Brother and Sister
Encyclopedia
Brother and Sister is a well-known European fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

 which was, among others, written down by the Brothers Grimm
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...

 in their collection of Children's and Household Tales (Grimm's Fairy Tales). It is alternatively known as Little Sister and Little Brother or (in the Grimm's version) Brüderchen und Schwesterchen.

Plot synopsis

Tired of the cruel mistreatment they endured from their witch stepmother
Wicked Stepmother
Wicked Stepmother is a 1989 American comedy film written, produced, and directed by Larry Cohen. It is best known for being the last film of Bette Davis, who withdrew from the project after filming began, citing major problems with the script and the way she was being photographed...

, a brother and sister ran away from home one day. The two children wandered off into the countryside and spent the night in the woods. When the next morning came, the brother was thirsty and the pair went on the lookout for a spring of clear water. The evil stepmother had already discovered their escape, however, and bewitched all the springs in the forest. The brother was about to drink from one, when his sister heard how its rushing sound said, "Whoever drinks from me will become a tiger."

Desperately, the sister begged her brother not to drink from the well, lest he transform into a wild animal and tear her to pieces. So they went back on their way, but when they came to the second spring the sister heard it say, "Whoever drinks from me will become a wolf." Again, the sister desperately tried to prevent her brother from drinking. Reluctantly, he eventually agreed to his sister's pleas but insisted he would drink at the next spring they encountered. And so they arrived at the third
Rule of three (writing)
The "rule of three" is a principle in writing that suggests that things that come in threes are inherently funnier, more satisfying, or more effective than other numbers of things. The reader/audience of this form of text is also more likely to consume information if it is written in groups of...

 spring, and his sister overheard the rushing water cry, "Whoever drinks from me will become a deer." But it was too late, because the brother had already drunk from the water, and changed into a deer.

As the initial feeling of despair cleared up, the pair decided to stay and live in the woods forever. The sister would take care of her brother, and tied her gold chain around his neck. They went to live in a little house deep within the woods and lived there happily for some years, until they were disturbed one day by a hunting party, and the king himself followed the strange deer home. Upon seeing the beautiful sister, he immediately asked her to marry him, a proposal she accepted. Thus the sister became queen and they all went to live happily in the king's castle.

Her stepmother however soon discovered that the pair were still alive and plotted against them. One night she killed the queen and replaced her with her own disfigured daughter
False hero
The false hero is a stock character in fairy tales, and sometimes also in ballads. The character appears near the end of a story in order to claim to be the hero or heroine and is, therefore, always of the same sex as the hero or heroine. The false hero presents some claim to the position. By...

, whom she had transformed to resemble her. When the queen's ghost secretly visited the bedside of her infant son for three
Rule of three (writing)
The "rule of three" is a principle in writing that suggests that things that come in threes are inherently funnier, more satisfying, or more effective than other numbers of things. The reader/audience of this form of text is also more likely to consume information if it is written in groups of...

 consecutive nights however, the king caught on and the stepmother's evil plan was exposed.

The queen came back to life and the witch and her daughter were tried for their crimes. The daughter was banished into the woods where she was torn to pieces by animals, and the stepmother was burned at the stake. At the exact moment of the witch's death, the brother became human again and at long last, the family was reunited. They all lived happily ever after.

Origins

The first recorded appearance of Brother and Sister is in Giambattista Basile
Giambattista Basile
Giambattista Basile was an Italian poet, courtier, and fairy tale collector.- Biography :Born to a Neapolitan middle-class family, Basile was, during his career, a courtier and soldier to various Italian princes, including the doge of Venice. According to Benedetto Croce he was born in 1575, while...

's Pentamerone
Pentamerone
The Pentamerone is a seventeenth-century fairy tale collection by Italian poet and courtier Giambattista Basile.-Background:...

around the 17th century. It was written down as the tale of Ninnillo and Nennella. Since then it has circulated in a number of European countries under varying titles but with most of the main story intact. In Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 the story was more commonly known as Sister Alionushka, Brother Ivanushka and collected by Alexander Afanasyev
Alexander Afanasyev
Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev was a Russian folklorist who recorded and published over 600 Russian folktales and fairytales, by far the largest folktale collection by any one man in the world...

 in Narodnye russkie skazki
Narodnye russkie skazki
Russian Fairy Tales , is a collection of Russian fairy tales, collected by Alexander Afanasyev and published by him between 1855 and 1863. His work was explicitly modeled after the Brothers Grimm's work, Grimm's Fairy Tales....

. In the Aarne-Thompson classification system of fairy tales, Brother and Sister is categorized as its own type as number 450, the brother and sister. Another of this type is The Lambkin and the Little Fish
The Lambkin and the Little Fish
The Lambkin and the Little Fish is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 141.It is Aarne-Thompson type 450, the brother and sister; another tale of this type is Brother and Sister.-Synopsis:...

.

At times, Brother and Sister has been confused with Hansel and Gretel
Hansel and Gretel
"Hansel and Gretel" is a well-known fairy tale of German origin, recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812. Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister threatened by a cannibalistic hag living deep in the forest in a house constructed of cake and confectionery. The two children...

