The Valiant Little Tailor
Encyclopedia
The Valiant Little Tailor or The Brave Little Tailor 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...

, tale number 20. Joseph Jacobs
Joseph Jacobs
Joseph Jacobs was a folklorist, literary critic and historian. His works included contributions to the Jewish Encyclopaedia, translations of European works, and critical editions of early English literature...

 collected another variant A Dozen at One Blow in European Folk and Fairy Tales. Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.- Biography :Lang was born in Selkirk...

 included it in The Blue Fairy Book. Another of many versions of the tale appears in A Book of Giants
A Book of Giants
A Book of Giants is a 1963 anthology of 13 fairy tales from Europe that have been collected and retold by Ruth Manning-Sanders. It is one in a long series of such anthologies by Manning-Sanders...

by Ruth Manning-Sanders
Ruth Manning-Sanders
Ruth Manning-Sanders was a prolific British poet and author who was perhaps best known for her series of children's books in which she collected and retold fairy tales from all over the world. All told, she published more than 90 books during her lifetime. The dust jacket for A Book of Giants...

.

In the Aarne-Thompson classification system of classifying folktales, it is type 1640. It also include episodes of type 1060, Squeezing Water from a Stone; type 1062, A Contest in Throwing Stones; type 1052, A Contest in Carrying a Tree; type 1051, Springing with a Bent Tree; and type 1115, Attempting to Kill the Hero in His Bed.

Synopsis

A tailor is preparing to eat some jam, but when flies
Fly
True flies are insects of the order Diptera . They possess a pair of wings on the mesothorax and a pair of halteres, derived from the hind wings, on the metathorax...

 settle on it, he kills seven of them with one blow. He makes a belt describing the deed, "Seven at one blow". Inspired, he sets out into the world to seek his fortune. The tailor meets a giant
Giant (mythology)
The mythology and legends of many different cultures include monsters of human appearance but prodigious size and strength. "Giant" is the English word commonly used for such beings, derived from one of the most famed examples: the gigantes of Greek mythology.In various Indo-European mythologies,...

, who assumes that "Seven at one blow" refers to seven men. The giant challenges the tailor. When the giant squeezes water from a boulder, the tailor squeezes water (or whey) from cheese. The giant throws a rock far into the air, and it eventually lands. The tailor counters the feat by releasing a bird that flies away; the giant believes the small bird is a "rock" which is thrown so far that it never lands. The giant asks the tailor to help carry a tree. The tailor directs the giant to carry the trunk, while the tailor will carry the branches. Instead, the tailor climbs on, so the giant carries him as well.

The giant brings the tailor to the giant's home, where other giants live as well. During the night, the giant attempts to kill the man. However, the tailor, having found the bed too large, sleeps in the corner. On seeing him still alive, the other giants flee.

The tailor enters the royal service, but the other soldiers are afraid that he will lose his temper someday, and then seven of them might die with every blow. They tell the king that either the tailor leaves military service, or they will. Afraid of being killed for sending him away, the king instead sends the tailor to defeat two giants, offering him half his kingdom and his daughter's hand in marriage. By throwing rocks at the two giants while they sleep, the tailor provokes the pair into fighting each other. The king then sends him after a unicorn
Unicorn
The unicorn is a legendary animal from European folklore that resembles a white horse with a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead, and sometimes a goat's beard...

, but the tailor traps it by standing before a tree, so that when the unicorn charges, he steps aside and it drives its horn into the trunk. The king subsequently sends him after a wild boar, but the tailor traps it in a chapel.

With that, the king marries him to his daughter. His wife hears him talking in his sleep and realizes that he is merely a tailor. Her father the king promises to have him carried off. A squire warns the tailor, who pretends to be asleep and calls out that he has done all these deeds and is not afraid of the men behind the door. Terrified, they leave, and the king does not try again.

Commentary

The technique of tricking the giants into fighting each other is identical to the technique used by Cadmus
Cadmus
Cadmus or Kadmos , in Greek mythology was a Phoenician prince, the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa. He was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores...

, in Greek mythology, to deal with the warriors who sprang up when he sowed dragon's teeth.

Adaptations

Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...

 appeared in a Disney cartoon, Brave Little Tailor
Brave Little Tailor
Brave Little Tailor is a 1938 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The cartoon is an adaptation of the fairy tale The Valiant Little Tailor with Mickey Mouse in the title role. The film was directed by Bill Roberts and features...

, based on this tale.

See also

  • Boots Who Ate a Match With the Troll
    Boots Who Ate a Match With the Troll
    Boots Who Ate a Match With the Troll is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe. The troll is, as they often are, not very intelligent while the boy is clever, winning an eating contest.-Synopsis:...

  • Stan Bolovan
    Stan Bolovan
    Stan Bolovan is a Romanian fairy tale collected in Rumanische Märchen. Andrew Lang included it in The Violet Fairy Book.A version of the tale also appears in A Book of Dragons and A Choice of Magic, by Ruth Manning-Sanders.-Synopsis:...

  • Le vaillant petit tailleur
    Le vaillant petit tailleur
    Le vaillant petit tailleur is a 2004 book by the French writer Eric Chevillard retelling the fairy tale in a postmodern way....

  • Jack the Giant Killer
    Jack the Giant Killer
    "Jack the Giant Killer" is a British fairy tale about a plucky lad who slays a number of giants during King Arthur's reign. The tale is characterized by violence, gore, and blood-letting. Giants are prominent in Cornish folklore and Welsh Bardic lore, but the source of "Jack the Giant Killer" is...


External links

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