The Robber Bridegroom
This tale by the Brother's Grimm starts with a marriage if the beautiful miller's daughter and a suitor. She had never visited her suitor before so he arranged for her to meet him by laying ashes down as for a path for him to get to her. When she saw the trail of ashes, she didn't quite trust it so she marked the path with her own peas and lentils. She arrived at the house with a very eerie feeling. Voices inside the house were telling her to turn back and that the house was full of murderers. She searched the house long and hard for the bridegroom but he was no where to be found. She arrived in the basement and found a very old woman. She asked the old woman where she could find her bridegroom and the old woman told her that her bridegroom was a murderer and he was going to chop her up into little pieces. The old woman told her she would hide her and get her out later after the murderers had gone to sleep. She hid her behind a barrel as the murderers began to come down the stairs with another woman. They chopped her into pieces. One of the murderers noticed a ring on her finger so they chopped the finger off. However, the finger went flying right behind the barrel into the young brides lap. The old woman distracted the murderers by reminding them of food, but she had put sleeping potions into their food so that they all would fall down asleep very soon. Once they were asleep the old woman took the young bride out and brought her home. The young bride told the story at her wedding, as a dream, but then pulled out the finger with the ring on it and the bridegroom and all his men were arrested.
The Fitcher's Bird
The Fitcher's Bird tale is about a sorcerer who disguises as a poor man to catch beautiful girls. No one knows where they go after they vanish in his presence. The sorcerer arrives at a house and begs for the daughter. The father agrees and gives him his oldest daughter. The palace where he lives is very large, with many rooms and valuables. The sorcerer must go on a journey, he leaves the keys to the woman and tells her she can go anywhere except for one room and she must not ever enter or something bad will happen. He also gave her an egg for safekeeping. After the sorcerer had left, she gave into her temptation, she unlocked the door and walked in. She said a bath full of blood and dead women's bodies hung up on the wall. She was absolutely mortified and accidentally dropped the egg into the blood bath. She quickly retrieved the egg and tried to wipe it off but the blood reappeared. Once the sorcerer came home, he realized what she had done and chopped her into pieces. He did this with second daughter too, after she had gone into the room. Finally, the third daughter was a lot smarter. She left the egg outside before entering the room. She saw her sisters bodies all in pieces and quickly put them back together to reassemble them. When the sorcerer came back home and saw that she did not go into the room, he was pleased and excited to call her his wife. She told him he needed to take gold to her family to celebrate the wedding and she would invite the guest. She packed her sisters, covered in gold, in a case so that the sorcerer would take them home. And then she invited all the guest, covered herself in feathers so that she could leave without looking like herself. She looked like a bird and even the sorcerer thought she was a bird when they crossed paths in the woods. She placed a skull in the window so that it would look like she was still in the house. Once the sorcerer and all his friends had arrived for the wedding the house was locked and set on fire to burn everyone inside alive.
Bluebeard
The tale, told by Charles Perrault is very similar to Fitcher's Bird and has some of the same aspects of The Robber Bridegroom. This tale starts out with a wedding and the beautiful woman is sent to live in the beautiful palace with Bluebeard, an odd man. He tells her he needs to go on a journey for work and gives her a set of keys. He tells her, she is allowed to go into any room except for one and he hands her the key. After Bluebeard left, the woman was very curious and eventually gave in to temptation. As soon as she opened the door she saw a blood bath with women's bodies hanging up on the wall. She was so frightened that she dropped her key into the pile of blood on the ground. She quickly grabbed it but no matter how hard she scrubbed the blood stain would not go away. She hid the key from her husband but he soon found out and told her she would join the other woman in the room. She asked for sometime to pray and he allowed it. Instead of praying, she called her sister and asked if she could see her brothers coming her way because she had invited them over. The sister saw the brothers and told them to hurry. As soon as Bluebeard grabbed ahold of the woman, the brothers came storming in and killed Bluebeard in a second.
My favorite story out of these three would have to be Fitcher's bird, because it has such strong feminist power. I love how the third daughter was extremely smart to not bring the egg in. And also outsmarted the sorcerer by making him bring gold and her sisters back home and tricked him into thinking she was a bird. Then he later burned to death because of her plans. She saved everyone and even got revenge on the sorcerer.
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