The Juniper Tree (fairy tale)

Marlinchen mourning the loss over her stepbrother whilst a bird emerges from the juniper tree.

"The Juniper Tree" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. In some editions the story is called The Almond Tree. The text in the Grimm collection is in Low German.

It is tale number 47 and Aarne-Thompson type 720: "my mother slew me, my father ate me". Another such tale is the English The Rose-Tree, although it reverses the sexes from The Juniper Tree; The Juniper Tree follows the more common pattern of having the dead child be the boy.

Synopsis

The story begins with a wealthy man and his beautiful wife. They love each other dearly. One day while pairing an apple the wife cuts herself and blood falls to the snow. It is this that leads her to wish for a child “as red as blood and as white as snow.” Several months later, her dream comes true. Overcome with joy, she dies. The husband remarries and has a daughter. The wife despises the boy, but cherishes Marlinchen. Coming home from school one day, the son asks for an apple. Reaching into the chest, the lid comes down and slices his head off. In an effort to cover up his death, the wife claims the boy has left to stay with relatives. In actuality, the boy has been chopped up into pieces and made into a black pudding. He is served for dinner without the father's knowledge. The son"s half sister, Marlinchen, feels responsible for her brother's death. She buries his bones under the juniper tree. Later, a bird is magically born from that same ground. The bird, a microcosm of the son, sings his songs of death to anyone who will listen and receives gifts from passers by. Eventually, he flies back to his former house. Marlinchen and her father are joyous. They are encapsulated by the birds beautiful music. The stepmother is not as thrilled. As the bird sings its third and final song, the mother walks outside and is fittingly killed by a millstone. In the end, the bird magically turns back into the son and they all live happily ever after (except for the stepmother).

Characters

None of the characters in The Juniper Tree have names except for Marlinchen. Instead, they are referred to by their relationship to one another or by their occupation. They are listed below in order of importance.

The Son

The child of the father and the father's first wife who is also Marlinchen's stepbrother (or in other versions, her half-brother). He was often afraid to return home from school since he would be abused by his stepmother every night, making him cry to sleep every night. Eventually, he is decapitated by his stepmother and is made into a stew. The boy eventually reincarnates into a beautiful bird and kills the stepmother in revenge and reverts to his normal form by the end of the story.

The Stepmother

The second wife of the father and the mother of Marlinchen. She kills the son by slamming a chest lid on top of his head. She then proceeds to convince Marlinchen that she was the one to kill her brother. She does this by reattaching the boy's head with a cloth. She then sets him up in a chair and tells Marlinchen to box his ear. When Marlinchen punches her brother his head falls off and she is convinced that she is the one who killed him. The stepmother then forces Marlinchen to cook her brother in stew, which is eventually consumed by the father. In the end, the stepmother is killed by a millstone which is dropped on top of her by a bird (possibly a reincarnation of her stepson).

Marlinchen

In some versions she is called Ann Marie. She is the son's stepsister. She is treated kindly by the stepmother in comparison to her stepbrother. She often cares for her stepbrother in spite of the abuse. When her brother dies she is convinced that she is the one who killed him. This forces her to cook his body in a stew in order to hide his death from the father. However, she buries his bones under the juniper tree in order to resolve her guilt. In the end, her gesture is appreciated. The bird gives her a gift he received from one of the shop owners in order to repay her for her loyalty.

The Father

The son's father, the stepmother's husband, the husband of the first wife and Marlinchen's stepfather. He is a wealthy and pious man but he is often absent at home, which probably explains why he was unaware of his son's death. He was also unaware that the stew he consumed was actually made from his son's dead body.

The Goldsmith, the Shoemaker and the Miller

Three residents of an unnamed town that is located near the house where the main characters reside. They are captivated by the bird's lullaby who sings about a horrific fate similar to the one suffered by the son. As a reward, they offer the bird a gold chain, a pair of red shoes and a millstone respectively in return.

The First Wife

The son's biological mother and the original wife of the father. Like her husband, she is wealthy and pious and often prays in hopes of getting a child. She dies at the beginning of the story after being extremely ecstatic over the sight of her newborn son and is buried beneath the juniper tree.

Motifs

The themes of cannibalism, death, food, and song play an important role in the short story, The Juniper Tree.

Cannibalism

Some argue that The Juniper Tree draws cues from the short story Hansel and Gretel. Following the death of the main character, the mother (in an attempt to cover up his death) literally "chopped him in pieces, put him into the pan and... [cooked him up in a stew]. The husband then eats the stew, saying how “delicious [the] food is," and even asks for the wife to "give [him] some more.”

The Parallel Between Food and Death

It is quite clear by the end of the novel that food is associated with death. At the beginning of the short story, the girl is cutting an apple when she cuts her fingers and "blood [falls to] the snow." An apple later is even referred to as ushering in the Devil when the little boy comes home and the Devil figuratively makes the mother say to him, "My son, wilt thou have an apple?” You could even look to the son as a source of death when he is turned into stew. Finally, a milestone is used to kill the mother. A millstone is a tool typically used to grind corn.

