Week 15- #GRIMMread2019
This week I'm going to focus on "The Dog and the Sparrow". "Frederick and Catherine" is just another version of "Clever Elsie". The other tales, "The Golden Bird" and "The Two Brothers" are more complex than "The Dog and the Sparrow", yet this simple tale hit me in a way the others didn't. The reason for this is that animal cruelty is all too real, and I've personally witnessed it. Years ago, our neighbor's dog was poisoned by someone, and-- just like in this story--our own dog was deliberately hit by a young man in a car. This happened on Easter 2008. Thank God that he was only scratched a bit! The vet was surprised at this, considering how fast and hard he was hit. Our dog gets a bit of sciatica from that injury off and on, but is otherwise in great health! But I digress.
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| Bosco chilling on his favorite blanket with his ears flipped up. He's a sweetheart! |
In this story, the dog leaves his owner because his owner is starving him. (I'll never understand why someone would own an animal just to starve it, but it happens too often). A Sparrow finds him, and he becomes a friend and guardian angel figure to the dog. He brings the dog meat and bread, and keeps watch while the dog sleeps on the road. (Why didn't the sparrow pick a better sleeping spot for the dog?) A wagoneer drives down the road, and the sparrow warns him to stop. He drives faster and deliberately hits the dog, killing him. The bird vows revenge upon the man, and is he ever ruthless in carrying this out! (He basically becomes the Al Capone of birds!) The sparrow wrecks the wagon, pecks out the horses' eyes and the wagoneer kills them accidentally, while trying to kill the sparrow landing in their heads. Then, in a scene reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, the sparrow gets his friends to help him destroy the wagoneer's crops. The sparrow then destroys his house, and vows that the wagoneer will die. The wagoneer swallows the sparrow, because he wants to kill the sparrow in a cruel way, but that feisty bird flaps his way back up. The wagoneer's wife tries to kill the bird with an ax, but misses and kills her husband, and the bird flies away.
While I certainly don't condone revenge (nor pecking out horses' eyes), I think this tale is more than just a simple revenge story. In a way, this story shows the strength of friendship, and the importance of having respect for all creatures. The sparrow and the dog respect each other, their friendship, while short-lived is strong, as evidenced by how far the sparrow is willing to go for the dog. Even though the dog is killed, he did get to share some comfort, peace, and happiness with the sparrow, which he wasn't getting from his owner. The Wagoneer neither respects the dog, nor the sparrow, nor the friendship between the two. He ignores the sparrow's warning, deliberately kills the dog, and doesn't believe that the bird can, nor will carry out any kind of revenge. He is too arrogant to care for small, seemingly insignificant creatures, but he is soon proved wrong. Sometimes the smallest things can have the greatest impact. Bacteria and viruses come to mind. They're microscopic, yet they can wreak havoc on the body, and even cause death. The wagoneer's cruelty, disrespect for life, and arrogance become his downfall. The sparrow is also an example how powerful emotions can be. (Maybe he's like Tinkerbell: a small creature that only has room for one emotion at time?) Emotions shouldn't be suppressed, but they do need to be dealt with in a healthy manner. Otherwise, serious harm can be done, and even innocent bystanders, like the horses, can get hurt.
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