The Girl Without Hands
Introduction:
This webpage will discuss the fairytale stated above, and tell you about it's origin.
The Story:
Once upon a time… A miller was offered a lot of money and power by the devil. The devil told him, that if he wanted to be rich, all he had to do is give him what’s behind the mill. The miller thought that it was an apple tree, but actually, it was his daughter. When three years had past, the devil went back to the miller to take his daughter, but she was still sinless and kept her hands clean for those three years, so the devil couldn’t take her! The devil threatened to take the girl’s father, If he didn’t chop off the girls hands, and so the girl allowed the father to chop her hands off, but she wept on her arms’ stumps, and they were so clean that the devil could not take her. So he had to give her up.
Despite her father’s wealth and money, she set out into the world to explore. She saw a royal garden and wanted to eat some pears she saw there. An angel helped her. The pears were missed the next day, and the gardener told how she had appeared. The king awaited her the next day, and when she came once again, the king married her and made her hands out of silver. She gave birth to a son, and his mother sent news to the king, who had gone off to battle, but the messenger stopped along the way, and the devil got at the letter, changing it to say that she had given birth to a changeling. The king sent back that they should care for it nonetheless, but the devil got at that letter too! Once again he changed the letter, making it say that they should kill the queen and the child and keep the queen’s heart as proof!
The king’s servant despaired, and, to produce the heart, killed a hind and sent the queen and her son out into the world to hide. The queen went into a forest, and an angel brought her to a hut, and helped her nurse her son.
The king went back to his castle, and he discovered the letters had been tampered with. The king went on an expedition to save his wife and child. After seven years, he had found the hut in which they were hiding. His wife came out, and the child grew angry, because he had been told that God was a man’s true father, but no man on earth. The king got up to ask who they were, and the queen told him. He said that his wife had silver hands, but the queen said that God had given her real hands again. Then she went to retrieve her silver hands, which had fallen off and then she returned to show the king. Then, when the king believed her, they lived a happy ever after.
Background:
Writer:
This fairytale is actually a collection of fairytales, all made into one. This was done by the German Grimm bros. The four main inspirations of the story are: Nix Nought Nothing, the Nixie of the Mill-Pond, The Grateful Prince and King Kotaja. There are quite a lot of versions to the story from all over the world, but here is the most remarkable one;
In Basile's Penta of the Chopped-off Hands, the heroine has her own hands cut off in order to repulse her brothers' advances.
Culture:
- Time: The German version of the story was written around 1840, a time in Germany where most people were still Christian, this influenced the story in a huge way, because the main villain in the story is the devil himself.
- Environment: In this time, a lot of people were poor, most people farmers, and in during the Grimm brothers' life, this was always the case, I think this has influenced the setting quite a bit, because the father is a poor miller, and since the devil offered wealth for what's behind the mill, I think this symbolizes the fact that people would give anything for wealth. Of course, without this environment, the story would have never existed this way.
Lesson:
The main lesson in this story, would be that even though there is evil, if you are not, everything will be allright. This is of course, because the daughter is sinless, which is why the devil couldn't take her.
Symbols:
