The Three Languages | |
---|---|
Folk tale | |
Name | The Three Languages |
Also known as | Die drei Sprachen |
Aarne–Thompson grouping | ATU 671 (The Three Languages) |
Region | Germany |
Published in | Kinder- und Hausmärchen by The Brothers Grimm |
Related | The Language of the Birds |
"The Three Languages" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 33. It is Aarne-Thompson type 671.
The tale was collected by the Brothers Grimm from a man named Hans Truffer from Visp. The tale was included in the 1819 edition of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen , replacing the earlier Der gestiefelte Kater ("The Tomcat with Boots"). [1]
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.
On his wanderings, he liberated an area from haunting by dogs, by raising a treasure from under a tower, which he could do because he understood their language. The lord of the castle asked him to do so, and he came out with a chest of gold, and the lord adopted him as a son.
He went to Rome, where the Pope had died; the cardinals wanted him as the Pope's successor, as two doves had sat on his shoulders as a divine sign. On his journey, listening to the frogs had made him sad and thoughtful. He consented to his appointment, as the doves advised him to do. When he had to read Mass, the doves whispered how to do it in his ear.
The tale is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as ATU 671, "The Three Languages". Stith Thompson argues that the tale is sometimes confused with ATU 517, "The Boy Who Learned Many Things". [2]
Scholarship argues that the learning of the languages of frogs, dogs, and birds symbolically represents the speech of water, land, and air creatures. [3]
The story falls under the folklore motif of "The Outcast Child", i.e., the hero or heroine is expelled from home, but later rises through the ranks of society and returns home victorious. [4]
The ending of the story (commoner boy becoming Pope) harks back to similar legendary tales behind historical papacies, [5] such as Pope Innocent III and Pope Sylvester II, [6] or in fictional tales, such as Gregorius (The Good Sinner). Sir James Frazer listed some variants of the papacy prophecy connected to tale collection Seven Sages of Rome [7] and variations on the form of acquisition of animal speech. [8]
Joseph Jacobs attempted to reconstruct a protoform of the tale in his Europa's Fairy Book, titled The Language of Animals. [9] In his commentaries, the folklorist argued that the story's original format involved a prophecy that the boy would become pope or king. [10] [11]
Scholars Johannes Bolte and Jiri Polívka suggested tale types ATU 671, ATU 517 ("The Boy Who Learned Many Things"), and ATU 725 ("The Prophecy, or, Dream of Future Sovereignty") comprised an original single tale. [12] In addition, Bolte indicated the Biblical story of Joseph and his dreams as the origin of the Prophetic Dream. [13]
Similar legends exist about the Saints Piran and Ciarán of Saigir (who may have originally been the same figure). According to the legend, both saints were able to communicate with three animals: a badger, a fox, and a bear or wolf. [14] [15]
Professor Ralph Steele Boggs listed as a Spanish variant of the ATU 671 the work of Lope de Vega: Novela 6, El Pronóstico Cumplido ("The prophecy fulfilled"). [16]
Johann Georg von Hahn collected a variant from Greece, named Von einem, der die Vogelsprache erlernte. ("The story of the boy who learned the language of the birds"). [17]
Chinese folklorist and scholar Ting Nai-tung (zh) established a second typological classification of Chinese folktales (the first was by Wolfram Eberhard in the 1930s). According to this new system, in tale type 671, "The Three Languages", the main character is helped by a deity. [18]
In a Mayan folktale, El niño que hablaba con los pájaros (The Little Boy Who Talked with Birds), a little boy listens to the birds' songs and his father insists his son translates it. The son reveals that the birds sing that the father shall salute the son one day, and he expels him from home. [19]
The story is a classic example of the archetypal hero's progress through life. In Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography , there is a rendition of the tale. For the Count's son, learning and education has meaning to the beholder, and in some cases, only to the beholder. In addition, there is an expectation that knowledge is power and can allow the beholder of knowledge to become self-sufficient/self-reliant.
The "Town Musicians of Bremen" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in Grimms' Fairy Tales in 1819.
Fortunatus is a German proto-novel or chapbook about a legendary hero popular in 15th- and 16th-century Europe, and usually associated with a magical inexhaustible purse.
