In our reading of Grimm so far, we’ve come across several types of trees. This week we read about two kinds. But first, a walk through the orchard in Grimm’s Fairy Tales:
Hazel tree
In Cinderella, Cinderella’s father gives her a twig from a hazel bush (the first twig that brushed against his hat on his way home.) She plants it near her mother’s grave and waters it with her tears. It quickly grows into a tree which shelters a little white bird who gives Cinderella what she asks for.
Pear tree
In The Girl Without Hands, a beloved pear tree is located in a royal garden surrounded by a moat. An angel closes a lock so the water drains and the handless maiden can walk across to eat the fruit before she starves. The missing fruit creates a mystery for the king to solve and leads to him falling in love with the maiden.
Apple Tree
In The Gnome, a king has a prized apple tree that he has forbidden anyone to eat from. If anyone were to gather from the tree, they would be sent seven fathoms underground. His three daughters thought surely the rules didn’t apply to them…
Juniper Tree
In The Juniper Tree, a barren woman peels an apple under a juniper tree and cuts her finger. The blood on the snow makes her sad and she wishes for a child as red as blood and as white as snow. Seven months pass and when the berries are ripe, she eats them until she becomes sick. The eighth month she tells her husband that if she dies to bury her under the juniper tree. When the ninth month passes she gives birth to a son like she asked for and then she dies. After a later tragedy, that son’s bones are placed under the tree. The tree begins to burn and a bird flies out of the smoke and the son, in the form of a bird, sets off to free himself.
And that leads us to this week, where we read about an enchanted tree and the Tree of Life.
Enchanted Tree
In the fairy tale The Old Woman in the Wood, a poor servant girl escapes from a group of robbers who killed everyone she was traveling with. She gets lost in the forest, and in desperation, slumps down against a tree to prepare to die.
A dove gives her a key and tells her to find the lock on the large tree because inside she’ll find lots of food. The dove gives her a second key to unlock another tree containing a bed. The third time, the dove brings her a key to a tree filled with clothes and jewels.
Eventually, the dove asks her to do something for him. She follows his instructions to retrieve a ring, which frees the prince from his enchantment. The witch turned him into a tree, but for a few hours a day he was a dove.
Tree of Life
We’ve read about the Tree of Life in at least one other Grimm story at this point in our reading. The Tree of Life is a reference the the tree in the Garden of Eden. By Grimm tradition, it grows apples, though the Bible doesn’t name the fruit. In fact, the Tree of Life as described in the book of Revelation bears twelve types of fruit!
In The King’s Son Who Feared Nothing, a prince is sent to retrieve an apple from the Tree of Life and bring it back for a giant to give his betrothed. The tree is not easy to find for the giant, but the prince finds it right away based on the giant’s description:
The garden in which the tree stands is surrounded by an iron railing, and in front of the railing lie wild beasts, each close to the other, and they keep watch and let no man go in…. even if thou dost get into the garden, and seest the apple hanging to the tree, it is still not thine; a ring hangs in front of it, through which any one who wants to reach the apple and break it off, must put his hand, and no one has yet had the luck to do it.”
When the prince puts his arm through the ring to get the apple, the ring closes around his arm like an arm band and gives him power. On the way out, the lion follows him as his protector. (Story note: They eventually end up at an enchanted castle with a trapped maiden inside, and he sets her free.)
So, why could the prince so easily get the apple when apparently everyone else has failed? This is another of the religious fairy tales and the prince is a type or symbol of Christ.
The prince says he has no fear; with God’s help he will try to break the enchantment on the maiden. The maiden at the beginning is black and over time she turns white. This isn’t a skin color thing, but symbolism of a blackened, sinful heart being cleansed by the king’s son’s sacrifice. The maiden represents humanity. For three nights devils come and attack the king’s son:
They dragged him about on the floor, pinched him, pricked him, beat him, and tormented him, but no sound escaped from him…..They fell on the King’s son, and beat him much more severely than the night before, until his body was covered with wounds….They pricked him and beat him, and threw him here and there, and pulled him by the arms and legs as if they wanted to tear him to pieces, but he bore everything, and never uttered a cry.
ALERT! This series of posts has turned into a book! Preorder the ebook now; paperbacks and workbooks to follow!
See also: Faith and Fairy Tales