. Hansel and Gretel has been known as Little Brother and Little Sister which is also an alternate title for this tale. The Grimms selected Hansel and Gretel for the tale by that name and kept the Brother and Sister title for this tale. Some publications of the Hansel and Gretel tale still use the Little Brother and Little Sister title, causing confusion for readers.

The story as the Grimm's told it was first published in the original 1812 edition of their Children's and Household Tales, and subsequently featured in all later editions, with several additions in 1819.

Nippon Animation
Nippon Animation
is a Japanese animation studio. The company is headquartered in Tokyo, with chief offices in the Ginza district of Chūō and production facilities in Tama City....

 Company of Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 featured the story in one episode of season two of its TV anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 series, Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics
Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics
is a Japanese animated anthology series by Nippon Animation. The episodes are adaptations of a variety of folk and fairy tales, and not limited to Grimm's Fairy Tales....

.

Analysis

This tale, like The Twelve Brothers
The Twelve Brothers
The Twelve Brothers is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 9. Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book.It is Aarne-Thompson type 451, the brothers who were turned into birds...

, The Seven Ravens
The Seven Ravens
The Seven Ravens is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm.It is tale number 25, and Aarne-Thompson type 451, the brothers who were turned into birds. Georgios A Megas collected another, Greek variant in Folktales of Greece...

, and The Six Swans
The Six Swans
The Six Swans is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. It is tale number 49. Andrew Lang included a variant in The Yellow Fairy Book. It is Aarne-Thompson type 451: the brothers who were turned into birds...

, features a woman rescuing her brothers. In the era and region in which it was collected, many men were drafted by kings for soldiers, to be sent as mercenaries. As a consequence, many men made their daughter their heirs; however, they also exerted more control over them and their marriages as a consequence. The stories have been interpreted as a wish by women for the return of their brothers, freeing them from this control. However, the issues of when the stories were collected are unclear, and stories of this type have been found in many other cultures, where this issue can not have inspired them.

Modern psycho-analysis interprets the relation between brother and sister in this story as a metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

 for the animalistic and spiritual
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...

 duality in humans. The brother represents the instinct
Instinct
Instinct or innate behavior is the inherent inclination of a living organism toward a particular behavior.The simplest example of an instinctive behavior is a fixed action pattern, in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a...

ive and the sister the rational
Rationality
In philosophy, rationality is the exercise of reason. It is the manner in which people derive conclusions when considering things deliberately. It also refers to the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons for belief, or with one's actions with one's reasons for action...

 side. As Brother and Sister opens, the two children are still in their youth and clearly in conflict over each others choices. The brother cannot control his impulse to drink from the wellspring and is subsequently "punished" by being turned into a deer. Note then the symbolical gesture with which the girl ties her gold chain around her brother's neck, as if to suggest the taming of the animalistic side. Following is a period of relative happiness in which the two sides live in harmony with each other. In this context, Brother and Sister could be viewed as a veiled coming of age
Coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...

 tale. It's interesting to observe then that in this story the animalistic side is associated with the male
Male
Male refers to the biological sex of an organism, or part of an organism, which produces small mobile gametes, called spermatozoa. Each spermatozoon can fuse with a larger female gamete or ovum, in the process of fertilization...

 and the spiritual/rational side with the female
Female
Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...

.
It has also been interpreted for messages about family fidelity through adversity and separation.

Contemporary literary works that draw upon this fairy tale and its analytical themes include "In the Night Country," a story by Ellen Steiber, "Brother and Sister," a poem by Terri Windling, and "Sister and Brother," a poem by Barth Anderson.

See also

  • The Lambkin and the Little Fish
    The Lambkin and the Little Fish
    The Lambkin and the Little Fish is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 141.It is Aarne-Thompson type 450, the brother and sister; another tale of this type is Brother and Sister.-Synopsis:...

  • The Wonderful Birch
    The Wonderful Birch
    The Wonderful Birch is a Russian fairy tale.A variant on Cinderella, it is Aarne-Thompson folktale type 510A, the persecuted heroine. It makes use of shapeshifting motifs.Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book.-Synopsis:...

  • The Three Little Men in the Wood
    The Three Little Men in the Wood
    The Three Little Men in the Wood or The Three Dwarfs is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, number 13. Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book, and a version of the tale appears in A Book of Dwarfs by Ruth Manning-Sanders.It is Aarne-Thompson type 403B, the black and the...

  • The Golden Stag
    The Golden Stag (fairy tale)
    -Synopsis:An old woman told her husband that he had to lose his two children, a son and a daughter, by his first marriage, in the woods. The first time, the boy had been playing in the ashes, and the children came back, but the second time, the old man succeeded in losing them...

  • Hansel and Gretel
    Hansel and Gretel
    "Hansel and Gretel" is a well-known fairy tale of German origin, recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812. Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister threatened by a cannibalistic hag living deep in the forest in a house constructed of cake and confectionery. The two children...


External links

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