothers to break wind whenever they sneeze. In this particular tale, dance is aligned more with the medieval dance of death than with festive celebrations. The fiddle becomes a diabolical instrument that may release the boy from his death sentence yet also becomes a means of torturing and killing others.

  THE DEVIL AND THE FISHERMAN

  Zacharias’s name comes from the Greek “God has remembered” and thus exercises a certain protective quality over the boy. His adventures in the castle turn him into a superhero who conquers not just male giants but also a female giant, who is replaced by an enchanted young woman with the power to reanimate the castle and its inhabitants.

  THE EXPERT HUNTER

  Closely related to “The Danced-Out Shoes,” this tale, belonging to the category of “The Dangerous Night-Watch,” presents us with the crafty youngest of three sons. When he meets a sleeping beauty, he does not awaken her with a kiss but slips away and returns home. The princess awakens and demonstrates her munificence by opening an inn that is free for the poor, thereby balancing the hunter’s brutal show of expert marksmanship and craft with compassion and beauty.

  A POT OF GOLD IN THE OVEN

  Coarse in its content yet also poetic in its language, this tale gives us a self-reflexive meditation on storytelling and language. The man who discovers buried treasure claims to his talkative partner that some kind of miracle has occurred, thus ensuring that the partner will lose credibility when boasting about the treasure to others. In this case, when the soldier begins to speak poetry and work magic, his wife’s prosaic words of warning break the spell and banish the little man and his treasure. Left to his own devices, the soldier was able to animate the ruins and produce the copper pot filled with coins.

  CONTESTS WITH THE DEVIL

  The devil makes frequent appearances in tales about earning a living through agricultural work. Often he is as much ally as adversary, unwittingly helping a poor farmhand with the mowing or haying and just as often sending a rich man to hell. Who is better suited than the devil for the duplicitous role of villain who enables the hero to gain worldly goods but who must also be tricked or banished in order for the hero to live happily ever after?

  WOUD AND FREID

  This tale offers a fine example of a myth transformed into a folktale, with characters based on the Norse gods Odin and Freyja. A fourteenth-century narrative in Olaf’s Saga recounts Freyja’s acquisition of a necklace. One day Freyja, one of Odin’s concubines, discovers dwarfs in a cave working on a golden necklace. Freyja offers to buy the necklace, but the dwarfs will give it to her only on the condition that she spend one night with each of them. Loki learns about Freyja’s actions and reports them to Odin, who then orders Loki to steal the necklace, which is returned to Freyja under Odin’s conditions. The teller of this tale has turned the story into one of transgression, remorse, and the renewal of devotion between husband and wife.

  THE MOUSE CATCHER, OR THE BOY AND THE BEETLE

  The Pied Piper of Hamelin is here transformed into a mouse catcher, with a whistle rather than a pipe or flute. The German legend refers back to the mysterious disappearance of children from the town of Hamelin in 1284, an event that may have had more to do with disease, a natural catastrophe, emigration, or the Children’s Crusade than with a rat catcher betrayed, if it happened at all. The tale was included in German Legends by the Brothers Grimm, and verse accounts by Goethe and Browning have kept the story alive. Schönwerth adds a coda that gives the story a local flavor and transforms tragedy into “happily ever after.”

  PEARL TEARS

  The girl in this tale functions as both martyr and saint, and she shows unparalleled fortitude in managing the tribulations that come her way, from the death of her mother to persecution at the hands of her stepmother, beatings from her stepbrothers, and exile after opening the door to a forbidden chamber. Especially remarkable is the use of motifs from multiple tale types: The pearls and roses are reminiscent of “The Kind and Unkind Girls,” which features a girl from whose mouth diamonds drop. The forbidden chamber is the central motif of Bluebeard tales, in which the husband forbids his wife to open the door to a single room in his castle. It is a short step from the domestic melodrama of fairy tales to the realm of Christian parable, with a heroine who moves from the hearth as classic innocent persecuted heroine of the fairy tale to a place of healing, where she is saintly in both life and death. Especially noteworthy is the scene of writing, in which God the Father and his Son shape human destinies by inscribing the course of lives into a book. The description suggests something sacred about writing down the story of a life and thereby enacts what the author of this particular tale is attempting in his account of the conversion of a fairy-tale figure into a saint.

  FLOUR FOR SNOW

  Ending with a conciliatory message about the value of satisfaction with the status quo, this is a tale that endorses the work ethic and dutiful piety while renouncing the value of rebellious imagination. The worker does what few fairy-tale characters do: He dreams up a world driven by the work of his imagination, a world in which flour comes down from the heavens, making human labor unnecessary. He quickly learns that a worldly order ruled by the pleasure principle brings nothing but un-pleasure and, relieved that the new order was nothing more than a fantasy, he ceases to grumble about his lot.

