The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs
The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 29.[1] It falls under Aarne-Thompson classification types 461, "three hairs from the devil", and 930, "prophecy that a poor boy will marry a rich girl."[citation needed]
The story was first translated into English as "The Giant and the Three Golden Hairs", to avoid offense, but the devil in the story does indeed act like a folklore giant.[2] Ruth Manning-Sanders included it, as "The Three Golden Hairs of the King of the Cave Giants", in A Book of Giants.
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[edit] Synopsis
A poor woman gave birth to a son with a caul, which was predicted to mean that he would marry the king's daughter. The king, hearing of it, persuaded his parents to give him the child to raise. He put the boy in a box and threw the box into the water. It drifted down to a mill, where the miller and his wife thought that God had sent them this child, and raised him as their own.
One day the king visited the mill and, hearing how they had gained their son, sent him with a letter to the queen, which said that the bearer of the letter should be killed at once. He fell among robbers, who read the letter, had pity on him, and substituted one that said he should be married to the king's daughter. The queen received it and obeyed, much to the shock of the king.
The king dispatched the boy to get the devil's three golden hairs. On the way, the boy is asked why a fountain that used to give wine no longer gives even water; a tree that used to bear golden apples no longer has even leaves; and a ferryman is bound to ferry people back and forth. After promising to provide the answers upon his return, the boy got to the devil's house, and his grandmother was there. She changed him into an ant to hide him.
When the devil got home and went to sleep, his grandmother pulled out his three golden hairs. Each time, she woke him, and told him that she had dreamed of the dry fountain, the leafless tree, and the ferryman. He told that a toad in the well had caused it to go dry, that a mouse nibbling at the roots had stopped the apples, and that if the ferryman stuck his oar into someone else's hand, that man would be the new ferryman, and he could go free.
The grandmother gave the boy the hairs. As he went back, he answered the questions; the ferryman got his answer only after he had ferried the boy across. The two towns, with the well and tree, both gave him two donkeys laden with gold. The king was pleased with the gold and asked where it came from, whereupon the boy sent him to the ferryman. The king went off to get more, and the ferryman stuck the oar in his hand, leaving the king to row the ferry as a punishment for his wickedness.
[edit] Influence
"The Devil with The Three Golden Hairs" is noted[citation needed] to have influenced J. R. R. Tolkien's The Tale of Beren and Luthien, in which the elf-king Thingol sets an impossible task for his daughter's mortal suitor: to obtain one of the three Silmarils from the Iron Crown of Morgoth.
[edit] See also
- The Dragon and his Grandmother
- The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate
- The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars
- The Fish and the Ring
[edit] References
- ^ Jacob and Wilheim Grimm, Grimm's Fairy Tales, "The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs"
- ^ Maria Tatar, The Annotated Brothers Grimm, p 157. W. W. Norton & company, London, New York, 2004 ISBN 0-393-05848-4
