Fairy Tale as MythMyth as Fairy Tale by Jack Zipes

Author:Jack Zipes [Zipes, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780813108346
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 1994-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

Illustration by Otto Ubbelohde, 1922.

Wilhelm Grimm’s version, Iron Hans, features a king whose forest is inhabited by some mysterious creature who kills all who enter it. For many years nobody ventures into the forest until a stranger arrives and disenchants the forest by capturing a wild man, who had been dwelling in a deep pool. This man was brown as rusty iron, and his hair hung over his face down to his knees. The king has the wild man placed in an iron cage in the castle courtyard, gives the key to the cage to the queen, and forbids anyone to open it under the penalty of death. However, one day the king’s eight-year-old son loses his golden ball, and it bounces into the cage. So, the wild man tells him that the only way he can regain his ball is by stealing the key from under his mother’s pillow and opening the cage. When the boy finally frees the wild man, he is so terrified of his father’s wrath that he asks the wild man to take him along.

The wild man carries the boy to a golden spring in the forest and tells him that he must not allow anything to fall into it or else the water will become polluted. However, the boy’s finger, which had gotten stuck while he was freeing the wild man, begins to hurt, and he dips it into the spring. The finger turns to gold, as does his hair after the wild man gives him two more chances. Therefore, the boy must leave the forest. But the wild man reveals his name to the boy and tells him that whenever he needs something he is to return to the forest and cry out “Iron Hans.”

The prince covers his golden hair with a little cap and eventually obtains a job as a gardener’s helper at another king’s castle. One day, while working in the garden, he takes off his cap, and the king’s daughter notices his golden hair from her window. She invites him to her room and rewards him for bringing flowers to her. Soon after this, with the help of Iron John, who gives him a magnificent steed and knights, the boy helps the king win a war. Disguised in armor, he leads a troop of knights into battle and then disappears quickly, returning the stallion and knights to Iron Hans to resume working as the simple gardener’s helper.

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