Guardianship

Critics suggest that the character of the mother in "The Juniper Tree" is used to represent a guardian spirit. This theme of guardianship is shown throughout other Grimm fairy tales such as Cinderella, Briar Rose, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. In all of these stories, there is some object (normally represented through nature) that watches after the main character. In the case of "Briar Rose," "the briar hedge is the symbol of nature guarding her rose: the princess who sleeps inside the castle."

Gift Giving

When the son becomes a bird, he offers gifts such as a gold chain to his father and a pair of shoes to his sister. In addition, he offers the wife a milestone, which he drops on her head leading to her swift death. Critics argue that while the chain may represent power (to leave the wife), the shoes may also alludes to freedom.

Song

Song is a symbolic motif in that it served as a vessel to expose his wrongful death. The song went like this.

"My mother she killed me,

My father he ate me,

My sister, little Marlinchen,

Gathered together all my bones,

Tied them in a silken handkerchief,

Laid them beneath the juniper-tree,

Kywitt, kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!"

Commentary

Maria Tatar

Many folklorists interpret evil stepmothers as stemming from actual competition between a woman and her stepchildren for resources. In this tale, the motive is made explicit: the stepmother wants her daughter to inherit everything.

The millstone in the story would have had biblical connotations for the readers of the Grimms' days, especially as the verse Luke 17:2 says that anyone who causes a child to sin would be better off being thrown into the sea with a millstone about his neck; both refer to a millstone as a punishment for those who harm the young and innocent. Another biblical connotation could be the offering of the apple from the stepmother, possessed by the devil, to the son, which parallels the devil, disguised as a serpent, offering the forbidden fruit (traditionally an apple) to Eve.

Alfred David and Mary Elizabeth David

In Alfred and Elizabeth David's essay, they interpret "The Juniper Tree" as "folk literature for inspiration." They believe that the nature and native culture presented in most Grimm fairy tale inspires other artists in their literary endeavors. In "The Juniper Tree," this theme of nature is present. The Grimm Brothers use the juniper tree as a life source for the mother and the son. The use of nature as a life source inspired other literary work such as "Briar Rose".

J.R.R Tolkien

In his essay "On Fairy-Stories", J.R.R. Tolkien cited The Juniper Tree as an example of the evils of censorship for children; many versions in his day omitted the stew, and Tolkien thought children should not be spared it, unless they were spared the whole fairy tale.

Adaptations

Throughout the centuries, the Grimm Brothers fairy tales have been retold and adapted by an abundance of sources. The story was adapted:

• For the comic book Grimm Fairy Tales as issue 17. The story goes: a woman kills her stepson in order to prevent him from eloping with her daughter, then buries his body underneath the juniper tree in their yard. The next day, a bird on the branch of the tree tells the daughter the truth, and out of grief, she hangs herself from the tree. The story is told to a woman named Patricia, who was contemplating having her drug-addict stepson Bryan killed because of the horrible example he set for her daughter, Carolyn. But, in a sense of twisted irony, her daughter dies anyway from a drug overdose.
• By Barbara Comyns Carr in her novel, The Juniper Tree, published by Methuen in 1985. In Comyns Carr's adaptation the stepmother is a sympathetic character and the son's death an accident. Whereas in Grimm's fairy tale it is Marlene (the daughter) who buries the bones of the son, Comyns Carr makes Marlene ignorant of the death and has the stepmother, desperate to prevent her husband from finding out and in the throes of a nervous breakdown, bury the little boy under the juniper tree. At the end of the adaptation, the stepmother does not die but is treated and begins a new life. The Juniper Tree was Barbara Comyns Carr's first novel after an 18-year hiatus in her work and was described in The Financial Times, at the time of publication, as "delicate, tough, quick-moving .... haunting".
• As The Juniper Tree, an opera in two acts by Philip Glass & Robert Moran, (1985); libretto by Arthur Yorinks.
• As the 1990 Icelandic film The Juniper Tree, based on the Grimm Brothers' tale, starring Björk as a visionary young girl whose mother has been put to death as a witch.
• In the story "The Crabapple Tree", by Robert Coover, appearing in the January 12, 2015, issue of The New Yorker.
• English Folk singer Emily Portman sings a version of the story called "Stick Stock"
• The book 'The Grimm Conclusion' (by Adam Gidwitz) was based on this fairy tale
• For a collection of fairy tales created by Lore Segal and Maurice Sendak.

References

Oliver Loo. The Original 1812 Grimm Fairy Tales. A New Translation of the 1812 First Edition Kinder- und Hausmärchen Collected through the Brothers Grimm. Volume I. 200 Year Anniversary Edition 2014. ISBN 9781312419049.