The Three Languages

"The Three Languages" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 33. It is Aarne-Thompson type 671.

The Three Languages
Folk tale
NameThe Three Languages
Also known asDie drei Sprachen
Data
Aarne-Thompson groupingATU 671 (The Three Languages)
RegionGermany
Published inKinder- und Hausmärchen by The Brothers Grimm
RelatedThe Language of the Birds

Origins

The tale was collected by the Brothers Grimm from a man named Hans Truffer from Visp. The tale was included in the 1819 edition of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen, replacing the earlier Der gestiefelte Kater ("The Tomcat with Boots").[1]

Synopsis

A count's only son could learn nothing. Three times the count sent him for a year to famous masters. Each time, the son came back: saying first that he knew what dogs said when they barked; the next time, what birds said; and finally, what frogs said. Infuriated by his uselessness, his father ordered his people to take him to the woods and kill him, but they sympathised with him, and instead brought the count the eyes and tongue of a deer as proof of his death.

The doves approach the bell - a portent signaling the election of the new Pope. Illustration by John Batten for Joseph Jacobs's Europa's Fairy Book (1916).

On his wanderings, he liberated an area from haunting by dogs, by raising a treasure from under a tower, which he could do because he understood their language. The lord of the castle asked him to do so, and he came out with a chest of gold, and the lord adopted him as a son.

He went to Rome. In Rome, the Pope had died, and the cardinals wanted him as the Pope's successor, as two doves had sat on his shoulders as a divine sign. On his journey, listening to the frogs had made him sad and thoughtful. He consented to his appointment, as the doves advised him to do. When he had to read Mass, the doves whispered how to do it in his ear.

Analysis

The tale is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as ATU 671, "The Three Languages". Stith Thompson argues that the tale is sometimes confused with ATU 517, "The Boy Who Learned Many Things".[2]

Joseph Jacobs attempted to reconstruct a protoform of the tale in his Europa's Fairy Book, titled The Language of Animals.[3] In his commentaries, the folklorist argued that the story's original format involved a prophecy that the boy would become pope or king.[4][5]

Scholars Johannes Bolte and Jiri Polívka suggested tale types ATU 671, ATU 517 ("The Boy Who Learned Many Things") and ATU 725 ("The Prophecy, or, Dream of Future Sovereignty") comprised an original single tale.[6]

Professor Ralph Steele Boggs listed as a Spanish variant of the ATU 671 the work of Lope de Vega: Novela 6, El Pronóstico Cumplido ("The prophecy fulfilled").[7]

Johann Georg von Hahn collected a variant from Greece, named Von einem, der die Vogelsprache erlernte. ("The story of the boy who learned the language of the birds").[8]

The ending of the story (commoner boy becoming Pope) harks back to similar legendary tales behind historical papacies,[9] such as Pope Innocent III or Pope Sylvester II,[10] or in fictional tales, such as Gregorius (The Good Sinner). Sir James Frazer listed some variants of the papacy prophecy connected to tale collection Seven Sages of Rome,[11] and variations on the form of acquisition of animal speech.[12]

The story falls under the folklore motif of "The Outcast Child", i.e., the hero or heroine is expelled from home, but later rises through the ranks of society and returns home victorious.[13]

Scholarship argues that the learning of the languages of frogs, dogs and birds symbolically represents the speech of water, land and air creatures.[14]

Cultural references

The story is a classic example of the archetypal hero's progress through life. In Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, there is a rendition of the tale. For the Count's son; learning and education has meaning to the beholder, and in some cases, only to the beholder. In addition, there is an expectation that knowledge is power and can allow the beholder of knowledge to become self-sufficient/self-reliant.

See also

References
  1. Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Erster Band (NR. 1-60). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1913. p. 322.
  2. Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. p. 84. ISBN 0-520-03537-2
  3. Jacobs, Joseph. European Folk and Fairy Tales. New York, London: G. P. Putnam's sons. 1916. pp. 66-71.
  4. Jacobs, Joseph. European Folk and Fairy Tales. New York, London: G. P. Putnam's sons. 1916. pp. 235-237.
  5. "De droom van den koningszoon". In: Coolen, Antoon. Sprookjes uit alle landen. Met illustraties van Rie Reinderhoff. Den Haag: J. Philip Kruseman. 1941. pp. 9-16.
  6. Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Erster Band (NR. 1-60). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1913. p. 322-325.
  7. Boggs, Ralph Steele. Index of Spanish folktales, classified according to Antti Aarne's "Types of the folktale". Chicago: University of Chicago. 1930. p. 78.
  8. Hahn, Johann Georg von. Griechische und Albanesische Märchen. Vol. 1-2. München/Berlin: Georg Müller. 1918 [1864]. pp. 384-385.
  9. Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. p. 179. ISBN 978-0520035379
  10. Jacobs, Joseph. European Folk and Fairy Tales. New York, London: G. P. Putnam's sons. 1916. p. 237.
  11. Frazer, James G. "The Language of Animals". In: Archaeological Review. Vol. I. No. 2. April, 1888. D. Nutt. 1888. pp. 81-91
  12. Frazer, James G. "The Language of Animals". In: Archaeological Review. Vol. I. No. 3. May, 1888. D. Nutt. 1888. pp. 161-181.
  13. Hartland, E. Sidney. "The Outcast Child." The Folk-Lore Journal 4, no. 4 (1886): 308-49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1252856.
  14. Šmitek, Zmago (2017). “What Do Birds Sing? On Animal Language in South Slavic Folklore" [Kaj ptiči pojó? O živalski Govorici V južnoslovanski folklori]. In: Studia Mythologica Slavica 20 (April). Ljubljana, Slovenija. p. 122. https://doi.org/10.3986/sms.v20i0.6663.

Bibliography
  • Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Erster Band (NR. 1-60). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1913. p. 322-325.
  • Frazer, James G. "THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS." The Archaeological Review 1, no. 2 (1888): 81-91. Accessed May 30, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/24708370.
  • Jacobs, Joseph. European Folk and Fairy Tales. New York, London: G. P. Putnam's sons. 1916. pp. 235-237.
  • Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. ISBN 0-520-03537-2

Further reading
  • "The Language of Birds." In Carmen Blacker: Scholar of Japanese Religion, Myth and Folklore, edited by Cortazzi Hugh, McMullen James, and Browning Mary-Grace, 337-44. Folkestone: Renaissance Books, 2017. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1s17pbc.30.
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