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.