  HOYDEL

  Legends about a wooden stick that grows leaves and blossoms into a tree are not uncommon. Redemption is symbolically represented by the green leaves on the dry branch the hero was carrying. The tale evokes the legend of Tannhäuser, who is denied absolution by the pope and told that his chances of being forgiven are as good as the possibility of the pope’s staff sprouting leaves. Miraculously, the staff puts out green shoots. How the carpenter turned into a criminal is not clear, and it is odd that he repents only when there is no more space for notches on his staff. But his story is a reminder that grace can enter the lives of even the most hard-bitten criminals.

  THE TALKER

  “Talk” is, of course, what folktales are all about. The farmer’s wife may not be clever, but she is wise to the ways of the world, knowing that a talker is likely to talk her husband into a bargain for the buyer. She is also unaware that her husband, like many of the fools in
oral tradition, is a literalist, taking her advice at its word. Like many simpletons and numbskulls, he is also protected by good fortune, and in the end, he manages to fetch an excellent price for the cow, returning to his wife and to a happily-ever-after ending.

  THE CLEVER TAILOR

  The title figure of this folktale has no redeeming virtues whatsoever. He does not appear unsettled by the murder of his mother and feels no sense of responsibility, despite the fact that his ruse did her in. And he cheerfully drowns the farmers and steals their livestock. The hardworking women in the village have their bawdy side too, and mooning the tailor is the kind of move that was edited out of print collections of fairy tales. This unrepentant, happy-go-lucky lad (a tailor whose apprenticeship must have been lost when the tale moved from oral storytelling to print culture) keeps his ill-gotten gains and will continue to lie, cheat, and steal in another village.

  LEARNING HOW TO STEAL

  The hero of this tale has turned theft into a fine art. Like the “master thief” found in many different cultures, he is nimble, clever, and cunning. He not only carries out all the tasks put to him but also shows his ability to mix potions, perform physical feats, and engage in mimicry. Note that he never actually steals anything, but rather performs tricks to display the magic of his craft. An itinerant artist, he makes his way into new territory as soon as he is given his traveling papers. Mobility matters to him, especially since he is immersed in a bureaucracy that perpetually seeks to restrain him.

  “DON’T GET MAD!”

  There is a set of tale types known as “labor contracts,” and one of the more interesting among the twenty-nine variants is the “Contest Not to Become Angry.” A farmhand agrees to a contest with the devil, an ogre, or a priest (note the odd fellow in this trio). Whoever becomes angry first loses and must pay the other a sum of money. Often three sons enter the contest, with only the youngest winning, by using the strategy of feigning stupidity, taking idleness to an extreme, or taking an order literally. With an ending that anticipates an episode in the film Fatal Attraction, this tale gives us a hero who may be naive but is also ruthless about winning the contest. And it is his act of storytelling, as proclaimed in the ending, that gives rise to tales about his feats and those of others.

  OFERLA

  Belonging to the tale type known as “The Woman in the Chest” (ATU 1536A), this story has been documented the world over, with Japanese, Russian, and Chilean variants. The motif of disposing of a corpse is repeated three times, with the pastor, the innkeeper’s servant, and the farmer each calling on the schoolteacher to help them out. And the schoolteacher himself finally passes the corpse off to robbers, who come up with the most obvious solution of all: burying the body. In variant forms of the tale, a mother-in-law or a wife’s lover is killed by accident or on purpose, and the husband covers up the murder by leaving the body at a doorstep or putting it on someone’s property. The tale itself can be seen as an allegory about shifting blame, putting the evidence of a crime or misdeed at someone else’s doorstep.

  Showing how a poor man can make money at the expense of the rich, the schoolteacher does not seem to mind that his newfound wealth comes at the expense of an old woman’s life. His story uses burlesque slapstick to conceal what might really be at stake in this tale: the fact that an aging parent can be a troublesome burden, both while alive and at home but also even once dead, as a corpse that needs to find a resting place. The “stolen corpse” story appears today in the form of urban legends (see Jan Harold Brunvand’s The Vanishing Hitchhiker and the film National Lampoon’s Vacation, in which Aunt Edna inconveniently dies during an out-of-state vacation).

  SIR WIND AND HIS WIFE

  This etiological tale about the winds and their direction illustrates the kaleidoscopic structure of fairy tales. Combining the magic of fairy tales (humans turned into statues, glass mountains, and the purifying forces of fire and water), it also gives us the mythical logic of origin tales along with bits and pieces of folk humor about wind and weight. The three aristocrats must develop malleable bodies and use their height and weight to conquer the light breeziness and weighty force of the winds.

  THE ICE GIANTS

  Like many fairy tales, this one begins in a time of famine, with a woman who plans to abandon her children. The mother of the three girls, rescued by a voice that calls out to her, moves into a mythical realm, with its signature giants, frozen seas, and golden apples. In blending fairy-tale themes with mythical motifs, the tale nods in the direction of the story of Demeter and Persephone, with a mother who, in contrast to the mythical goddess, seems perfectly content to arrange marriages with titanic figures.

