Week 20- #GRIMMread2019

http://shonnaslayton.com/grimm-read-2019-challenge/


Clever Grethel- For once clever is not used ironically to describe a character in the Grimm's stories. In this story, Grethel, a cook, is very clever. She is also a glutton and a lush, and I was waiting for her to get her comeuppance, but I was quite surprised when her efforts ultimately succeeded. I kind of felt bad for the master and his guest, but Grethel's tricks had me laughing as well. Still, I think Grethel needs to learn a lesson. Just a thought: What if Clever Grethel is the same Grethel from Hansel and Grethel?

The Old Man and his Grandson- Out of the mouths of babes...An old man is terribly neglected by his son and daughter-in-law. He's put in a corner and given little to eat, etc, while they feast in front of him. One day the little grandson is playing by making a trough for his parents to eat out of when they get older. This is a wake up call for his parents, who then begin to treat the old man with dignity.

The Water-Nixie- Two siblings, a boy and a girl, play by a water well (this never bodes well). They fall in, and are taken captive by a water-nixie, who resides there. She enslaves them by giving them Sisyphean tasks, such as chopping wood with a blunt ax and carrying water in a bucket with a hole. One Sunday, the water-nixie goes to church (Hmm...I don't think so. This is highly suspect behavior for a water-nixie who abducts and enslaves children.), and the children escape. After "church", the water-nixie discovers this, and she comes after them. The kids then take turns tossing magical beauty accessories behind their backs: a brush (becomes a hill of bristles), a comb (becomes a hill of teeth), and a mirror (becomes a hill of glass). The water-nixie overcomes the first two obstacles, but the glass hill is too slippery for her. She runs home to get her ax to cut through the glass hill, but this gives the children all the time they need to escape for good, and the water-nixie goes back to her well. This story shares two magical objects with the story of "Little Snow White": a comb and a mirror, though there aren't any other connections that I see. I'm also curious; what did the water-nixie see when she looked into the looking-glass hill?

The Death of the Little Hen- The little hen is the second glutton of the week. She and the cock agree to share anything they find, but the little hen finds a big kernel, and selfishly eats it herself. Unlike Clever Grethel, she fares badly, as can be deduced from the title. She chokes on the kernel, and the cock tries to save her, but he fails. A funeral procession of many creatures takes place, and so on, and so forth. Really, the title of this story should just be, "The Death of Everybody" because everybody dies at the end.