The Sea-Hare
The sea-hare is a fairy tale (ATU 329). It is in the Children's and Household Tales of the Brothers Grimm from the 7th edition of 1857 instead 191 (KHM 191) and comes from Josef stop Rich's collection German folk tales from the Saxony countryside in Transylvania from 1856 (No. 39: From the king's daughter, the looked her castle in all its realms).
Content
A proud princess has a tower with twelve windows, where it looks sharper than by one through the other, the last everything above and below the earth. Only those who can hide from her, she may marry, but who tries in vain to be beheaded. After a long time no one has reported three brothers come. The two older hide in a lime-pit and in the castle basement, she sees it already through the first window and lets her ninety-eighth and ninety-ninth heads on the pole stuck in front of the castle. The youngest asks himself one day to think and three attempts. He earns the gratitude of a raven, a fish and a fox by not shoot and the fox pulling a thorn from his foot. But it hides the raven in his egg and fish on the bottom of the lake in his belly, but the king's daughter sees him through the eleventh and twelfth window. On the third try the fox leads him to a source where they come out as a dealer in animals and sea-hare again. The fox is the animal in the city. When the king's daughter buys it, he advises him to hide under her braid. You can not find him, smashes fear and anger the window and chased the sea-hare. When the young man comes back, she says, because she believes he can more than them.
Origin
The tale is in Josef stop Rich's collection of German folk tales from the land of Saxons in Transylvania (1856 ) as No. 39 by the princess, who looked her castle all in their kingdom. Wilhelm Grimm took it over in the Children 's and Household Tales from the 7th edition (1857 ) instead of the robber and his sons, at very reminiscent of Polyphemus. That the king's daughter the youngest granted the three experiments because of its beauty, William is interpretation. Otherwise the text has been smoothed only linguistically. He is with Grimm without comment. Sea Bunny is Saxon for rabbits. Hans -Jörg Uther tried to determine the age of the tale a dissertation of Ingrid Hartmann, who suspects most likely a development in South East Europe in mid -19th century. Older is only the Faroese ballad Lokka táttur: Loki hides a son in front of a giant after Odin and Honir do not make it.
Motives and interpretation
Animal helpers are often in fairy tales (KHM 17, 33, 57, 60, 62, 126, 169, 16a, 74a, 104a ), three brothers Grimm in also (eg KHM 63). The source is here evidently a lump sum magical place. The hero makes use of the fact that the puzzles princess herself does not see through as a single. Comparisons with Grimm KHM 22 The Riddle, KHM 71 Six soldiers of the whole world, KHM 114 The cunning little tailor, KHM 134 The six servants, KHM 85b princess with the louse.
Wilhelm Salber sees as the core of an ambivalence between want to get involved and over-control. He brings as an example her mid-thirties with bulimia, which begins relationships with older men, and stopped again, where they both freed and punishes himself. Here seeking a balance, let be transferred to business consulting, creation and impact of art.