Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Scary Fairy Tales: The Stolen Pennies

Some folktales can really be classified as ghost stories more so than our traditional idea of fairy tales; I thought for October it would be fun to do a series featuring some of these more chilling fairy tales!

First up, from the Grimms, "The Stolen Pennies" (or Stolen Farthings):

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 Once a father was seated at the dinner table with his wife and children. A good friend who had come to visit was eating with them. While they were sitting there the clock struck twelve, and the stranger saw the door open and a very pale little child dressed in snow-white clothes come in. It neither looked around, nor did it speak, but went straight into the next room. Soon afterwards it came back, and just as silently went out the door again.

 On the second and on the third day it came back in exactly the same manner. Then the stranger finally asked the father, whose beautiful child it was that went into the next room every day at noon. 

"I did not see it," he said, adding that he did he know whose child it might be.

 The next day when it again came, the stranger pointed it out to the father, but the latter did not see it, nor did the mother and the children see anything. Then the stranger got up, went to the door of the room, opened it a little, and looked in. There he saw the child sitting on the floor, and busily digging and rooting about in the cracks in the floor. When it saw the stranger, it disappeared.
Shaun Tan

 He now told what he had seen and described the child exactly. Then the mother recognized it, and said, "Oh, it is my dear child who died four weeks ago."

 They ripped up the floor and found two farthings which the child had once received from its mother to give to a poor man. It, however, had thought, "With that money you can buy yourself a piece of zwieback," and had kept the farthings, hiding them in the cracks in the floor.

 Therefore it had had no rest in its grave, and had come every day at noon to look for these farthings. Then the parents gave the money to a poor man, and after that the child was never seen again.

9 comments:

  1. This story seems more like a legend to me than a fairy tale, the only thing that's missing is a statement of place, but then the Griimm's featured many stories in their collection that aren't strictly speaking fairy tales.

    The athmossphere here is created quite skillfully, it's tales like these that show why the "Genre Grimm" as some call it, got so popular and was so often imitated. Despite all the censorship and moralizing that got their later editions a bad rep, Wilhelm Grimm was simply a great story teller.

    As for the story itself... It's interesting that the stranger of all people was able to see the child when the parents couldn't. My explanation would be that the child did not show her(?)self to them on purpose, because it was afraid.She must have lived the last weeks of her live both with a really bad conscience, but also in great fear of her parents finding out, getting mad and possibly punishing her. In death the bad conscience kept her attached to the world of the living, but she was still to afraid to confront her parents about it. Maybe she secrectly hoped for the stranger to defuse the situation and not only ease her coscience, but also reconciling her with her parents?

    To me this story is "The Willful Child" done right, rather than a crude commendation of corporal punishment, it contains a lesson for both the child (if you knoww that something is wrong and do it anyway, your bad conscience will burden you) and the parents (Be attentive or you might not notice the conspicuous behavior that is a sign of your child being in trouble), all wrapped up in an athosspheric ghost story, where reconciliation, not punishment is presented as the solution.

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    1. Yes-the title for this series is maybe a bit of a misnomer, but I figure ghost-related folklore is still fair game. And I like what you have to say about the tale-to my modern mind, even this tale still seemed a bit harsh on the child (to be able to give up your allowance on your own to help the less fortunate really requires more long term thinking that a lot of young children haven't developed yet) but at least it's better than most other Willful Child tales. Especially, as you point out, how punishment is NOT the answer in this case.

      Thanks as usual for your great insights!

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    2. Of course it's still harsh, we're still talking about 19th century pedagogics ;)

      But still good to see such a "reasonable" solution, especially since it could have been much worse.

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  2. It's kind of cool how there are actually ghost stories for fairy tales, so that people can read them around Halloween.

    One of my favorites is a Russian tale called "The Silver Saucer and the Transparent Apple." In that one, two sisters kill their younger sister out of jealousy and bury her. Later, a shepherd cuts a reed over by where she died in order to make a flute out of it. The reed turns out to have the spirit of the dead girl in it, and the reed sings about what happened (it's been awhile since I read it, but I think the reed told him to throw the reed into the lake, and when he did, she came back to life, and then she returned home and forgave her sisters). I can't remember where I read this story.

    I bet "The Juniper Tree" could count as a ghost story too.

    And as an aside, when my brothers and I were little kids, we would tell the stories in a way that was a bit more frightening that usual. Like we would tell the part of "Red Riding Hood" where she see's the wolf in bed very slowly, and make it more of a jumps are when he revealed himself. And we would tell the story of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff," and make the part where the troll tried to eat the biggest goat the part of the story where you would sit on the edge of your seat (back then though, the big goat would just buck him off the bridge though, where he supposedly drowned. We didn't know the version yet where he got crushed to pieces).

    I haven't read "Godfather Death" yet. Maybe I should.

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    1. Ooh that Russian tale sounds great (and like a version of the Grimms' "Singing Bone"?). In fact I might use it for another story in this series!

      And I never thought of Juniper Tree as a ghost story, but given the amount of dead people coming to life, or at least being present in other forms, there are actually a LOT of ghost stories even in traditional fairy tales! Cinderella, for instance, her mother's spirit in the form of the tree/Vasilisa's mother in the doll, etc. The Little Mermaid at the end of the Andersen tale...it's ambiguous what the 12 princes are in "12 Dancing Princesses" but in some versions they're the princes who tried to solve the mystery and were killed, these are just the ones off the top of my head...

      And yes, "Godfather Death" is a great story!

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  3. Very creepy! This certainly feels more like an anecdote than a fairy tale, but that's part of the Grimm's charm (and horror, if you've read 'How Some Children Played at Slaughtering') Definitely appropriate for Halloween, and I look forward to seeing what other stories you post!

    Also, what struck me here was the father's reaction. He just says he doesn't know who the child is, and doesn't appear at all concerned that a strange child may be wandering around his house! Similarly, the mother's nonchalant way of revealing she knows who the child is. I know infant mortality was high in the 1800s, but how she says 'oh' like is wasn't anything major is quite chilling.

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    1. YES, "How Some Children Played at Slaughtering" is still, IMO, the most disturbing tale I have ever read!!

      And you're right, the parents' reactions are creepily casual. Although that's more typical of folklore, to have characters who don't really react to the supernatural events like we would expect. Still, they certainly don't come across as a grieving family...

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  4. Very creepy! This certainly feels more like an anecdote than a fairy tale, but that's part of the Grimm's charm (and horror, if you've read 'How Some Children Played at Slaughtering') Definitely appropriate for Halloween, and I look forward to seeing what other stories you post!

    Also, what struck me here was the father's reaction. He just says he doesn't know who the child is, and doesn't appear at all concerned that a strange child may be wandering around his house! Similarly, the mother's nonchalant way of revealing she knows who the child is. I know infant mortality was high in the 1800s, but how she says 'oh' like is wasn't anything major is quite chilling.

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