  WHY SNOW IS WHITE

  In a layer of snow, light bounces around and is reflected and absorbed until it is neutralized to form white. When we see all colors in equal measure on a surface, the object itself turns white. This etiological story explains not only the color of snow but also the antagonism between snow and flowers, anthropomorphized blossoms that jealously guard their colors, withholding them from the baffled and dispirited snow.

  THE SUN TAKES AN OATH

  Few etiological tales work as hard as this one to explain natural events. The story of the sun setting and rising and the moon waxing and waning becomes the opportunity for an allegory about a star-crossed married couple unable to settle differences, despite their love for each other. Sun and Moon are both at fault, the one for volatility and red-hot anger, the other for chilliness and lack of affect, but it is the Sun that takes the fatal oath forever dividing the two marriage partners. And note that star-crossed lovers can take their troubles today to the moon, a heavenly body sympathetic to their sorrows.

  THE SUN’S SHADOW

  Gods can be as temperamental as humans, and so can celestial orbs. In this concise microdrama about the origins of mourning and shadows, the Sun and the Moon gang up on Death, and Death throws a fit even after his rights are validated by the Titans. There are many mysteries in the tale, most notably the white weasel and the effects of licking the eyes of the Titans. The anthropomorphic approach to explaining natural events can be found in folklore the world over.

  WHAT THE MOON TRIED TO WEAR

  Only in fairy tales can an ordinary tailor travel with the moon. And this tailor uses his craft well, making a coat that will keep him warm in the winter, even as the moon is freezing. The moon waxes and wanes, much to the distress of the tailor, who finally gives up on the reward offered by the moon for a warm coat. Writers ranging from Margaret Wise Brown (Goodnight Moon) and Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) to James Thurber (Many Moons) and Brian Selznick (The Invention of Hugo Cabret) have understood the literary pull of the moon, creating books for children and adults that captivate through the luminous beauty of the moon. This moon, by contrast, appears cranky and demanding to the heroic tailor, who does his best to keep making adjustments, without understanding exactly why the moon is such a tough customer to please.

  THE SINGING TREE

  Environmental themes are sounded in many European fairy tales, with rewards for those who treat animals and plants with respect and punishment for those who are careless, profligate, or cruel when it comes to other living beings. Tailors are often positioned as naive and courageous simpletons, but in this story a tailor, seduced by the sorcery of a beautiful melody, is high-spirited and curious, yet also condemned for an act of cruelty that takes the form of vandalizing a tree. Unlike the carter in the Grimms’ “The Dog and the Sparrow,” who is killed as retribution for running over a dog, the tailor in this story survives and internalizes a lesson about doing no harm when it comes to plants and trees. The three scenes of punishment draw on the tools of the tailor’s trade. Needle, scissors, and iron are turned on the tailor, who finds that those tools can become instruments of torture—a telling commentary perhaps on the demands of his trade.

  Notes on Sources and Tale Types

 
by NICOLA SCHÄFFLER

  Below is further information about the tales, including their sources and German titles. All of the tales were recorded in the Oberpfalz, a region in Eastern Bavaria. In some cases information is provided about the specific town where Schönwerth located the tale and who related it to him. For a deeper exploration of the types of tales, supplemental literature is listed, along with the ATU number, which can be used to find further literature about the tales in The Types of International Folktales by Hans-Jörg Uther.

  ABBREVIATIONS

  ATU

  Hans-Jörg Uther. The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography. 3 vols. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2004.

  EM

  Kurt Ranke (ed.). Enzyklopädie des Märchens. Handwörterbuch zur historischen und vergleichenden Erzählforschung. Vol. 1-13.2 Berlin, New York 1977–2009.

  KHM

  Brüder Grimm. Kinder- und Hausmärchen: Nach der großen Ausgabe von 1857, textkritisch revidiert, kommentiert und durch Register erschlossen, 2nd ed. Ed. Hans-Jörg Uther. 4 vols. Munich: Diederich, 1996.

  SCHÖNWERTH: COMPOUND ENTRY

  Compound entry from Franz Xaver von Schönwerth owned by Historischer Verein für Oberpfalz und Regensburg at the archive of the city Regensburg. AHVOR: Schönwerthiana, Fascicle I-X

  SCHÖNWERTH: SITTEN UND SAGEN

  Franz Xaver von Schönwerth. Aus der Oberpfalz: Sitten und Sagen. 3 vols. Augsburg: M. Rieger, 1857–1859.

  ZA

  Zentralarchiv der deutschen Volkserzählung, Universität Marburg, Institut für Europäische Ethnologie / Kulturwissenschaft.

  SOURCES AND REFERENCES

  THE TURNIP PRINCESS

  Source:

  Schönwerth: Compound entry IVb, folder 21/8, envelope 1, sheet 9; ZA Marburg No. 202 057 (“Die Rübenprinzessin”)