Brandon Harmon
ENG-111/ENF-3
Professor Dollieslager
11/16/14
The Grimm Brothers’
The Grimm Brothers are considered the “preeminent cartographers of storytelling.” Together, the brothers have passed along the torch of epics through such iconic narratives. Although, their stories were at first too violent and unorthodox, the brothers were able to attain support from their younger and parental readers around the world as they continued to evolve their unrealistic tales. The Grimm Brothers were known for making cognitive connections between reality and fiction, telling extreme tales of perseverance and devotion, and impacting the lives of others through their tales
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The Grimm Brothers’ are the fathers of fairy tales. They show it in their stories which have gained a lot of support, through the A-list stories they created such as what we refer to as “Cinderella, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, etc.” During their life time, the French, under Napoleon, invaded Germany. Napoleon wanted to suppress as much local culture as he could, which sparked motivation for the Grimm Brothers’ to collect and create their iconic, universal stories. Their goal was to save their endangered oral tradition of storytelling, a major component that Napoleon was trying to suppress, with no remorse. The Grimm brothers were able to write their stories through two major sources of aid: Friedrich Carl Von Savigny and the printing press. Friedrich Carl Von Savigny was a young aristocrat professor who showed Jacob, one of the Grim Brothers’, his private library, and through his collection of rare manuscripts, epic stories, and hero tales, many fairy tales were drafted. The printing press impacted mass communication and education, which served as a beneficial factor in the Grimm Brothers’ success of publishing their editions of their fairy tales.
The Grimm Brothers were known for many of their iconic narratives, but their less known stories were captivating as well. A good example of this would be their tale of “The Seven Ravens.” There was a man and his wife who lived together. They had seven boys, but were unable to give birth to a daughter. One day, their wish was granted, but in a twisted way. The wife gave birth to a daughter, but the daughter swiftly became sick and small, she needed to be baptized to make up for her weakness. Her father sent one of his boys to fetch natural spring water while the rest followed him to the well. Because each wanted to fetch the water for the baptism, through their clumsiness, the bucket fell to the bottom of the well. Completely dumbfounded and silent, no one knew exactly what to do. The father, out of anger, shouted: “I wish the boys were all turned into ravens.” As soon as his sentence was finished, he heard a whirring of wings over his head in the air, looked up and saw seven coal-black ravens flying away. He and his wife grieved deeply, after realizing that they could not reverse the unexpected curse, but later became comforted when they noticed their daughter speedily recovered from her sickness, then she became more beautiful with each day. For a long time, her parents kept the tragedy a secret and she had no idea that she had seven brothers. One day, she overheard some people talk about how she was the reason for her brothers’ tragedy. After hearing such a claim, she approached her parents and asked for confirmation.
Her parents said that her brothers’ tragedy was the will of Heaven; denying the lie, she set out to find her lost brothers. On her journey, she took only a little ring belonging to her parents as a keepsake, a loaf of bread, a little pitcher of water, and a little chair. She approached the Sun, hot and terrible, she consumed children, then went to the Moon, but was cold, awful, and malicious, so she moved in the direction of the stars. They were good to her, each sitting on their own chair. The morning star gave her a drumstick of chicken and said "If thou hast not that drumstick, thou canst not open the Glass Mountain, and in the Glass Mountain are thy brothers.” She accepted the drumstick and traveled to the Glass Mountain.
When she got to the doors, she opened her cloth, but couldn’t find the drumstick. Not knowing what else to do, she severed her finger with a knife and unlocked the door. A dwarf approached her and asked her who she was looking for. She told the dwarf that she was looking for her brothers, the seven ravens. Unfortunately, they were not present at the time so she had to wait for their arrival. She ate a morsel from each plate and drunk from each glass, on the last sip, her ring dropped.
As the ravens finally arrived, they brought with them pondering questions. One asked who ate from their plate and the other asked who drunk from their glass. When the seventh raven came through, the sister’s ring rolled against his mouth. After looking at the ring, the raven said "God grant that our sister may be here, and then we shall be free." Once the words were heard, she came forth and her seven brothers reverted back into human boys again. They embraced each other with hugs and kisses then joyfully went home (Brothers Grimm).
“The Seven Ravens” by The Grimm Brothers’ is an adequate story that parallels to how one should be cautious for what they wish for, because it could come true. When things don’t go as well as we’d like them to go, we sometimes say negative phrases or words that we don’t really mean. There was a time where a teammate of mine really made me upset. He cost me and the team a conference game. He turned over the ball badly, he didn’t execute plays faithfully and he often shot the ball at the wrong times. During halftime, I was so angry that I wished for him to get injured so he can be taken out of the game. Four minutes left in the fourth quarter, he tore his ACL while driving the ball into the paint for a layup. We’re so saturated with emotions such as anger and disappointment that we don’t realize what we’re saying. This story peeks my interest, because of the daughter’s perseverance, sacrifice, and consistency in her search for her brothers. To know she successfully saved her brothers and reverted them back into boys again was a reward that no one could ruin.
There are many authors and writers in the world today, who may bring strong emotions to their audience, but most do not carry the influence the Grimm Brothers have had. The Grimm Brothers lived during a time period where the French occupied Germany. Oral storytelling was endangered, so reviving the culture through their work was their first priority. Through the aids of many factors they were able to publish two hundred and ten stories, some of which relatively paralleled their lifestyle. Their tale, “The Seven Ravens”, cognitively impacts the readers as it tells a compelling story of secrets and realities.
Works Cited
The Brothers Grimm. “The Seven Ravens”. Fairy Tales. 1812. Project Gutenberg. 2008 <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/019.txt>
O'Neil, Thomas. "Guardians of the Fairy Tale: The Brothers Grimm." Living In The World: Cultural Themes For Writers. 1st ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2014. 44-57. Print.