The Grimm Tale They Cut

The story as it is told

Online lists of "the darkest original Grimm tales" often include this one, usually summarized as a single grisly story and said to have been "removed because it was too violent". It is really two stories, and both are bleak.

The first is set in "einer Stadt Franecker genannt, gelegen in Westfriesland" (a town called Franecker, in West Friesland). Children of five and six assign roles: one boy is the butcher, one the cook, one the pig; one girl is the cook and another the under-cook, who must catch the pig's blood in a little dish "daß man Würste könne machen" (so sausages could be made). The "butcher" throws down the "pig", cuts his throat with a little knife, and the under-cook catches the blood. A councilman passing by takes the child to the town's chief, and the whole council meets. They can see it happened "kindlicher Weise" (in a childlike way). An old white-haired man proposes a test: the judge holds a red apple in one hand and a Rhenish gulden in the other. If the child takes the apple, he is innocent; if he takes the coin, he is to be put to death. The child takes the apple, laughing, and is set free.

The second is worse. A father slaughters a pig while his children watch. That afternoon one child says to the other, "du sollst das Schweinchen und ich der Metzger seyn" (you be the piglet and I'll be the butcher), and stabs his little brother in the throat. The mother, upstairs bathing her youngest in a tub, runs down, pulls out the knife and in her rage stabs the "butcher" child in the heart. When she runs back, the baby has drowned in the bath. She hangs herself. The father comes home from the fields and soon dies of grief.

What we can confirm

Those lists rarely mention that it is two separate anecdotes, that neither is a folk tale in the usual sense, and that the Grimms named printed sources for both.

Tale no. 22 in the first volume of the Grimms' Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Berlin, December 20, 1812) is "Wie Kinder Schlachtens mit einander gespielt haben" (How children played slaughtering with each other). It runs three pages and has two parts.

The Grimms' notes name the sources. Part I came "aus einem alten Buche" (from an old book) via Heinrich von Kleist's Berliner Abendblätter (1810, no. 39). Part II came from Martin Zeiler's Miscellanea (Nuremberg, 1661, p. 388), who took it from Johann Wolf's Lectiones memorabiles (Lauingen, 1600). The notes add a legend: a pope offered a prize for a Latin couplet summing up the tragedy, a poor student gave up and said the Devil could write it, and the Devil appeared and wrote "sus, pueri bini, puer unus, nupta, maritus / cultell', lympha, fune, dolore cadunt" (a pig, two boys, one boy, a wife, a husband / fall by knife, water, rope and grief).

Johannes Bolte and Jiří Polívka's 1913 notes on the Grimm tales identify the "old book" behind Part I as Jörg Wickram's Rollwagenbüchlein (1555), no. 74, reprinted in Kleist's paper at page 148. They note that the apple-or-gold test of a child's understanding appears as early as the Greek writers Hyperides and Aelian.

By the second edition of 1819, number 22 was a different tale, "Das Räthsel" (The Riddle). The Detmold library's Grimm exhibit confirms the butcher tale was not printed from the second edition on. The 1819 preface does not name it, but says the brothers had removed every expression unsuited to childhood and dropped pieces they suspected were of foreign origin.

The facts

• Title, KHM 22, pp. 101-103, Berlin, Realschulbuchhandlung, 1812; Wikisource marks it "nur 1812: KHM 22". Wikisource transcription (proofread twice against the source).
• Part I: Franecker, West Friesland; children aged five and six; throat cut; blood caught for sausages; apple or Rhenish gulden test; child takes the apple laughing and is freed. same.
• Part II: "du sollst das Schweinchen und ich der Metzger seyn"; mother stabs the other child "ins Herz"; baby drowns in the tub; mother hangs herself; father dies of grief. same.
• Grimm notes: Part I via Kleist's Berliner Abendblätter 1810 no. 39; Part II from Zeiler, Miscell., Nürnberg 1661, p. 388, from J. Wolf, Lectiones memorabiles, Lauingen 1600; pope, student and Devil legend with the Latin couplet; Werner used the fable in "Der 24ste Februar". same page, Anhang Band 1, pp. XVI-XVII.
• Bolte-Polívka (1913): Part I is from Wickram's Rollwagenbüchlein 1555 no. 74, printed in the Berliner Abendblätter 1810 no. 39, p. 148; apple-vs-gold test also in Hyperides and Aelian, Varia historia 5, 16; a similar family tragedy in Aelian 13, 2. Wikisource, Bolte-Polívka Anmerkungen I, 22a.
• 1819 table of contents: no. 22 is "Das Räthsel". Wikisource KHM Band 1 (1819).
• Not in the second and later editions. LLB Detmold exhibit.
• KHM vol. 1 published Dec 20, 1812. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

Related: What enters the public domain in 2027

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