And it's their shortest, too! Only one paragraph long. In German it's called "das eigensinnige Kind." In English it's called:
THE STUBBORN CHILD
From The Brothers Grimm, translated by Maria Tatar
There once lived a stubborn child, and she never did what her mother told her to do. And so our dear Lord did not look kindly on her, and let her become ill. Doctors could not cure her, and before long she was lying on her deathbed. Her coffin was being lowered into the grave and they were about to cover it with earth when suddenly one of her little arms emerged and reached up into the air. They pushed it back in again and covered the coffin with more earth, but it was no use. The little arm kept reaching out of the grave. Finally her mother had to go to the grave and strike the little arm with a switch. After she did that, the arm withdrew, and the child finally began to rest in peace beneath the earth.
Thanks to Dr. Psycho at the Childhood Fear site for the nifty graphic:
http://childhoodfear.com/tag/undead/
Yikes! So they buried the girl alive for being stubborn? German fairy tales seem to think that disobedient child is the worst sinner of all.
ReplyDeleteAs for scariest Brothers Grimm story? That's saying something, since they're all rather terrifying and tap into primal fears. Apparently in Snow White, after she married the prince she made the Wicked Stepmother dance in flaming hot shoes until dead. How Gruesome!
Thats freaky...
ReplyDeleteShe gets the stubbornness from her mother, how many times does someone have to be told not to use the Pet Sematary? Sometimes "dead is bettah. "
ReplyDeleteDisney sanitized the Brothers Grimm to make it "safe" and merchandisible up the wazoo. It's a pity most Disney fans seldom seek out the Grimm source material to discover it for themselves.
ReplyDeleteEven the first sentence had me shivering all over! Eddie, you need to somehow make a bunch of drawings for that morbid story. I rarely see them on your newer posts now, which I find strange, since you love funny, raw, real cartoons more than almost everyone that I've talked to. I'm a huge fan of them quite frankly, and they've influenced me a lot in terms of how I think about drawing in a lively and funny way. Milt Gross would be proud had he lived to this present day.
ReplyDeleteScrwney: Haw! You're right about the disobedient child being the worst sinner. We need modern books like that.
ReplyDeleteRoberto: Don't worry. I fully intend to get back to drawing on this site. It's a lot easier than looking for pre-existing pictures.
Between shoving witches in ovens, making stepmothers dance in flames and burying children alive, suddenly that whole Holocaust thing becomes a lot more comprehensible within the context of German culture.
ReplyDeleteAww, I'm only half-kidding...