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.[1]

For the 2011 Indian film, see The Golden Bird (film).
The Golden Bird
The gardener's youngest son sights the Golden Bird in the king's garden.
Folk tale
NameThe Golden Bird
Data
Aarne-Thompson groupingATU 550 (The Quest for the Golden Bird; The Quest for the Firebird; Bird, Horse and Princess)
RegionGermany
Published inKinder- und Hausmärchen, by the Brothers Grimm (1812)
RelatedThe Bird 'Grip'; The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener; Tsarevitch Ivan, the Fire Bird and the Gray Wolf; How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon; The Nunda, Eater of People

It is Aarne-Thompson folktale type 550, "The Golden Bird", a Supernatural Helper. Other tales of this type include The Bird 'Grip', The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener, Tsarevitch Ivan, the Fire Bird and the Gray Wolf, How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon, and The Nunda, Eater of People.[2]

Origin

A previous version of the story was collected in 1808 and published as Der weisse Taube ("The White Dove"), provided by Ms. Gretchen Wild. In the original tale, the youngest son of the king is known as Dummling,[3] a typical name for naïve or foolish characters in German fairy tales.[4] In newer editions that restore the original tale, it is known as "The Simpleton".[5]

Synopsis

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 a bad inn over a brightly lit and merry 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. But he disobeys, and the golden bird rouses the castle, resulting in his capture. He is sent after the golden horse as a condition for sparing his life. The fox advises him to use a leather saddle rather than a golden one, but he fails again. He is sent 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 as the price of his life.

The fox removes it, and then, as they set out, he advises the prince how to keep all the things he has won since then. It then asks the prince to shoot it and cut off its head. When the prince refuses, it warns him against buying gallows' flesh and sitting on the edge of rivers.

He finds that his 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. They take the things and the princess and bring them to their father. However the bird, the horse, and the princess all grieve for the youngest son. The fox rescues the prince. 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 brothers are put to death, and he marries the princess.

Finally, the third son cuts off the fox's head and feet at the creature's request. The fox is revealed to be a man, the brother of the princess.

Analysis

The character of the Golden Bird has been noted to resemble the mythological phoenix bird.[6] Indeed, in many variants the hero quests for the Phoenix bird.[7]

The Golden Bird of the Brothers Grimm tale can be seen as a counterpart to the Firebird of Slavic folklore, a bird said to possess magical powers and a radiant brilliance, in many fairy tales.[8] The Slavic Firebird can also be known by the name Ohnivak[9] Zhar Bird[10] or Bird Zhar;[11] Glowing Bird,[12] or The Bird of Light.[13]

The helper of the hero also differs between versions: usually a fox or a wolf. In some variants, it is a grateful dead who helps the hero as retribution for a good deed of the protagonist.[14]

Sometimes, the king or the hero's father send the hero on his quest for the bird to cure him of his illness or blindness, instead of finding out who has been destroying his garden and/or stealing his precious golden apples.[15]

Variants

Literary history
The Golden Bird (from Household stories from the collection of the bros. Grimm (1914)

Scholars Stith Thompson, Johannes Bolte and Jiří Polívka traced a long literary history of the tale type:[16] an ancient version is attested in The Arabian Nights.

A story titled Sagan af Artus Fagra is reported to contain a tale of three brothers, Carolo, Vilhiamo and Arturo of the Fagra clan, sons of the King of the Angles, who depart to India on a quest for the Phoenix bird to heal their father.[17] It was published in an Icelandic manuscript of the XIVth century.[18][19]

Oral versions

A French version, collected by Paul Sébillot in Littérature orale de la Haute-Bretagne, is called Le Merle d'or (The Golden Blackbird). Andrew Lang included that variant in The Green Fairy Book (1892).[20][21]

In The Golden Blackbird, the gardener's son set out because the doctors have prescribed the golden blackbird for their ill father. The two older brothers are allured into the inn without any warning, and the youngest meets the talking hare that aids him only after he passes it by. The horse is featured only as a purchase, and he did not have to perform two tasks to win the Porcelain Maiden, the princess figure. Also, the hare is not transformed at the end of the tale.

