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Hans My Hedgehog
Mar. 10th, 2012 02:12 pmThe first time I encountered this fairy tale was when I watched The Storyteller series a few years back and it was one of my favorite episodes. More recently, I started looking through some of the Grimm tales for project research and came across the "original" version. This one is found in The Juniper Tree and Other Tales from Grimm selected by Lore Segal and Maurice Sendak, translated by Lore Segal with four tales translated by Randall Jarrell, pictures by Maurice Sendak. I...was surprised.
In this version, while Hans is in the woods he meets two kings on separate occasions who each promise to give the first thing that meets them when they return home. (And the kings only sign contracts because they believe that Hans can't read.) In both cases, this turns out to be their daughters. King #1 assures his daughter that she won't have to leave and Princess #1 is glad because she says she never would have gone. When King #2 breaks the news to his daughter, the story says that Princess #2 "promised that she would gladly go with him, when he came, for her old father's sake."
When Hans turns up to collect Princess #1, the king has left orders for Hans to be kept from the castle but Hans flies in on his giant rooster (what, doesn't everyone have a giant flying rooster?). He says that if the king doesn't knock it off, Hans will kill the king and his daughter. So Princess #1 dresses nicely and leaves with the hedgehog. But "when they had got a little ways out of town, Hans my Hedgehog took off her beautiful clothes and pricked her with his hedgehog skin till she was all bloody and said, 'This is the reward for your treachery. Go away, I don't want you,' and with that he chased her home and she was disgraced her life long."
WHAT THE HELL.
(King #2 welcomes Hans and Princess #2 marries him, they burn the skin, the enchantment is broken and they all live happily ever after, the end.)
Forget the skin, I would have chucked this Hans into the fireplace altogether. All right, so King #1 didn't keep his word. I can understand Hans being ticked off when the soldiers are shooting at him. But threatening to kill the king and his daughter? Not okay, Hans. Princess #1 has an understandable reaction when she learns that she's been given away without her consent: her father tells her that she has to go with some strange creature living in the forest and she doesn't want to go. Any of us could sympathize with that. (I suspect that "a half-hedgehog, half-man, sitting on a giant rooster while playing the bagpipes" didn't go over too well with her.) But the princess isn't the one who armed the castle and she went with Hans anyway. She had no choice in the matter but he stabbed her with his quills. Very bad, Hans. You don't deserve Princess #2.
ETA: On a stylistic note, I think that the story is more streamlined when using just one King and Princess, as they did in The Storyteller.
In this version, while Hans is in the woods he meets two kings on separate occasions who each promise to give the first thing that meets them when they return home. (And the kings only sign contracts because they believe that Hans can't read.) In both cases, this turns out to be their daughters. King #1 assures his daughter that she won't have to leave and Princess #1 is glad because she says she never would have gone. When King #2 breaks the news to his daughter, the story says that Princess #2 "promised that she would gladly go with him, when he came, for her old father's sake."
When Hans turns up to collect Princess #1, the king has left orders for Hans to be kept from the castle but Hans flies in on his giant rooster (what, doesn't everyone have a giant flying rooster?). He says that if the king doesn't knock it off, Hans will kill the king and his daughter. So Princess #1 dresses nicely and leaves with the hedgehog. But "when they had got a little ways out of town, Hans my Hedgehog took off her beautiful clothes and pricked her with his hedgehog skin till she was all bloody and said, 'This is the reward for your treachery. Go away, I don't want you,' and with that he chased her home and she was disgraced her life long."
WHAT THE HELL.
(King #2 welcomes Hans and Princess #2 marries him, they burn the skin, the enchantment is broken and they all live happily ever after, the end.)
Forget the skin, I would have chucked this Hans into the fireplace altogether. All right, so King #1 didn't keep his word. I can understand Hans being ticked off when the soldiers are shooting at him. But threatening to kill the king and his daughter? Not okay, Hans. Princess #1 has an understandable reaction when she learns that she's been given away without her consent: her father tells her that she has to go with some strange creature living in the forest and she doesn't want to go. Any of us could sympathize with that. (I suspect that "a half-hedgehog, half-man, sitting on a giant rooster while playing the bagpipes" didn't go over too well with her.) But the princess isn't the one who armed the castle and she went with Hans anyway. She had no choice in the matter but he stabbed her with his quills. Very bad, Hans. You don't deserve Princess #2.
ETA: On a stylistic note, I think that the story is more streamlined when using just one King and Princess, as they did in The Storyteller.