"Snow-White and Rose-Red" is a German fairy tale. The best-known version is the one collected by the Brothers Grimm in 1837 in the third edition of their collection Grimm's Fairy Tales. An older, somewhat shorter version, "The Ungrateful Dwarf", was written by Caroline Stahl (1776–1837). Indeed, that appears to be the oldest variant; no previous oral version is known, although several have been collected since its publication in 1818. Oral versions are very limited regionally. The tale is of Aarne-Thompson type 426.
The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index is a catalogue of folktale types used in folklore studies. The ATU Index is the product of a series of revisions and expansions by an international group of scholars: originally composed in German by Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne (1910), the index was translated into English, revised, and expanded by American folklorist Stith Thompson, and later further revised and expanded by German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther (2004). The ATU Index, along with Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (1932)—with which it is used in tandem—is an essential tool for folklorists.
"The Six Swans" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812. It is of Aarne–Thompson type 451, commonly found throughout Europe. Other tales of this type include The Seven Ravens, The Twelve Wild Ducks, Udea and her Seven Brothers, The Wild Swans, and The Twelve Brothers. Andrew Lang included a variant of the tale in The Yellow Fairy Book.
"Jorinde and Joringel" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. It is Aarne–Thompson 405. The tale is found virtually exclusively in Germany, barring a Swedish variant, although Marie Campbell found a variant in Kentucky, "The Flower of Dew". The story is known in many English translations as "Jorinda and Jorindel".
The Golden Bird is a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm about the pursuit of a golden bird by a gardener's three sons.
"The Master Thief" is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Chr. Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. The Brothers Grimm included a shorter variant as tale 192 in their fairy tales. Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book. George Webbe Dasent included a translation of the tale in Popular Tales From the Norse.
"Trusty John", "Faithful John", "Faithful Johannes", or "John the True" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1819. Andrew Lang included it in The Blue Fairy Book.
"Fitcher's Bird" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 46.
"The Brave Little Tailor" or "The Valiant Little Tailor" or "The Gallant Tailor" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. "The Brave Little Tailor" is a story of Aarne–Thompson Type 1640, with individual episodes classified in other story types.
"Donkey Cabbages" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 122. A man shoots birds in a forest and gains magical objects. By also ingesting the heart of one of the bird he shot, he acquires an inexhaustible source of wealth. Later on, his magical abilities and items are stolen by a trio of witches, but he regains everything thanks to a magical herb that causes one to transform into a donkey.
"The Little Green Frog" is a French literary fairy tale, from the Cabinet des Fées. Andrew Lang included it in The Yellow Fairy Book.
The Bee and the Orange Tree is a French literary fairy tale by Madame d'Aulnoy.
"The Brown Bear of the Green Glen" is a Scottish fairy tale collected by John Francis Campbell in Popular Tales of the West Highlands, listing his informant as John MacDonald, a "Traveling Tinker". He also noted the parallels with The Water of Life.
The Wicked Sisters is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki.
"Thumbling," published in German as "Daumesdick" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1819. The Grimms included another, similar story, "Thumbling's Travels." Both stories are related to the English Tom Thumb and often share its title when translated into English.
"The Peasant's Wise Daughter", "The Peasant's Clever Daughter" or "The Clever Lass" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales as tale number 94. It has also spread into Bohemia and Božena Němcová included it into her collection of Czech national folk tales in 1846.
Adventures of Gilla Na Chreck An Gour is an Irish fairy tale collected by folklorist Patrick Kennedy and published in Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts (1866). The tale was also published by Irish poet Alfred Perceval Graves in his Irish Fairy Book (1909). Joseph Jacobs published the tale as The Lad with the Goat-Skin in his Celtic Fairy Tales.
In folkloristics, "The Animal as Bridegroom" refers to a group of folk and fairy tales about a human woman marrying or being betrothed to an animal. The animal is revealed to be a human prince in disguise or under a curse. Most of these tales are grouped in the international system of Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index under type ATU 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband". Some subtypes exist in the international classification as independent stories, but they sometimes don't adhere to a fixed typing.