Jump to content

The Three Spinners: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Line 81: Line 81:


==Further reading==
==Further reading==
* Bottigheimer, Ruth B. “Tale Spinners: Submerged Voices in Grimms' Fairy Tales.” New German Critique, no. 27, 1982, pp. 141–150. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/487989. Accessed 7 May 2020.
* Cambon, Fernand. "La fileuse. Remarques psychanalytiques sur le motif de la «fileuse» et du «filage» dans quelques poèmes et contes allemands". In: ''Littérature'', n° 23, 1976. Paroles du désir. pp. 56-74. [DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/litt.1976.1122]; [www.persee.fr/doc/litt_0047-4800_1976_num_23_3_1122]
* Cambon, Fernand. "La fileuse. Remarques psychanalytiques sur le motif de la «fileuse» et du «filage» dans quelques poèmes et contes allemands". In: ''Littérature'', n° 23, 1976. Paroles du désir. pp. 56-74. [DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/litt.1976.1122]; [www.persee.fr/doc/litt_0047-4800_1976_num_23_3_1122]


Revision as of 20:54, 7 May 2020

The Three Spinners
1912 illustration by Robert Anning Bell
Folk tale
NameThe Three Spinners
Also known as
  • The Seven Little Pork Rinds
  • And Seven!
Aarne–Thompson grouping
  • ATU 501 (The Three Old Women Helper)
  • ATU 501 (The Three Old Spinning Women)
CountryGermany
Italy
Published inGrimm's Fairy Tales
Italian Folktales

"The Three Spinners" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm.[1] It is tale nr. 14 and Aarne–Thompson type 501. It is widespread throughout Europe.[2][3]

It has obvious parallels to Rumpelstiltskin and Frau Holle,[4] and obvious differences, so that they are often compared.[5]

Giambattista Basile includes an Italian literary fairy tale, The Seven Little Pork Rinds, in his 1634 work, the Pentamerone.[6]

Italo Calvino's Italian Folktales includes a variant, And Seven!.[7]

The first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales contained a much shorter variant, Hateful Flax Spinning, but it is "The Three Spinners" that became well-known.

Synopsis

Once there was a beautiful-but-lazy girl who would not spin. While her mother beats her for it, the Queen, passing by, overhears and asks the reason for the punishment. Ashamed to admit that her daughter is lazy, the woman replies that the girl spins so much that her mother cannot afford to buy enough flax to keep her occupied. The Queen, impressed by such industry, offers to take the girl with her.

Once at the castle, the queen takes the girl to a room filled with flax. If she spins it all within three days, she'll be rewarded with marriage to the queen's oldest son. Two days later, the queen returns and is amazed to find the flax untouched. The girl pleads that homesickness has kept her from spinning, but she realizes that excuse will not serve her twice.

Three women appear in the room that night. One has a grotesquely swollen foot; the second, an overgrown thumb; the third, a pendulous lip. They offer to spin all the flax for the girl if she will invite them to her wedding, introduce them as her aunts, and seat them at the high table. She agrees, and they commence and complete the spinning.

In the morning, the queen is satisfied to see the flax all spun. She arranges for the wedding to her son, the prince, and the girl asks to invite her "aunts". When they appear, the king asks how they came to have such deformities, and the three explain that they come from their years of spinning. The king forbids his beautiful daughter-in-law to spin again.

Variant: Hateful Flax Spinning

A king orders his queen and daughters to spin all the time. One day, he gives them a great box of flax to spin, to his daughters' distress. The queen invites three hideous old maids to come to the castle and spin. The king sees them and asks the cause of their deformities. Their answer: from spinning. The king forbids his wife and daughters to spin again.

Italian variants

The Seven Little Pork Rinds

A girl eats seven pieces of bacon, leaving none for her mother. While the mother beats her for her gluttony, a passing merchant asks the reason, and the woman replies that her daughter is ruining her health by working too hard. The merchant decides on the spot to marry this industrious girl.

