German 354

In Week 3, we discussed The Grimms’ tales. In the Grimm’s tales, nature rewards the “good” and punishes the “bad.” This is seen in “The Water-Smith,” when the father is instructed to buy a sword to perform a test with it which will decide whether the son stays. The father is told not to haggle about the price of the sword or the test will not work. Regardless of the warning, the father haggles about the price, and it takes several times before the father buys a sword without haggling. Finally, when father did what was asked originally, the son struck the water with the sword which turned the water red. This meant the son was to return to the water and to leave his father behind, as this was the punishment for the father for putting money before his son. An example of nature rewarding someone is seen in “The Nix Labour,” when a midwife is summoned by a water-man to help his wife give birth. Because the midwife did everything that she was supposed to during the delivery, the wife told her not to be greedy when her husband paid her or the water-man would kill her. As a reward for not being greedy, the midwife was paid fairly and allowed to keep her life.Besides rewarding or punishing, nature also protects and destroys. For instance, in “The Nixie of the Mill-Pond” when the huntsman and his wife are running away from the Nix of the Mill-pond, the land is destroyed by a great flood. When they reach the house of the old lady, she turns them into a frog and a toad. By doing so, nature protected them from the flood and the Nix.