Two of the stories we read this week—oddly enough—involved mills, letters, and outsmarting the devil. The settings begin at mills. Letters are sent, intercepted, and switched. And the devil is outsmarted by the innocent/pure.
The Girl Without Hands (Philipp Grot Johann)
Let’s focus on using letters as a way to add complications and escalate the stakes in fairy tales.
First, some summaries in case you haven’t read the stories: (spoilers)
In The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs, a poor child is born and a prophecy given that he would marry the princess when he was fourteen. The king gets wind of the prophecy and tries to kill the boy, but as a direct result of his attacks, the prophecy comes true and the teen boy marries the princess.
In The Girl Without Hands, the devil is after the young girl, and when he can’t get her for himself, he tries to have her killed. But those around her protect her, and she lives happily ever after with the king who loves her.
In both these stories, the pattern of using letters to change the plot is similar:
1. A Messenger.
In The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs, the messenger is the teenage boy himself, carrying the letter to the queen that spells out his death (reminiscent of the story of King David sending Uriah back to battle with his orders.) The teenage boy doesn’t know what the letter contains and does not look inside.
In The Girl Without Hands, the messenger is not explicitly mentioned, but I’m assuming is a trusted servant.
2. Sleep.
In both stories, the messenger falls asleep, providing plenty of opportunity for the letters to be swapped out.
3. A Meddler with 4. A Motive.
In the Three Golden Hairs story, it’s the robbers in the robbers den who, after reading the letter, take pity on the innocent boy and attempt to reverse his fortune. (And get their revenge on the evil, greedy king at the same time?) Their motive is for good.
In The Girl story, it’s the devil himself who rewrites the messages to try to hurt the girl who got away from him. His motive is for evil.
5. A Re-written Message.
In The Three Golden Hairs story, the robbers bring to fruition the prophecy given at the boy’s birth, that he would marry the princess, despite all the attempts on his life.
“The hard-hearted robbers felt sorry for him, and the leader of the band tore up the letter and wrote another one, which said that the boy was to wed the king’s daughter immediately upon arrival.”
In The Girl story,
“Once again the Devil came and put a different letter in his pocket that said that they should kill the queen and her child.”
6. A Foiled Outcome.
In the case of the The Three Golden Hairs, the doomed boy, instead of being killed upon arrival, marries the princess. The letter intended for evil became one intended for good.
In The Girl, the king’s mother refuses do the evil that the letters suggest, and so she takes measures to save the girl and her child. In the end, the king finds his wife and child and they renew their vows in a second wedding before living happily ever after.
Modern storytelling.
Writers can use letters (or more generally, mixed up messages) to add confusion to the story and put the main character into peril. In these Grimm tales, letters were used to try to kill the main characters. Death can be a physical death, or metaphorical one, like the death of a relationship, or death of a career.
In today’s world there are lots of communication methods writers could use to add confusion and plot twists to their stories. Quick brainstorm of more modern forms of communication: Letters, emails, telephone, text messages, telegram, post it notes, valentines, gifts, chat rooms, social media, photo manipulation, newspaper editorials or letters to the editor, podcasts, voice messages, video doorbells?
In the fairy-tale realm, we could add magic mirrors, visions, dreams, wishing wells and so on for the method of communication. Our messengers could be any number of magical creatures: fairies, gnomes, delivery owls, etc.
So, if you’re stuck in your next writing session, try changing the plot by twisting a message. It can cause all kinds of trouble.
