Grimm's “The Three Little Birds” Summary and Discussion

Back in the time of small kings, one was riding forth with his retinue from the castle to go hunting. Three sisters who were watching their cows saw them, and the eldest pointed to the king and said she would marry him, or none. The second girl answered from the other side of the hill, pointing to the one on the right and saying the same thing. The king had the three sisters brought to him and confirmed what they had said, and he married the eldest and two ministers married the other two of the beautiful sisters.

Now when the king was to go away, he asked the two sisters to watch his wife, who was about to give birth. They were without child, and when the King’s son was born, they took it and threw it into the river. A bird flew up, scaring them away and singing about the baby’s tomb until God’s word comes. The sisters do this with the next son and daughter over a few years, telling the king that the children were dogs and a cat.

On the last word, the king angrily has his wife thrown in prison. Meanwhile, in the country a fisherman and his barren wife have raised the three children. The eldest son is rejected by the other boys as a foundling, and when he is of age, he pesters the fisherman until he lets the boy seek his real father. The prince comes to an old fisher lady at a great body of water, and says she won’t have much luck. She carries him over the water to search for his father, but he becomes lost in the land beyond. Next year, the same happens with the 2nd son when he goes to find his brother. Finally, the daughter goes out to search, but she wishes the fisher lady good luck, and she is given a wand and told what to do: she is to walk on the road past a great dog she is to ignore, through a castle, where she is to drop the wand, then go to the tree growing from a spring beyond. She is to take back a glass of the water and the caged bird and strike the dog with the wand.

Now on the way back, the princess finds her brothers and when she strikes the dog it becomes a handsome prince. They all go back to the fisherman’s house and hang the caged bird on the wall. Eventually, the second brother goes out hunting, and when he is tired he plays his flute. The king finds him and asks who gave him permission to hunt there, and he says, “No one.” The king learns of his supposed father, and they go back to the fisherman, for the king knows him to be childless. There, the bird sings the truth of the perfidy of the sisters. The king frees his wife, she is revived with the water from the spring, the false sisters are burned, and the daughter married the handsome prince.

(From a discussion on the Brothers Grimm’s “The Three Little Birds”)

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