Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Fairy Tale Spotlight: Allerleirauh (Donkey-Skin Grimm Version)

Donkey-Skin is an ancient tale that has many versions of it that have appeared throughout time--not to mention all of the Cinderella stories that have spawned from them. The Brothers Grimm have their own and it was called Allerleirauh. The word is pronounced [ah - lehr - lie' - rau] and means "all-kinds-of-fur" as a single word. With great pleasure, I now present to you the synopsis of Grimm's Allerleirauh:

There is a king who has a wife with the most beautiful golden hair. She is so beautiful that there is no equal to her within the whole kingdom. A day comes when she falls ill and, on her death bed, summons the king to be with her in her final moments. She tells the king that if he wishes to marry again, he must take no one unless the woman is as beautiful as her and that he must promise her this. He does so, and then she dies.

For a very long time, the king is upset about the loss of his wife and cannot seem to be consoled by anyone. His counselors decide that he must have a new wife. Men are sent out to find if anyone within the kingdom is as beautiful as the late queen. This search is extended even to the entire world, but it all proves fruitless. Even though women of great beauty are found, none of them have the golden hair. This lingering aspect is ultimately a deal breaker for the king.

As it turns out, the king has a daughter who very much resembles her mother and even has the golden hair. When she grows to be an appropriate age, the king suddenly feels a violent [actual word used] love for her. He quickly proclaims that he will marry his own daughter and the entire court is shocked. They plead with the king and call what he is doing a crime. They also tell him that the deed will lead the kingdom to ruin. But he will not listen.

The daughter dislikes the idea even more. In an effort to buy time, he tells her father that, first, he must have three dresses made for her: one as golden as the sun, one as silvery as the moon, and one as bright as the stars. Additionally, she also wants one that is made of the joined together skins of every animal in the kingdom. She asks him this thinking that he will not be able to accomplish it and so the wedding will be canceled.

The king, however, is not to be dissuaded from his ultimate goal of marrying his own daughter. He hires the very best maidens from all over his kingdom, and the dresses are all made in due time. He presents them to her in a rush and announces, "The wedding shall be to-morrow." Seeing no way out, the daughter decides to run away.

In the night, the daughter takes a golden ring, a golden spinning-wheel, a golden reel, and the three dresses and places them all inside of a nutshell. She then wears the dress of many animal skins and blackens her hands and face with soot. She runs out into the night as far as she can go and ends up sleeping in the hollow of a tree. She is still sleeping when the sun rises the next day.

The king of the new land she finds herself in happens to be out with his huntsmen and some dogs. These same dogs sniff out where the sleeping daughter is and the huntsmen go to check. They are alarmed to see what seems to be an alien creature made of the skins of many animals. The king encourages them to catch it, but when they lay a hand on her, she wakes up. The woman pleads that she is a poor child who has been deserted by her father and mother, and that they should pity her and take her with them. They call her Allerleirauh and decide to assign her to the kitchen to sweep up the ashes found there.

Allerleirauh is given a little closet under a staircase. The person who assigns her these quarters tells her, "Hairy animal, there canst thou live and sleep." She is then shown to the kitchen and given nothing but the most undesirable jobs. She lives in great wretchedness for a long time in this way.

One day there is a great feast to be held in the palace, and Allerleirauh asks if she can go upstairs to see it. She is only allowed half an hour to do this before she has to return. Instead of doing this, she goes to her small closet, washes herself completely, and puts on the dress that shines like the sun. She then enters the festival proper and dazzles the king so much that he says, "My eyes have never yet seen any one so beautiful!"

When she leaves in half an hour, the king asks the guards who she is, but no one knows or can find her. In truth, she quickly runs back to her closet and again assumes the role of the wretched Allerleirauh. The cook of the kitchen assigns her to make a soup for the king [likely so that this cook can take credit for it.] Allerleirauh makes this soup and drops the golden ring from the nutshell into it before delivering it to the cook.

After a dance at the festival, the king tries the soup and is astonished how good it is. He finds the golden ring. He summons the cook to meet with him which frightens the cook who thinks Allerleirauh has done something bad to the soup and so give her the blame. Nevertheless, when the king asks who made the soup, the cook takes credit for it anyways. The king does not believe her because the soup is much better than the cook's usual fare. The cook admits that it was the "rough animal" who made it, and the king asks that "it" be brought before him.

King: "Who art thou?"

Allerleirauh: "I am a poor girl who no longer has any father or mother."

King: "Of what use art thou in my palace?"

Allerleirauh: "I am good for nothing but to have boots thrown at my head."

King: "Where didst thou get the ring which was in the soup?"

Allerleirauh: "I know nothing about the ring."

Learning nothing, the king gives up and sends her away.