A similar variant fairy tale of French-Canadian origin is The Golden Phoenix collected by Marius Barbeau, and retold by Michael Hornyansky. It follows the hero Petit Jean, the youngest son of the King, who discovers the thief of his father's golden apple to be a golden Phoenix, a legendary bird. Other differences include a battle with 3 mythical beasts, a Sultan's game of hide-and-seek and his marriage with the Sultan's beautiful daughter.

See also

References
  1. Ashliman, D. L. (2020). "Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales (Grimms' Fairy Tales)". University of Pittsburgh.
  2. "SurLaLune Fairy Tales: Tales Similar To Firebird". surlalunefairytales.com.
  3. Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Erster Band (NR. 1-60). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1913. pp. 503-504.
  4. Grimm, Jacob & Grimm, Wilhelm; Taylor, Edgar; Cruikshank, George (illustrator). Grimm's Goblins: Grimm's Household Stories. London: R. Meek & Co.. 1877. p. 289.
  5. Grimm, Jacob, Wilhelm Grimm, JACK ZIPES, and ANDREA DEZSÖ. "THE SIMPLETON." In The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition, 207-15. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014. Accessed August 13, 2020. doi:10.2307/j.ctt6wq18v.71.
  6. Grimm, Jacob & Grimm, Wilhelm; Taylor, Edgar; Cruikshank, George (illustrator). Grimm's Goblins: Grimm's Household Stories. London: R. Meek & Co.. 1877. p. 289.
  7. Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Erster Band (NR. 1-60). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1913. pp. 503-515.
  8. Ralston, William Ralston Shedden. Russian fairy tales: a choice collection of Muscovite folk-lore. New York: Pollard & Moss. 1887. pp. 288-292.
  9. Harding, Emily J. Fairy tales of the Slav peasants and herdsmen. London: G. Allen. 1886. pp. 265-292.
  10. Pyle, Katherine. Fairy Tales of Many Nations. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co. 1911. pp. 118-139.
  11. Bain, R. Nisbet. Cossack fairy tales and folk tales. London : G.G. Harrap & Co.. 1916. pp. 95-104.
  12. "Tzarevich Ivan, the Glowing Bird and the Grey Wolf" In: Wheeler, Post. Russian wonder tales: with a foreword on the Russian skazki. London: A. & C. Black. 1917. pp. 93-118.
  13. Russian Folk-Tales by Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasyev. Translated by Leonard Arthur Magnus.New York: E. P. Dutton and Company. 1916. pp. 78-90.
  14. Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Erster Band (NR. 1-60). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1913. pp. 503-515.
  15. Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Erster Band (NR. 1-60). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1913. pp. 503-515.
  16. Thompson, Stith (1977). The Folktale. University of California Press. p. 107. ISBN 0-520-03537-2.
  17. Grimm, Jacob & Grimm, Wilhelm; Taylor, Edgar; Cruikshank, George (illustrator). Grimm's Goblins: Grimm's Household Stories. London: R. Meek & Co.. 1877. p. 289.
  18. The Complaynt of Scotland: Written in 1548. With Preliminary Dissertantion and Gossary. Edinburgh: 1801. p. 237.
  19. Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm; Zipes, Jack; Dezsö, Andrea (illustrator). The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014. p. 497. Accessed August 12, 2020. doi:10.2307/j.ctt6wq18v.166.
  20. "THE GOLDEN BLACKBIRD from Andrew Lang's Fairy Books". mythfolklore.net.
  21. Le Merle d'or, by Paul Sébillot, on French Wikisource.

Bibliography
  • Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Erster Band (NR. 1-60). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1913. pp. 503-515.
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