Riassunto
Riassunto di Leggende tedesche
A chi è rivolto
Readers who love folklore, ghost stories and old tales, who enjoy mountains, rivers and ruined castles, and who like short stories tied to real places that they can sample in any order.
Che cos’è questo libro
German Legends is a gathering of well over three hundred short tales, put together by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the early nineteenth century. They were scholars of language and old stories, and they dedicated the book to their brother Ludwig Emil. Their aim was to save the local stories people told about mountains, lakes, castles and ruins, before those stories faded.
These are not fairy tales that begin once upon a time in no place at all. Many legends point to somewhere real. A rock carries a footprint, a lake turns red on one day a year, a tower has a strange name, a village sits where a castle once sank.
You will meet mountain spirits, giants, dwarfs, water folk, kobolds, ghosts, sleeping emperors and the Devil himself, often as a bad bargainer. You will also meet people who are tested by greed, pride, curiosity or a careless word. The chapters run from a few lines to several pages, so you can enter anywhere. Let us begin where the book begins, deep inside a mountain.
In questo riassunto
- 1Miners meet the spirits under the mountainFree
- 2Lady Holle rules the hills of Hesse
- 3Giants and sleeping emperors wait in the rock
- 4Dwarfs and little folk bargain with humans
- 5Water folk, midwives and the price of a gift
- 6House spirits who work, joke and take offense
- 7The Devil, builders and fools who strike bargains
- 8Curses, omens, dragons and the Wild Hunt
- 9What the legends mean and how they are told
Punto chiave 1 di 9
Miners meet the spirits under the mountain
The book opens underground. In Bohemia, three miners of Kuttenberg go into the mountain each morning with their prayer books, lamps holding one day of oil and a little bread. They pray for safety and then work. One evening the mountain collapses in front of them and seals the entrance. They expect to starve, yet they keep digging and praying, and the lamp and the bread seem never to run down.
Above ground, the years pass. The miners' hair and beards grow an ell long, and their wives, sure that they are dead, begin to think of other husbands. Each miner makes a wish about what he would like to enjoy before he dies. What the mountain does with those wishes gives the tale its edge, and it sets the tone for much that follows. In these stories wishes are heard, and gifts come with a price.
Chapter two brings in the Mountain Spirit, called Master Hämmerling or the Mountain Monk. He is most often seen as a huge figure dressed like a black monk. In one Swiss mine he is busy on Fridays, moving ore between buckets, and he leaves the owner alone unless a worker curses him.
The next tale shows the same figure in a kinder mood. Two Harz miners find their lamps short of oil and fear the foreman's anger if they go home for more. A huge man in a monk's dress comes bent double along the passage with a great lamp. He tells them not to be afraid, pours oil into their lamps and does more work in an hour than they could do in a week. Then he strikes the left wall with his fist, and a passage glittering with gold and silver opens.
These first chapters teach you how to read the whole book. Mountains are alive, spirits keep their own rules, and good manners matter more than strength.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Leggende tedesche
What is German Legends about?
It is a collection of more than three hundred short legends from German-speaking lands. The tales tell of miners and mountain spirits, giants, dwarfs, water folk, house spirits, ghosts, sleeping emperors and the Devil, many linked to a real place.
Who were the Brothers Grimm and how did they collect these stories?
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were German scholars of language and folklore. They gathered the legends from spoken accounts in regions such as Hesse and the Harz and from older chronicles and curiosity books, and many chapters name their sources.
Who is Lady Holle in German Legends?
Lady Holle is a spirit of the Hessian mountain Meißner and its pond. She rewards diligent spinners, punishes lazy ones, brings children from her well and travels the land from Christmas to Twelfth Day, sometimes at the head of a wild host.
Are the German legends true stories?
They are folk legends, told as having happened in particular places, often with names and years. The Grimms present them as local belief and tradition, and many appear in several versions, so they reflect what people said and feared.
Is German Legends easy to start reading?
Yes, in the sense that each chapter stands alone and runs from a few lines to a few pages. You can open it anywhere, follow a favorite creature such as the dwarfs, or read it in order.