The Old Man and his Grandson is a German 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...

 collected 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 Grimm's Fairy Tales

Grimm's Fairy Tales

Children's and Household Tales is a collection of German origin fairy tales first published in 1812 by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the Brothers Grimm. The collection is commonly known today as Grimms' Fairy Tales .-Composition:...

as tale number 78.

It is Aarne-Thompson type 980B, The Wooden Bowl.

Synopsis

An old man could not eat neatly, so his son and daughter-in-law made him eat by the stove and, when he broke his bowl, bought him a cheap one. His four-year-old grandson played with wood and said that he was making a trough for his parents to eat from when they were old. After that, they let him eat at the table and did not complain about the spill.

Variants

Other tales of this type vary on the exact offense that the grandson declares he will commit and the son thereafter refrains from: making his father sleep under half a blanket in the stables, bringing back the carrier so he can carry his father to abandon him, or commit murder. In medieval Europe, the son was commonly sent for a blanket and came back with half, justifying it by saying the other half is saved for his father.