"A countryman one day said to his little puppies, 'Come into the parlor and enjoy yourselves, and pick up the bread-crumbs on the table; your mistress has gone out to pay some visits.'" I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this fairy tale. First, it's quite a short tale. And second, it … Continue reading Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales: The Crumbs on the Table

"Once on a time, a mouse and a bird and a sausage lived and kept house together in perfect peace among themselves, and in great prosperity." This tale is another example of how necessary it is to just accept the characters or settings or premises of these stories so you can understand and/or dissect the … Continue reading Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales: The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage

"A wonderful musician was walking through a forest, thinking of nothing in particular. When he had nothing more left to think about, he said to himself, 'I shall grow tired of being in this wood, so I will bring out a good companion.'" A wonderful musician he might be, but everything in this tale proves … Continue reading Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales: The Wonderful Musician

"There was once an ass whose master had made him carry sacks to the mill for many a long year, but whose strength began at last to fail, so that each day as it came, found him less capable of work." When I read the title of this tale, the part of my brain that … Continue reading Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales: The Bremen Town Musicians

"Two or three hundred years ago, when people were far from being so crafty and cunning as they are now-a-day, an extraordinary event took place in a little town." The first thing about this fairy tale that I want to critique is the use of the words "crafty" and "cunning" in that first sentence. "Intelligence" … Continue reading Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales: The Owl

"The cock said to the hen, 'It is nutting time; let us go together to the mountains and have a good feast for once, before the squirrels come and carry all away.' 'Yes,' answered the hen, 'come along; we will have a jolly time together.'" The cockerel and the hen from Mr. Korbes are back, as … Continue reading Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales: The Vagabonds