Soon another festival is had at the palace. Once again, Allerleirauh begs to see it from upstairs and another half an hour is granted. She cleans herself up and dons the dress which is as silvery as the moon. She goes to the festival, and this time she even gets to dance with the king. But once her half an hour is up, she flees and the king cannot catch up fast enough to see where she goes. She returns to being Allerleirauh once more.

Without the permission of the cook, Allerleirauh makes another soup but, this time, puts the golden spinning wheel into it so that it is hidden. A similar event to earlier occurs where he finds the wheel in his soup and questions Allerleirauh about it after the cook had to confess it was not her. Once again, Allerleirauh acts as if she had no idea about it at all.

A third festival, and this time the cook is extremely paranoid. She calls Allerleirauh a witch who puts things in the soup to make the king like it more than what she makes. Allerleirauh is forced to beg very hard to be allowed to go see this festival, and finally the cook agrees to it. Once more to her closet, she dons the dress that shines like the stars. Again she dances with the king, and again she makes soup for him. This time she drops the golden reel into it.

When the king finds this reel, he summons Allerleirauh to question her, but here he had done a sneaky thing. During the dance, he has slipped the golden ring from the first festival onto her finger, and even though she looked like a wretched creature, the golden ring gave away her identity. The king tears off the skin dress revealing the woman's golden hair. He has her washed from head to toe and this reveals her to be more beautiful than anyone on the entire earth.

The king tells her, "Thou art my dear bride, and we will never more part from each other." They are married and live happily until their eventual deaths. And so end the tale of Allerleirauh.

Here we go.

Once again, the king's desire to marry and consummate with his daughter is extremely powerful. The story uses the word violent to describe his determination, and that seems to carry over from the much older Donkey-Skin tale by Perrault. In this version, however, a lot of time seems to elapse before the king realizes the viability of his daughter as a wife. She has to grow into adulthood so she could more closely resemble the wife he knew. Donkey-Skin seemed to hint at her being more a child than the young adult represented in Allerleirauh.

The fairy godmother was absent for the Grimm version. The dresses were entirely the daughter's idea and did not seem to have any magic to them... or did they? After all, this woman was in possession of a nutshell that could carry just about anything inside of it. It is possible that the daughter knew something of the magical arts which she might have learned from a fairy godmother that was simply not mentioned. The latter seems to hold some weight if you consider that these stories all originate from an ancient source where all points are relevant in some way. I am less inclined to believe she was just born with magical abilities. [Nevertheless, please tell me what you think.]

Instead of a prince, we have a bonafide king. He isn't as love-happy as the prince of Donkey-Skin but much more seasoned and calm. He is quizzical and intelligent. He is also quite suave and gentlemanly. Like in Donkey-Skin, Allerleirauh plays a game with him. She is cleverly placing hints before him so that, in the end, he can discover the prize himself. He bites every single time and eventually finds a way to unmask her. So thrilled by her gumption, he cannot help but love her and marry her.

The cook was put in a rather funny position by Allerleirauh. I don't feel too much for her because she really did seem to try and take credit for Allerleirauh's better-than-usual soup. Her paranoia by the end of it was amusing.

There was no contest at the end of this version and no reason for anyone to mutilate themselves for his hand in marriage. This story focuses on the game happening between Allerleirauh and the king. It was a romantic comedy in a way and enjoyable to see him discover her little hidden gems.

In closing, there is no word if she ever reestablishes a relationship with her father--as did happen in Donkey-Skin. Although this is sad, I do hope that he gets over it and focuses on the welfare of his kingdom. More to come on the Donkey-Skin tales next week.

Thank you for reading my blog! If you have any comment or criticism whatsoever, you can leave it below or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. Thanks!



5 comments:

  1. The real story is probably within the recurring themes. Of course only the original would fill in the gaps. The "fairy godmother" is probably a demon relative called a "godmother" to alleviate that connotation. The girl herself may be a hybrid. She calculated how to manipulate a human. Her mother was probably a hybrid and her father human. The real event were either before the flood or "in the land of Shinar" where the Tower of Babel was built.

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    1. Well, they both seem to have added and removed something. For example, the dresses were actually a part of the story. Yes, it does seem like she very well could have been some sort of hybrid, and her father totally fell for the real thing. It's really not that far fetched.

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  2. This version of the tale is less intense. She obviously wanted to be found out eventually. A more lighthearted take on the subject matter.

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  3. The differences between the Grimm and the Perrault version are fascinating. I kind of like the fact that she had to rely on herself to find a way out of this situation, although I don't mind the idea of the fairy godmother. From the context I do believe she was born with supernatural abilities. The fact that she ends up with a King instead of prince changes the dynamic of her final relationship, more of one of an wise figure instead of a younger passion. Fantastic blog, I like hearing about these tales as different versions.

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