Grimms The Robber Bridegroom

The Brothers Grimms’ Blue Beard type story, “The Robber Bridegroom” is the most fairytale-like of all the Blue Beard stories we have read. In class we discussed that Blue Beard stories are generally different from the other stories we have read because it is a horror story that takes fear into reality instead of displacing it with magic. What makes horror so terrifying is that it takes something that is real or within the realm of possibility of the real and turns it from something know-able and safe into something horrible and scary so that what is natural to us becomes unnatural and foreign and therefore disgusting and horrible. This version is a lot like the Mr. Fox Tatar version but still is more fairytale-like.

The miller’s daughter didn’t love him like she should, she shuttered when she saw the bridegroom. In this story we don’t get a blue beard or some outward indicator of evil or unnatural-ness, only a “shutter” to identify the bridegroom as bad. Interestingly we as an audience automatically side with her that since something is off he must be evil. Moreover, his house is in a dark forest which in fairytales is the typical place for evil and challenges. As in Little Red Riding Hood, the bridegroom lures her into the forest, and reminiscent of Hansel and Gretel he spreads ashes for her to follow. She follows the ashes but adds peas and lentils which is again like Hansel and Gretel. Unlike other stories nature comes to the maiden’s aid or tried to as the bird calls out to her that she should turn back. There is a magical response where nature helps heroine as in most fairytales, the peas and lentils grow up and guide her home . She also finds the typical fairytale old crone who warns her. Interestingly she gets out of the danger with evidence of her challenge, the finger with the ring which follows the fairytale motif of a heroine holding a body part of another girl which is excused because there is valuable jewelry attached to it.

Furthermore the maiden gets away without immediate confrontation. And of course as we expect with Grimms tales it reads that “she got safely through with the help of God” as is consistent with Christian morals and Protestant values of the times. She says she had a strange dream but retells fairytale, alike old oral tellers retelling tales to an audience. Key elements are repeated and by doing so at end everyone thinks they’ve heard a tale but the twist is she shows the evidence and proves the fairytale wasn’t a story after which of course the robber bridegroom gets punished and everyone lives happily ever after with order and justice in place.