Grimm Folktales: The
Riches and Wonders of
the Domestic Kingdom

by Mitchell Kalpakgian, Ph.D.

The anti-family bias of modern society is expressed in a multitude of forms from the contraceptive mentality to population control to abortion on demand to no-fault divorce to socialistic government. Less and less is the home appreciated as a lordly castle or rich kingdom, as a school of love or the center of civilization, or as "a haven in a heartless world" to use Christopher Lasch’s popular phrase. In the aftermath of the sexual revolution and the feminist revolution the home has been reduced and impoverished, equated with enslavement, boredom, and obsolescence. How ever, the great folk literature of the world, on the contrary, portrays the home as a kingdom of riches and treasures—a storehouse filled with the inestimable worth of simple goodness, the wealth of love, the blessing of children, the abundance of mirth, the gift of beauty, and the miracles of luck, prosperity, and good fortune.

Although the stories collected by the Grimm brothers during the nineteenth century have often been entitled folk tales or fairy tales by various editors, a recent Dover edition of the tales bears the most befitting title of Household Stories, for the world of the Grimm folktales is indeed the realm of the home and family. Some of the common household activities that occur in these stories include cooking, cleaning, sewing, going to market, feeding animals, cutting wood, and raising children. The folk tales are not only filled with these ordinary occurrences of the household but also characterized by many family relationships involving fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and masters and servants. Also the folktales feature many domestic animals and farmyard creatures such as dogs and cats, cows and pigs, and horses and donkeys. However, despite the commonplace, ordinary, prosaic background in these folktales, a world of wonders, riches, and mysteries permeates the domestic kingdom in these stories. Despite its plainness and simplicity the home and family offer a form of treasure that surpasses the wealth of the world.

Wonderful things happen to very ordinary people through the magic of luck and the miracle of love. In the midst of the household realm of work and routine appear the gift of beauty and the prize of goodness. In the humble, workaday world of chores and daily toil emerge supernatural creatures like elves and fairy godmothers. Aschenputtel (Cinderella) is a maid and a servant who is sent into the kitchen to do menial work: "There she was obliged to do heavy work from morning to night, get up early in the morning, draw water, make the fires, cook, and wash." However, in the midst of her humble life Aschenputtel prays to her mother and marvels to behold her deepest wishes answered: "Little tree, little tree, shake over me, // That silver and gold may come down and cover me." The magical bird drops down a beautiful dress of gold and silver and slippers embroidered with silk. The ordinary kitchen maid becomes the beautiful maiden that the prince marries. The gold and silver in this story do not signify wealth and fortune but the riches of goodness, beauty, and love that lie hidden in the heart of the simple domestic world. The ordinary world conceals the supernatural realm that hides its wonders, mysteries, and secrets in the substance of the commonplace. Under the appearance of the maidservant who cleans dirt and does lowly work shines out a beautiful princess.

In "The Frog Prince" the humble are again exalted, and lowliness conceals grandeur. The poverty and unworthiness of the frog hide his true identity as a prince. Appearing as an ugly, despicable frog, the creature does a special favor for the princess by fetching her ball from the well. In return for this kind deed the frog requests a promise from the princess: "but if thou wouldst love me, and have me for thy companion and play-fellow, and let me sit by thee at table, and drink from thy cup, and sleep in thy little bed,—if thou wouldst promise all this, then would I dive below the water and fetch thee thy golden ball again." Desiring her golden ball at any cost, the princess agrees to the promise but does not expect to fulfill it. Upon finding her ball again, she quickly forgets about the poor frog and never expects to see him again. When the frog arrives at her door step the following day, the princess resents his presence and complains bitterly to her father the King: "but I never thought that he could leave the water and come after me; but now there he is outside the door and he wants to come in to me." By honoring her promise to the lowly frog and overcoming her loathing for the ugly creature, the princess discovers that the frog is a prince who wishes to marry her. The riches of love and marriage conceal themselves in the plainness of the insignificant frog. The splendid form of a prince camouflages itself in the lowly matter of a common frog.

In the Grimm folktales, then, the household is not a drab, prosaic world devoid of wonder or mystery but a rich world filled with surprising gifts—the miracles of love, good ness, and beauty symbolized by the magical transformations of the humble maid into the beautiful princess and the ugly frog into the handsome prince. The riches in these household stories are like hidden treasures or mysterious secrets that lie beneath the surface. Beneath the appearance of plain clothing, simple people, and humble lives lies the gold of precious love and heavenly beauty. For example, in "The Goose Girl," the true princess is the woman wearing the "plain garments" who tends the geese, not the waiting woman dressed in the "rich clothing" who pretends to be the bride. Thus the humble domestic world depicted in these folktales is permeated with the heavenly world. The amazing surprises and the priceless gifts evoke a divine reality that inhabits the ordinary world in a subtle, hidden, mysterious way. Just as the beauty of Aschenputtel wears the modest appearance of the maidservant and the prince wears the disguise of the frog and the real princess wears the clothing of the goose girl, so too the miraculous appears in the clothing of the natural in the Grimm folktales.

