Story 2
INLS 121: Storytelling
STORY CUE CARD
Bibliographic
Information (best version for telling): The Three Spinners from:
The complete fairy tales
of the Brothers Grimm. Translated
and with introduction by Jack Zipes. (2003)
The title page verso notes that “The
first 211 tales in this translation [of Kinder- und Hausmärchen]
are based on the seventh and final edition published in 1857.”
Ethnic
Origin: German
Running
Time: 7 minutes
Power
Center(s): I want my audience to
feel these emotions as the plot progresses.
The bored maiden’s
(false) hopefulness that her life will change for the better when she goes to
live with the queen.
Doom - a cyclic combination of fear, anxiety
and sadness - when she realizes she’ll never be able to spin so much
flax. Self-confidence plummets.
Maiden’s expressed emotion
(frustration) attracts three physically deformed women to come to her aid,
offering their skill (gifts) in exchange for the opportunity to attend the
wedding as her cousins.
Maiden’s hopefulness
and relief when she sees that the job was accomplished by professionals. Maiden’s regained confidence when asking that
cousins be invited to wedding.
The spinsters’s
happiness when they attend the wedding as the brides’ cousins.
The prince’s shock when he learns what
caused each cousin’s deformity.
Characters:
Mother/widow
Daughter/maiden
Queen
Prince/bridegroom
Three
spinners (“cousins”)
Scenes:
1.
A poor widow beats her lazy daughter who wails loudly. Queen intervenes. Mother
lies that she can’t supply daughter with enough flax to keep her busy and
happy spinning yarn.
2.
Queen takes the maiden to her castle where three large rooms of flax need to be
spun. In exchange for proving her industriousness, maiden will marry the prince
without a dowry.
3.
Maiden tells the queen that she is too homesick to spin. Queen states
ultimatum.
4.
Maiden’s wailing attracts three curious old women who offer to spin the
flax in exchange for invitations to the wedding as her cousins.
5.
“Spinsters” get to work. (Explain how each uses their body part
that is now deformed.) Maiden keeps their presence a secret and accepts all
credit. When wedding plans are made, maiden’s request for her three
cousins to be included on guest list and sit at the head table at the reception
is granted.
6. Cousins attend wedding. Prince asks each why they have their
deformities. When he learns how each became deformed, he decrees that his wife
will never spin again (and makes her responsible for industrial safety reform).
Synopsis:
A sly widow convinces the queen that her
daughter is an overly productive flax spinner. Queen offers maiden her son in
marriage once all the flax fiber stored in three large rooms is spun into yarn.
Maiden receives help from three spinsters who want invitations to the wedding
as her cousins in exchange for their skill. At the reception, the prince learns
about the source of their deformities, decrees his bride will never spin again
but that she will have a career that creates better working conditions for
spinners.
Rhymes/Special
Phrases/"Flavor":
“nothing I
like more than the sound of spinning” (but not doing it herself)
“We’ll spin that flax for you in
no time at all…but only if you invite us to your wedding AND are not
ashamed of us. … let us eat at your
table.”
Flat foot from treading
Drooping lip from licking
Immense thumb from twisting
Audience
(why is this story appropriate for the audience? developmental
characteristics?):
The Three Spinners is appropriate for
adolescent audiences because of how the plot corresponds to some of the
developmental tasks cited by Havighurst. (Havighurst, Robert J. Developmental Tasks and Education. 3rd
edition. David McKay Co., 1972.)
1. The maiden does not want to follow the
expected occupational path (based on her mom’s socio-economic status) and
be a spinner. Observing the adaptations the three spinsters made to do their
work helped move her out of the lazy teenager mode to acceptance of a career
that would improve the lives of future spinners. (#6:
Preparing for an economic career, and #4: establishing emotional independence
from parents and other adults.)
2.
She is acquiring ethical behavior by inviting the spinsters to the
wedding in spite of their socially unacceptable appearance among the royals in
exchange for their help. (#7: Acquiring a set of values and
an ethical system as a guide to behavior.)
3. She understands the limits of her body
and cannot possibly spin three rooms of flax by herself. Furthermore, she is
made aware of what deformities can develop when someone uses their body
inappropriately. (#3: accepting one’s physique and
using the body effectively.)
This plot progression follows the milestones
in adolescent development cited by Elizabeth Fenwick and Tony Smith in Adolescence.
(DK Publishing, 1994.)
Early adolescence (11-14) maiden exhibits
defiant behavior, wants to be independent of her mother’s reach.
Middle adolescence (15-16) maiden is pleased
to try a new experience, spinning the queen’s flax, in exchange for a
lasting relationship with the prince. Must make her own decision how to get out
of the trouble she is in.
Late adolescence (17-18) will be involved in
the world outside of home as a idealist, capable of
promoting improvements in the occupational conditions for industrial workers.
Bibliographic information on other versions/variants
(at least two)?
This tale varies
by the context under which it was translated.
One alternate
version studied was published in Folktales of Germany, edited by Kurt Ranke, translated
by Lotte Baumann,
The second
alternate version studied was published in Grimms’
Tales for Young and Old, translated by Ralph Manheim. Doubleday.
Brief comparison of all versions/variants in terms of
language, rhythm, "tellability,"
"flavor," content, etc. Stress the differences in style
rather than those of content.
Presented as Tale
39 in Ranke’s work, The three spinners seems more like what would have
been told in earlier published versions of Grimm’s fairy tales. The three
spinners from 1812 and 1857 editions are among the comparisons explained in the
introduction to The complete fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.
“[S]pecific role models for male and female
protagonists” were assigned in later editions, with the goal of improving
the works to the middle class. The 1812 version began by describing a king who
loved flax spinning, but his queen and daughters were the spinners with an
abundance of flax to be spun in a short time. In Ranke’s collection the
initial scene begins with the widow beating her lazy daughter and the queen
sends in her servant to ask why the maiden was being beaten. Ranke’s
version did not portray the royal compassion or focus on deal making that in
the version I found more tellable.
In Ranke’s
version, the maiden meets only one of the spinsters, who has two friends who
she calls in to help. This made it more difficult for me to tell as characters
were not in direct contact with one another. “In place of the Grimms’ artificial Buchmärchen,
Ranke set down the multiple variants of each tale recorded in local dialects by
earlier collectors, providing information on the narrators and surveying the
distribution of the tale type in meaty headnotes.
These are truly household stories in all their variation and homeliness.”
(pp xxii-xxiii). Tale 39 seemed like a stew of these variants but did not have
a clear taste.
Manheim’s
translation featured a queen who was too benevolent for my style of telling.
Its ending: “from then on there was no further question of her having to
spin that horrid flax” did not work well with the question “and
what happened next?” The selected version concludes with the
maiden’s ability to “rid herself of the terrible task of spinning
flax.” This was a better
lead-in to her mission to reduce occupational injuries as opposed to being
unemployed.