Reading Week 14: Brother's Grimm (Crane) Part B


The Brothers Grimm have a highly distinct story telling style that encapsulates what it means to tell old fairy tale stories. They’re filled with easy to follow plots that progress in a logical manner, they have rich detail the captures the essence of the story, and finally, they have gruesome details that really hone in on how it is VERY bad to be evil in these stories. This week, my favorite two stories out of the bunch were “The Six Swans” and “King Thrushbeard”. I was originally more of a fan of King Thrushbeard, but now looking back on how it ended/what took place to get there, I appreciate The Six Swans more.

Each was filled with great details that highlighted exactly where the characters were in the story. An example of this is when the swans finally appeared, “and the fire was about the be kindled, all at once she cried out loud, for there were six swans coming flying through the air, and she saw that her deliverance was near, and her heart beat for joy.” Choice words here really conveyed to the reader exactly what we should be feeling (or understanding what the characters are feeling. Words like “deliverance” and “joy” captures what the sister is feeling after having spent 6 years in silence, falling in love with the King. Curses are another important aspect throughout the Brothers’ stories. In the swan story, it provided the whole source of conflict, since the sister spent the whole time trying to get her brothers to change back to humans during the day. One nit-picky kind of question that I have about this story is, Why didn’t the boys simply fly to their father/transform right as it was becoming night so that he wouldn’t spend any more time with that wretched woman? Oh well, she gets what is coming to her in the end.

The Six Swans
Drawn by Walter Crane

"Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm" translated by Lucy Crane and illustrated by Walter Crane (1886).

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