Showing results by author "Brothers Grimm" in All Categories

Iron John is about taking men back, through myth and legend, to the source of their masculinity, and finding a middle path between the greater awareness of the 'sensitive new age guy', and the power and vitality of the warrior. The Iron John story has been around in one form or another for thousands of years.

A king was dying. An old man told his sons that the water of life would save him. Each one set out in turn. The two older ones, setting out in hopes of being the heir, were rude to a dwarf on the way and became trapped in ravines. When the youngest son went the dwarf asked where he was going, and he told him. The dwarf told him it was in a castle, and gave him an iron wand to open the gates and two loaves to feed to the lions inside. Then he had to get the water before the clock struck 12 when the gates would shut again.

The King of the Golden Mountain: a evil stepmother kills her stepson and makes her daughter think that she killed him. The stepmother than cooks him for dinner for the rest of the family. Her daughter finds her stepbrother's bones and puts them underneath the juniper tree.

The Twelve Huntsmen starts right where many fairy tales end, with a prince and princess in love, planning their wedding. This happy event is cancelled by the sudden death of the king's father, who, on his deathbed, requests his son to marry another bride.

A father had two sons. The dimwitted younger son, when asked by his father what he would like to learn to support himself, said he would like to learn how to shudder (as in, learn to have fear). A sexton told the father that he could teach the boy. After teaching him to ring the church bell, he sent him one midnight to ring it and came after him, dressed as a ghost. The boy demanded an explanation. When the sexton did not answer, the boy, unafraid, pushed him down the stairs, breaking his leg.

A peasant has seven sons and no daughter. Finally a daughter is born, but is sickly. The father sends his sons to fetch water for her, in the German version to be baptized, in the Greek version to take water from a healing spring. In their haste, they drop the jug in the well. When they do not return, their father thinks that they have gone off to play and curses them and so they turn into ravens.

In the first version of the story, Mr. Fox has nine tails. He feigns death to test his wife's fidelity. Mrs. Fox rejects all the fox suitors that have fewer than nine tails. When she gets engaged to another fox with nine tails, Mr. Fox arises and throws everyone out of his house, including his wife.

The German tale of four brothers who set out to learn their crafts in the big wide world. When they return home as skilled men; a thief, an astronomer, a hunter, and a tailor their skills are challenged by their father – 'I should like to try what each of you can do in this way.

The Brothers Grimm, or Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, knew how to spin a good fairy tale. In this story, a fox and a horse team up to convince a farmer that the horse still had a lot of strength left in him. Students will read the story and answer questions on the theme, the language, and the plot.

Clever Hans is a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm about a boy who ruins his engagement with a girl through a variety of comedic events. The title is claimed by most people to be ironic. It is Aarne-Thompson type 1685 and 1696.

A count's only son could learn nothing. Three times the count sent him for a year to famous masters. Each time, the son came back: saying first that he knew what dogs said when they barked; the next time, what birds said; and finally, what frogs said. Infuriated by his uselessness, his father ordered his people to take him to the woods and kill him, but they sympathised with him, and instead brought the count the eyes and tongue of a deer as proof of his death.

Two brothers, one rich, one poor, served as soldiers, but the poor one had to become a farmer to escape his poverty. One of his turnips grew to an enormous size, and he gave it to the king. The king gave him rich presents in return.

The German tale of four brothers who set out to learn their crafts in the big wide world. When they return home as skilled men; a thief, an astronomer, a hunter, and a tailor their skills are challenged by their father – 'I should like to try what each of you can do in this way.

Lily and the Lion. There is a man with three daughters. One day, he must leave on a journey and asks each of his daughters what they would like him to bring back. The oldest wants diamonds, the second pearls, and the youngest a singing, springing lark. The man is able to find diamonds and pearls, but he fails to find a lark. On his journey home, the man sees a lark in a tall tree, and orders his servant to catch it.

A man whose hands shook with the tremors of old age could not eat neatly and often spilled his soup, so his son and daughter-in-law barred him from their table and made him eat by the stove. When he broke the fine stoneware bowl from which he had been eating, they bought him a wooden bowl that could not break.

Ashputtel is a folk tale with thousands of variants throughout the world. The protagonist is a young woman living in forsaken circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune, with her ascension to the throne via marriage. The story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo sometime between around 7 BC and AD 23, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt, is usually considered to be the earliest known variant of the Cinderella story.

Sweetheart Roland is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm .A wicked witch had an evil daughter, whom she loved, and a good stepdaughter, whom she hated. One day, the witch decided she would kill the stepdaughter at night, and the daughter was told to make sure she lay by the wall, and her stepsister in the front of the bed. The stepdaughter overheard this and, after her stepsister slept, she shifted their places. The witch instead killed her own daughter, and the stepdaughter rose and went to her sweetheart Roland, telling what had happened, and that they had to flee.

Clever Elsie, my favorite Grimms' fairy tale, is about a silly, slothful woman who won't change her ways. Her husband, Hans, catches her asleep near the field where he has sent her to work, so he throws a net woven with little bells over her head, goes home and locks the door.

A childless queen prayed for a child. An angel told her she would have a son with the power of wishing. She had such a son, and every day went with the child to a park where wild beasts were kept.

Two sons of a king went out to seek their fortunes, but fell into disorderly ways. The third and youngest son, Simpleton, went out to find them, but they mocked him. They traveled on, and Simpleton prevented his brothers from destroying an ant hill, killing some ducks, and suffocating a bee hive with smoke.