Another one of the wonderful things that happen to ordinary people in these folktales is the surprise of luck. In "Hans in Luck" a young apprentice who gives the appearance of a simpleton exchanges a lump of gold for a horse, trades the horse for the cow, the cow for a pig, and the pig for a grindstone—giving the impression of a fool who is cheated by a shrewd merchants who take advantage of his inexperience and naiveté. When Hans accidentally pushes the grindstone into the well, he loses his last possession and returns home empty-handed, ostensibly the victim of sharp merchants. However, Hans does not curse his misfortune or lament the loss of the lump of gold. Watching the grindstone disappear, Hans "jumped for joy, and thanked his stars that he had been so lucky as to get rid of the stones that had weighed upon him so long without any effort of his own." When Hans exclaims, "I am the luckiest man under the sun," he epitomizes the proverbial luck of the fool. The loss of the heavy gold and the freedom from carrying the burdensome grindstone fill him with a lightheartedness that makes him rejoice in his carefreeness. This folktale illuminates the mystery of the blessing in disguise. Like the hiddenness of Aschenputtel’s beauty and like the secret of the frog’s identity, the mystique of luck assumes an unlikely appearance in the form of the fool and arrives in the strange form of loss rather than gain.

Thus the household world of folktales is animated by the surprises of life’s mysterious laws that operate through the suddenness of love, the power of goodness, and the unpredictability of luck. The vision of reality portrayed in these stories is not a flat, drab, repetitious, one-dimensional world but a moral universe governed by paradoxes and strange turns of fortune where the last become first and the weak overthrow the mighty. In "The Gallant Little Tailor" the little man beats the giants. Climbing up a tree with stones in his pockets, the tailor, hiding in the branches, drops heavy stones first on one sleeping giant and then upon the other one, provoking an argument between them that leads to fatal blows. In "Handles and Gretel" two innocent, helpless children outwit and overcome a cunning, powerful witch as Gretel pushes the witch into the oven intended for the children. In "The Bremen Town Musicians" the weak overcome the powerful as the dog, cat, ass, and cock—old, rejected stray animals—terrify the robbers first with their cacophonous sounds of barking, mewing, braying, and crowing and then with their fierce attack of biting, scratching, spitting, and kicking. In "Tom Thumb" a mischievous, playful little boy exposes thieves planning to rob a rich parson. Pre tending to assist the robbers, Tom offers to crawl through the iron bars of the parson’s room and hand the thieves the gold and silver. When the robbers whisper instruction to Tom, Tom answers as loudly as possible, "Will you have all that is here?" His next response, "Oh yes, I will give it all to you, only put out your hands" is so noisy that it wakes the maid and foils the scheme of the robbers. In these stories physical strength, worldly cunning, and the advantage of numbers do not prevail against innocence and guilelessness. The simple tailor, innocent children, and the aged overcome the might of giants and robbers. In St. Paul’s words, "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty." The domestic realm in the Grimm folktales illuminates the mysterious laws that govern the paradoxes of God’s kingdom, making the humdrum household world always fresh and startling. The poor become rich, the lowly are exalted, the last become first, the weak overcome the strong, and fools become wise men: these are some of the other wonderful things that happen to ordinary people in these stories.

These folktales also depict the extraordinary nature of ordinary virtues required in daily life and household living. Wonderful things happen to common people who excel in performing the ordinary duties of life and in exercising the simple virtues of social life. The kind, the friendly, the industrious, the dutiful, and the charitable are all blessed in surprising ways. In "Mother Hulda" a young girl who accidentally drops a spindle into a well must descend into the well to find it. During her journey through a meadow she encounters a baker’s oven in which the bread cries out, "Oh, take me out, take me out, or I shall burn." She cheerfully performs that task and takes out all the loaves. When the little girl approaches an apple tree, she hears a voice pleading, "Oh, shake me, shake me, we apples are all of us ripe." Again she cooperates, shaking the tree and collecting all the apples. Then the little girl meets Mother Hulda who asks her to help with the housework. She responds with perfect obedience, making the bed perfectly and shaking the feathers so that they "flew about like snowflakes." Be cause the little girl served Mother Hulda faithfully, doing the chores cheerfully and industriously and never complaining about the lowliness or difficulty of the task, she is blessed with a shower of gold when she leaves for home. "All this is yours, because you have been so industrious," said Mother Hulda. In folktales one can never underestimate the surprising consequences that follow from simple acts of goodness.

