The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales - Couverture souple

Von Schonwerth, Franz Xaver

 
9780143107422: The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales

Synopsis

A rare discovery in the world of fairy tales - now for the first time in English.

With this volume, the holy trinity of fairy tales - the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, and Hans Christian Andersen - becomes a quartet. In the 1850s, Franz Xaver von Schönwerth traversed the forests, lowlands, and mountains of northern Bavaria to record fairy tales, gaining the admiration of even the Brothers Grimm. Most of Schönwerth's work was lost - until a few years ago, when thirty boxes of manu­scripts were uncovered in a German municipal archive.

Now, for the first time, Schönwerth's lost fairy tales are available in English. Violent, dark, and full of action, and upending the relationship between damsels in distress and their dragon-slaying heroes, these more than seventy stories bring us closer than ever to the unadorned oral tradition in which fairy tales are rooted, revolutionizing our understanding of a hallowed genre.


'Schönwerth's tales have a compositional fierceness and energy rarely seen in stories gathered by the Brothers Grimm or Charles Perrault' -The New Yorker

'Schönwerth's legacy counts as the most significant collection in the German-speaking world in the nineteenth century' - Daniel Drascek, University of Regensburg

Franz Xanver von Schönwerth (1810-1886) was born in Bavaria and had a successful career in law
and the Bavarian royal court before devoting himself to researching the customs of his homeland and preserving its fairy tales and folklore.

Maria Tatar chairs the program in folklore and mythology at Harvard, and has edited and translated many collections of fairy tales.

Eeika Eichenseer is a historian and preservationist working for the Bavarian government and the director of the
Franz Xaver von Schönwerth Society.

Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

À propos de l'auteur

Maria Tatar chairs the program in folklore and mythology at Harvard. She is the author of many acclaimed books on folklore and fairy tales, as well as the editor and translator of The Turnip Princess, The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, The Annotated Brothers Grimm, The Classic Fairy Tales: A Norton Critical Edition and The Grimm Reader. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Extrait. © Reproduit sur autorisation. Tous droits réservés.

"Prince Dung Beetle"

There was once a poor girl named Barbara, whose mother was ill. she had to run over to the doctor and druggist for help. On the way, she jumped across a paving stone and slipped, almost flattening a dung  beetle. When  she realized that  she had sprained her ankle,  she felt terrible and cried out: “Now who is going to bring back the doctor? My mother is going to die!”

The beetle muttered: “Climb up on my back.” Startled by the strange voice, the girl began to sob uncontrollably. The beetle slid right under her, spread its wings, and lifted her up in the air, carrying her to the doctor and druggist in a flash and then back home to her mother.

“You must be sure to feed your little horse,” the mother said to  her  daughter  while  they  were eating bread and sipping water.

“Yes, of course, but my little horse seems to have wandered away,” Barbara said. She searched every corner of the house and looked out all the windows. Suddenly one of the king’s horsemen appeared on the horizon, riding toward them.

“Oh, that must be the Blue Prince,” the mother called out, as if he were  an  old  friend. The door  flew open, and  the prince marched right in, looking radiantly young and handsome. He greeted  the  mother warmly, and  then  he looked  at  the  young woman, took her by the hand, and said: “You lifted the curse on me, and I want to thank you by giving you everything i own.” Barbara did not know what todo, and she looked first at the prince, then at her mother. she was afraid of the stranger. But he explained what had happened to him: “For many years, more years than there are trees in the woods, I have been living as a beetle, crawling around in dust and refuse, beaten  down, crushed, tortured, and in pain, all because I did the same things to animals when I was a boy. My punishment was to turn into a beast and to suffer as they do. You took pity on me, miserable beetle that I was, and that’s how you lifted the curse. I want to ask your mother for the hand of the angel who saved me!”

The girl turned pale, and both mother and daughter were deeply moved.

The prince threw open the shutters and blew on his horn. The mountains wafted the melody over the forests, and everything there awakened and came alive. Barbara and her mother began  to realize that the many people who had  suddenly  appeared with horses and carts were the prince’s subjects, and they, too, had been rescued by the love of a simple young woman. The mother was soon healed, and her beautiful, rosy-cheeked daughter joyfully accepted the prince’s proposal.

At the wedding, the fleas played the fiddle, the birds whistled tunes, and all creatures with feet, large and small, danced and leaped through the air.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9780698144552: [The Turnip Princess: And Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales (Penguin Classics)] [By: Schonwerth, Franz Xaver von] [April, 2015]

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  0698144554 ISBN 13 :  9780698144552
Editeur : Penguin Classics, 2015
Couverture souple