Week 33- #GRIMMread2019


    One-eye, Two-eyes, and Three-eyes is a strange Cinderella story right out of the twilight zone. Two-eyes is the protagonist. She is named this because she has two eyes. Her sisters (not step sisters), One-eye and Three-eyes, have one eye and three eyes, respectively. The story doesn't say how many eyes their mother has, but she and Two-eye's sisters form clique against Two-eyes. They think she isn't "special" because she has two eyes like normal people.

Key parallels to Cinderella:

Abuse/Enslavement- Two-eyes is a slave in her own household, but her situation is even worse than Cinderella because rather than being abused by a stepmother and stepsisters, she is abused by her own mother and sisters. They force her to wear rags and they only feed her their scraps.

Fairy Godmother- Two-eyes is weeping over this one day and a wise woman helps her by giving her the words to cause her goat to magically lay a table with food out for her, and then to make the table disappear. Her sisters start to notice that she isn't eating the scraps anymore, and so their mother sends One-eye out with her to spy. Two eyes knows she's there to spy on her, so she sings words to put a sleeping spell on One-eye. One-eye goes home without any intel. Their mother then sends Three-eyes. This time, when Two-eyes sings the sleeping spell, she messes up the words, and so one of Three-eye's eyes remains awake, while pretending to sleep. She goes home and tells her mother all about the magical goat. The mother then becomes enraged and kills the goat. Two-eyes is distraught once again, and the wise woman finds her weeping over the goat. She tells her to ask for the goat's entrails and to bury them. Two-eye's sisters laugh at her, but give her the entrails. She then buries the entrails in front of the house, and a silver tree with golden golden fruit grows from them. This is similar to the branch that Grimm's Cinderella buries at her mother's grave site, which grows into a magical tree.

Magical Object/Test- Much like the glass slipper that Cinderella's stepsisters try and fail to claim as their own, the magical tree serves as a test. When One-eye and Three-eyes try to take the fruit, the branches move and refuse to let them. Two-eyes is able to pick as many of the fruits as she wants. Her family then treats her even worse because they are envious of this. One day, a knight comes by, and Two-eye's family quickly hide her under a barrel. The knight would like a branch from the magical tree, and promises to grant any request in return. The sisters fail a second attempt at claiming the tree. Because they fail, the knight doesn't believe that the tree belongs to them, but they insist it does. While this is going on, Two-eyes rolls the golden fruit to the knight from under the barrel. The knight asks where it came from, and the sisters finally admit that they have been hiding Two-eyes (because she's so basic). The knight then calls for Two-Eyes and asks her to obtain a branch from the tree for him. She passes the test, and he grants her request to take her away from her abusive family, and brings her to his castle. The sisters think they are getting a consolation prize because the tree grows on their property, but Two-eyes wakes up to find the tree has moved itself to outside her room at the castle. She and the knight fall in love, get married, and live happily together.

    The epilogue of this story is unique to most Grimm's tales. Usually, the villain is severely punished. In this story, there is no mention of what becomes of the mother, but the evil sisters are redeemed in the end. They become very poor, and go begging at the castle one day. Two eyes recognizes them as her sisters, and she treats them very kindly. Because of this, they repent, and are reconciled with her.

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