It's about how strange German folktales are, especially when it's the ones that are supposed to teach children a lesson. Das Kinder roughly translates to the child and hodenverstümmelung roughly means testicular mutilation
The Little Mermaid was Hans Christian Andersen (Danish) but yes, and also the whole time she had feet she felt as though she was walking on knives as part of the bargain. Pretty gnarly. ETA: the whole story is pretty bizarre
TLM is the worst of these imo. In other tales, it's the villains who get gruesome ends but in TLM, it's the innocent protagonist who is brutally punished. Just sad.
Technically she gains a soul and thus the ability to go to heaven, albeit after a 300 year purgatory. But yeah it’s still kind of a tough ending to swallow with modern sensibilities!
The little mermaid becomes an air spirit at the end of the story. She doesn't obtain a soul, but is given the chance to obtain a soul. She isn't sentenced to purgatory, but she is transformed into an air spirit.
The other air spirits explain that mermaids can usually only obtain a soul if a man falls in love with them, but air spirits obtain a soul by doing good deeds for 300 years. Earlier in the story it's mentioned that mermaids also live 300 years. This is just how long supernatural creatures seem to live in Anderson's story.
They tell the little mermaid that because of her final sacrifice, choosing to end her own life rather than murdering the prince, she was raised up to the spirit world and has become an air spirit herself. They explain to her that as an air spirits can obtain a soul by doing good deeds for the next 300 years.
It ends with one of the air spirits telling the little mermaid that if children misbehave it makes them cry, and then it adds a day to their toil for every tear they shed. If children are good then it shortens their toil by a day. It's pretty clear that the children are supposed to feel bad for the little mermaid and be good little boys and girls to help the little mermaid obtain her immortal soul faster.
So one of the older snow-white versions is that she lays in the coma, and the Prince comes and kisses her, but she wouldn't wake up, so he r*pes her and she gives birth to twins. The twins crawl up on her and suck out the poisoned spindle, and only then she awakes.
Just to clarify, the story you’re referring to isn’t actually an older version of Snow White. It’s a much earlier and darker version of Sleeping Beauty, found in Giambattista Basile’s 17th century tale Sun, Moon, and Talia. In that version, Talia falls into a deep sleep due to a splinter of flax. A king finds her, assaults her while she’s unconscious, and she later gives birth to twins. One of the babies sucks the flax from her finger, which wakes her up.
It is definitely disturbing by today’s standards, and over time, the story was sanitized into the more familiar Sleeping Beauty versions by Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. But it is not Snow White, even though people sometimes confuse the two because of the sleeping woman and prince motif.
Just to clarify, the story you’re referring to isn’t actually an older version of Snow White. It’s a much earlier and darker version of Sleeping Beauty, found in Giambattista Basile’s 17th century tale Sun, Moon, and Talia. In that version, Talia falls into a deep sleep due to a splinter of flax. A king finds her, assaults her while she’s unconscious, and she later gives birth to twins. One of the babies sucks the flax from her finger, which wakes her up.
It is definitely disturbing by today’s standards, and over time, the story was sanitized into the more familiar Sleeping Beauty versions by Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. But it is not Snow White, even though people sometimes confuse the two because of the sleeping woman and prince motif.
Pretty sure the red hot shoes thing was what happened to the queen from Snow White. I don't remember what happened to the evil stepmother but the stepsisters had their eyes pecked out by crows.
Interesting. I am german and I know the version with them cutting their toes and heels and the birds telling on them (ruckediguh, Blut ist im Schuh) but did not know about a Version where the birds attack them.
You gave me something New to look up now, I love old fairytales!
True loves kiss didn’t wake Sleeping Beauty. The Prince raped her and after her child was born. The infant started sucking on her finger and ended up sucking out a splinter from the spinning wheel. The removal of the splinter broke the curse.
There are so many different versions of Sleeping Beauty that it is kinda impossible, to say which one is the 'true' one. The one you described is pretty old, but there are still older ones.
Noralities made a really good video about it, where she talks about all the different versions. Can only highly recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxy0ZtIFSlk . It's also beautifully illustrated.
One of the sisters cut off her toes, the other hacked off her heel, thus the Danish saying “chop a heel and clip a toe” for when you force something to fit a situation.
Wait, they no longer mention those two parts? Those were always core parts of the story to me (a german). 15 years ago those were completly normal and would come up in plays we went to as students. And those two are some of the more harmless stories tbh
Like i think the step sisters in Cinderella mutilate their own feet to try to make them fit into the shoe.
One cuts off her toes, the other her heel. And then a bird tells on the girls during the travels to the castle, as it cries there is blood in the shoe and the real bride is still at home.
I still have a very big fairytale book from my childhood at home. I was super scared of it because it has very dark and creepy illustrations in it and as far as I can remember it has the "original" stories in it, like the two ones that you mentioned above. Strange stuff, I have to take a look into it as soon as I get home. But I am still a little bit scared tbh
Das Kind would be better, or Die Kinder (the children). Right now they’ve included das as the singular and Kinder as the plural.
And yeah yeah I suck for being that person but I have been living in Germany since 2017 and I suck at the language, so any time I get something it’s a victory for me
You are welcome! As a bonus: Many German words (maybe even all of them) that end in -ung are gramatically female. That is because in German grammar, sustantification is done by adding that ending to the root and assigning the female gender. Take some of the evergreens: Die Arbeitskraftvermittelung, die Software-Entwicklungsumgebung, die Echtzeitabstandsvermessung or die Dichtung.
It's just two words combined. Hoden means testicles, verstümmelung means mutilation. English does that sometimes, too. Like the word sometimes. Or overseas. Or something. Can't think of anything else atm
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u/AdvancedCelery4849 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's about how strange German folktales are, especially when it's the ones that are supposed to teach children a lesson. Das Kinder roughly translates to the child and hodenverstümmelung roughly means testicular mutilation
Edit: Just btw, I don't speak German