In "The Three Little Men in the Wood" the simple virtues of friendliness and kindness demonstrate their extraordinary powers. In the story two step-sisters visit the home of the mysterious little men. When the pleasant, pretty sister arrives in the woods, she greets them in a friendly voice, shares her piece of bread with them, and sweeps the snow from their porch. Her genuine friendliness, true charity, and perfect kindness inspire the little men to reward the girl with pieces of gold falling from her mouth as she speaks. The ugly, hateful step-sister who wishes to acquire her sister’s good fortune also visits the three little men in the wood. How ever, she offers them no friendly greeting, refuses to share her bread and butter with the men, and complains when they ask her to sweep the back porch. "Oh, go and do it yourselves," she replies; "I am not your housemaid." Instead of growing more beautiful each day and producing gold pieces like her kindhearted sister, she becomes more ugly each day and toads come out of her mouth. In folktales a good deed resembles a small seed that bears abundant fruit in an astonishing way.

In "The White Snake" a servant performs three simple favors out of the goodness of his heart: he throws three fishes back into the water, avoids trampling on an ant hill, and feeds the young ravens. Hearing the cries of these poor creatures, the humble servant responds with pity and kindness, never expecting any reward for his charitable deeds. However, when the servant is courting the king’s daughter and must perform the difficult tasks of finding a ring in the sea, filling ten sacks of millet seed, and bringing two apples from the tree of life in order to win the daughter’s hand, the creatures remember the favors of the servant. Out of profound gratitude the perform the difficult tasks for him—the fish finding the ring in the sea, the ants filling the sacks of millet, and the ravens carrying the two apples. This tale illustrates the mystery of giving and receiving: those who give without expecting to receive, receive in unforeseen and unimaginable ways. The smallest favors often produce the greatest blessings. Keeping a promise, doing a favor, showing friendliness, and working diligently do not constitute heroic virtue, yet these small acts of thoughtfulness and modest goodness lead to incredible good fortune in these folktales.

In "The Three Spinsters" a queen offers her oldest son as a bridegroom for the diligent woman who will spin three rooms full of flax. The mother who volunteers her daughter for the task does not dare confess the truth of her daughter’s incurable laziness to the Queen. Confronted with a task beyond her human powers, the lazy daughter weeps and despairs. Gazing out the window, she notices three women passing by: one with a broad flat foot, another with a big under-lip, and a third with a broad thumb. After hearing of the desperate plight of the girl expected to spin three rooms filled with flax, the three spinsters promise to complete the task upon the one condition that she will invite them to her wedding. When all the flax is spun, the bride honors the three women with an invitation to her wedding. She introduces them as her three cousins and acknowledges her special debt of gratitude to them: "And as they have shown me a great deal of kindness, I would not wish to forget them in my good fortune." Although the three spinsters look odd at the wedding because of their strange appearance and provoke the bridegroom to ask, "How come you to have such dreadfully ugly relations?", the bride welcomes them as guests of honor out of appreciation for their kind favors. When the bridegroom learns that the spinsters look grotesque because of the flat foot, hanging lip, and broad thumb, caused from spinning flax, he vows that his bride will never touch a spinning wheel. In this story the bride is twice blessed by the three spinsters. Good fortune comes in strange forms. Old, ugly, and disfigured, the external appearance of the three women belies the goodness in their hearts. Because the bride valued their spinning enough to invite them to her wedding, she not only benefited from their great talents but also received the special boon of relief from the task of spinning. Simple acts of goodness such as doing a favor from someone in need and expressing gratitude for the kind deeds of others contain a magic of their own: they simplify the most complicated situations and provide perfect answers to complex riddles.

While the household world in the Grimm folktales depicts the humble background of ordinary lives performing their daily work in modest circumstances, it also portrays the home and family as a rich, copious world abounding in gifts and blessings not recognized by the world. The Household Stories illuminate the realities of love, beauty, goodness, and luck by representing them as mysteries and paradoxes—as precious treasure enriching the lives of common people with the gold that comes from a heavenly kingdom. While the anti-family ideology and propaganda of the modern world portray the home as confining, limited, stifling, and humdrum, the Grimm folk tales present the household world as an adventuresome drama full of natural excitement and robust energy that make it, in G.K. Chester ton’s words, "the wildest of adventures." Folktales remind us of that fundamental truth about life that population controllers, abortion ideologues, and radical feminists suppress—the simple truth that, in Chesterton’s words, "the supreme adventure is being born":

There we do walk suddenly into a splendid and startling trap. There we do see something of which we have not dreamed before. Our father and mother do lie in wait for us and leap out on us, like brigand from a bush. Our uncle is a surprise. Our aunt is, in the beautiful common expression, a bolt from the blue. When we step into the family, by act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world that we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family, we step into a fairy tale. (Brave New Family, ed. Alvaro de Silva; Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 1990; p.44)