The now-married merchant goes on a journey, leaving his wife the spinning. Making an effort to spin, she flicks a passersby with water; some passing fairies are so amused by this that they offer to do the spinning for her. Despite their aid, the merchant's wife claims that the spinning has made her ill, and the merchant decides not to require her to spin any more, as her mother must have been right about her overworking.

And Seven!

In this version, as in the one just described, the part of the king is taken by a merchant; similarly, the mother berates her daughter for "seven" – meaning seven bowls of soup that the girl has eaten – but the mother pretends that they are spindles of hemp that the girl has spun.

The women helpers in this version – who also are deformed from their years of spinning – instruct the girl to invite them to her wedding by calling their names. If she does not do so, they warn her, she will be worse off than she would have been had they not spun for her. She forgets the names and puts off the wedding while she tries to recall them. The merchant sees the three women cavorting in the forest and hears them call out their names, similar to the scene in Rumpelstiltskin; he describes this to his bride in hopes of amusing her and getting her to agree to a wedding date. She is therefore able to invite her helpers and bring about the happy ending as in "The Three Spinners".

International variants

Folklorist Joseph Jacobs, in More English Fairy Tales, compares the English tale Habetrot and Scantlie Mab with the German tale.[8] Professor Ernest Warren Baughman, in his work Type and Motif-index of the Folktales of England and North America, lists the origin of Lang's variant as Orkney Islands, along with versions from Selkirk and England.[9] An Irish variant, titled The Lazy Beauty and her Aunts, was published in The fireside stories of Ireland,[10] and translated into French by Loys Brueyre, with the name La Paresseuse et ses Tantes.[11] A Scottish variant of Whuppity Stoorie is very similar to this tale: the wife of a gentleman or a rich man finds six little women clad in green, who agree to do her household chores with the condition she invites them for dinner.[12]

A Puerto Rican version exists, with three Holy Souls in Purgatory replacing the fairies, and a merchant in place of the king. The heroine in this version is an orphan abused by an aunt.

Variants in Portuguese language have been attested in compilations: As Tias ("The Aunts"), by Consiglieri Pedroso in Portuguese Folk-Tales;[13] As fiandeiras, collected by Theophilo Braga;[14] A devota das almas, collected by Brazilian folklorist Câmara Cascudo.

A Czech variant has been collected by Karel Jaromir Erben, named O trech pradlenach[15] and translated into French (Les Trois Fileuses).[16]

A variant from Normandy has been attested with the name La Fileuse[17] or La Fileresse.[18]

A Flemish version of the tale exists with the name Het huwelijk van Gilda met de gouden haarlokken ("Le mariage de Gilda aux cheveux d'or").[19]

A Swedish tale can be found in Gunnar Cavallius and George Stephens's Schwedische Volkssagen und Märchen (Das Mädchen, das Gold aus Lehm und Schüttenstroh spinnen konnte).[20]

Variants without magic

In the Uzbek variant, called The Resourceful Spinner, the fairy spinners are absent. Instead, the wife attempts to both eat and spin at the same time, which is seen by a passing prince suffering from a bone stuck inside his throat. The sight makes him laugh so hard the bone dislodges, curing him. His father, the ruler, is so grateful that he sends enough weavers to spin the flax. Later, the wife bows to a passing beetle, and explains to the surprised husband it's actually her aunt, shrivelled from the effort of weaving, to which his husband forbids her to ever weave again.[21] A related Armenian tale has the wife lose the flax but find a gold nugget, which she claims to her husband was given to her for the quality work. Her mother later likewise claims a black beetle is her aunt, and the husband likewise forbids his wife to ever work again.[22]

