Town Musicians of Bremen

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The "Town Musicians of Bremen" (Template:Langx) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in Grimms' Fairy Tales in 1819 (KHM 27).[1]

It tells the story of four ageing domestic animals, who after a lifetime of hard work are neglected and mistreated by their former masters. Eventually, they decide to run away and become town musicians in the city of Bremen. Contrary to the story's title the characters never arrive in Bremen, as they succeed in tricking and scaring off a band of robbers, capturing their spoils, and moving into their house. It is a story of Aarne–Thompson Type 130 ("Outcast animals find a new home").[1]

Origin

The Brothers Grimm first published this tale in the second edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen in 1819, based on the account of the German storyteller Dorothea Viehmann (1755–1815).[1]

Synopsis

In the story, a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster, all past their prime years in life and usefulness on their respective farms, were soon to be discarded or mistreated by their masters. One by one, they leave their homes and set out together. They decide to go to Bremen, known for its freedom, to live without owners and become musicians there ("Something better than death we can find anywhere").

On the way to Bremen, they see a lighted cottage; they look inside and see three robbers enjoying their ill-gotten gains. Standing on each other's backs, they decide to scare the robbers away by making a din; the men run for their lives, not knowing what the strange sound is. The animals take possession of the house, eat a good meal, and settle in for the evening.

Later that night, the robbers return and send one of their members in to investigate. He sees the cat's eyes shining in the darkness and thinks he is seeing the coals of the fire. The robber reaches over to light his candle. Things happen in quick succession; the cat scratches his face with her claws, the dog bites him on the leg, the donkey kicks him with his hooves, and the rooster crows and chases him out the door. The terrified robber tells his companions that he was beset by a horrible witch who had scratched him with her long fingernails (the cat), a dwarf who has a knife (the dog), a black monster who had hit him with a club (the donkey), and worst of all, a judge calling out from the rooftop (the rooster). The robbers abandon the cottage to the strange creatures who have taken it, where the animals live happily for the rest of their days.

In the original version of this story, which dates from the twelfth century, the robbers are a brown bear, a lion, and a gray wolf, all animals featured in heraldic devices. When the donkey and his friends arrive in Bremen, the townsfolk applaud them for having rid the district of the terrible beasts. An alternate version involves the animals' master(s) being deprived of their livelihood (because the thieves stole his money or destroyed his farm or mill) and having to send their animals away, unable to take care of them any further. After the animals dispatch the thieves, they take the ill-gotten gains back to their master so that they can rebuild. Other versions involve at least one wild, non-livestock animal, such as a lizard, helping the domestic animals out in dispatching the thieves.[2]

Analysis

Tale type

The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 130, "The Animals in Night Quarters (Bremen Town Musicians)".[3][4] Folklorists Stith Thompson and Barre Toelken see a deep relation between this type and type ATU 210, "Cock (Rooster), Hen, Duck, Pin, and Needle on a Journey".[5][6]

Folklorist Antti Aarne proposed an Asian origin for the tale type ATU 130, "Die Tiere auf der Wanderschaft" ("Wandering Animals and Objects").[7][8]

French folklorist Paul Delarue identified two forms of the tale type: a Western one, wherein the animals in exile are always domestic animals (represented by Grimm's tale), and an Eastern one, wherein the characters are "inferior animals".[9] This second form is popular in Japan, China, Korea, Melanesia and Indonesia.[10]

Variants

File:Household stories Bros Grimm (L & W Crane) tailpiece p139.png
Illustration by Walter Crane

The story is similar to other AT-130 tales like the German/Swiss "The Robber and the Farm Animals", the Norwegian "The Sheep and the Pig Who Set Up House", the Finnish "The Animals and the Devil", the Flemish "The Choristers of St. Gudule", the Scottish "The Story of the White Pet", the English "The Bull, the Tup, the Cock, and the Steg", the Irish "Jack and His Comrades", the Spanish "Benibaire", the American "How Jack Went to Seek His Fortune" and "The Dog, the Cat, the Ass, and the Cock", and the South African "The World's Reward".[1]

Joseph Jacobs also cited this as a parallel version of the Irish "Jack and His Comrades",[11] and the English "How Jack went to seek his fortune".[12] Variants also appears in American folktale collections,[13] and in Scottish Traveller repertoires.[14]

See also

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References

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Bibliography

  • Boggs, Ralph Steele. Index of Spanish folktales, classified according to Antti Aarne's "Types of the folktale." Chicago: University of Chicago. 1930. p. 33.
  • Bolte, Johannes, Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Erster Band (NR. 1-60). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1913. pp. 237–259.
  • "Children's Stories in Sculpture: Bremen Town Musicians in Bremen." The Elementary School Journal 64, no. 5 (1964): pp. 246-47. www.jstor.org/stable/999783.

External links

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Some of the best known adaptations are:

Template:Brothers Grimm Template:Town Musicians of Bremen Template:Authority control

  1. ↑ a b c d Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  3. ↑ Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. pp. 108-109.
  4. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  5. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ Toelken, Barre. "The Icebergs of Folktale: Misconception, Misuse, Abuse". In: Carol L. Birch and Melissa A. Heckler, eds. Who Says? – Essays on Pivotal Issues in Contemporary Storytelling. Little Rock, Arkansas: August House Publishers, 1996. p. 40.
  7. ↑ Serruys, Paul, and 司禮義. "Fifteen Popular Tales: From the South of Tatung (Shansi) / 民間故事十五則". In: Folklore Studies 5 (1946): 210. Accessed June 16, 2021. doi:10.2307/3182936.
  8. ↑ Hoebel, E. Adamson. "The Asiatic Origin of a Myth of the Northwest Coast". In: The Journal of American Folklore 54, no. 211/212 (1941): 1-9. Accessed June 16, 2021. doi:10.2307/535797.
  9. ↑ Delarue, Paul Delarue. The Borzoi Book of French Folk-Tales. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1956. pp. 391-392.
  10. ↑ Delarue, Paul Delarue. The Borzoi Book of French Folk-Tales. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1956. p. 392.
  11. ↑ Jacobs, Joseph. Celtic Fairy Tales. London: David Nutt. 1892. p. 254.
  12. ↑ Jacobs, Joseph. English Fairy Tales. London: David Nutt. 1890. p. 231.
  13. ↑ Baughman, Ernest Warren. Type and Motif-index of the Folktales of England and North America. Indiana University Folklore Series No. 20. The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton & Co 1966. p. 4.
  14. ↑ "The White Pet". In: Williamson, Duncan. Fireside tales of the Traveller children: twelve Scottish stories. New York: Harmony Books, 1983. pp. 68-79.
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