See also

References

  1. ^ Jacob and Wilheim Grimm, Grimm's Fairy Tales, "The Three Spinners"
  2. ^ Italo Calvino, Italian Folktales p 716 ISBN 0-15-645489-0
  3. ^ Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. pp. 48-49. ISBN 0-520-03537-2
  4. ^ The tale is classified as The Spinning Women by the Spring (Thompson. pp. 175 and 182).
  5. ^ Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. p. 49. ISBN 0-520-03537-2
  6. ^ Jack Zipes, The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm, p 585, ISBN 0-393-97636-X
  7. ^ Italo Calvino, Italian Folktales p 14-18 ISBN 0-15-645489-0
  8. ^ Jacobs, Joseph. More English Fairy Tales. London: G. Putnam and Sons. 1912. pp. 180-185 and 239-240.
  9. ^ Baughman, Ernest Warren. Type and Motif-index of the Folktales of England and North America. Indiana University Folklore Series No. 20. The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton & Co. 1966. p. 12.
  10. ^ Kennedy, Patrick. The fireside stories of Ireland. Dublin : M'Glashan and Gill. 1870. pp. 63-67.
  11. ^ Brueyre, Loys. Contes populaires de la Grande-Bretagne. Paris: Libraire Hachette et C. 1875. pp. 159-162.
  12. ^ "A various Whuppity Stoorie". In: Chambers, Robert. Popular rhymes of Scotland. London, Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers. 1870. pp. 76-77.
  13. ^ Consiglieri Pedroso, Zophimo. Portuguese folk-tales. London: E. Stock. 1882. pp. 79-81.
  14. ^ Braga, Teófilo. Contos Tradicionais do Povo Português. Vol. I. Edições Vercial. 1914. pp. 18-20 and pp. 181-181 (Notes on tale nr. 7).
  15. ^ Erben, Karel Jaromir. České pohádky. Jan Laichter. 1905. pp. 3-12.
  16. ^ Erben, Karel Jaromir. éd. "Les Trois Fileuses, Conte populaire tchéque" [O trech pradlenach]. Traduit par J. L. Chollet. In: Gazette de Prague, 1er, déc. 1920.
  17. ^ Mémoires de la Société d'archéologie, de littérature, sciences et arts d'Avranches. Tome 7. Avranche. 12/1885. pp. 149-150. [ark:/12148/bpt6k6466053t]
  18. ^ Revue de l'Avranchin: bulletin... de la Société d'archéologie, de littérature, sciences et arts d'Avranches et de Mortain. Tome I. Avranches. 1882. pp. 189-190. [ark:/12148/bpt6k6426457r]
  19. ^ Van Heurck, Émile Henri; Boekenoogen, Gerrit Jacob. Histoire de l'imagerie populaire flamande et de ses rapports avec les imageries étrangères (monographie). Bruxelles. 1910. pp. 316-317.
  20. ^ Hyltén-Cavallius, Gunnar; Stephens, George. Schwedische Volkssagen und Märchen. Wien: Haas. 1848. pp. 209-213.
  21. ^ http://skazka.mifolog.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000034/st041.shtml
  22. ^ https://armjanskie-skazki.larec-skazok.ru/guri-lentyajka

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. 109–115.
  • Brueyre, Loys. Contes populaires de la Grande-Bretagne. Paris: Libraire Hachette et C. 1875. p. 162.
  • von Sydow, C. W. Två spinnsagor: en studie i jämförande folksagoforskning (Monograph). Akademisk avhandling--Lund. Stockholm : P.A. Norstedt. 1909. [Analysis of Aarne-Thompson-Uther tale types 500 and 501]

Further reading

  • Bottigheimer, Ruth B. “Tale Spinners: Submerged Voices in Grimms' Fairy Tales.” New German Critique, no. 27, 1982, pp. 141–150. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/487989. Accessed 7 May 2020.
  • Cambon, Fernand. "La fileuse. Remarques psychanalytiques sur le motif de la «fileuse» et du «filage» dans quelques poèmes et contes allemands". In: Littérature, n° 23, 1976. Paroles du désir. pp. 56-74. [DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/litt.1976.1122]; [www.persee.fr/doc/litt_0047-4800_1976_num_23_3_1122]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=The_Three_Spinners&oldid=955443259"