The Brave Little Tailor
A clever tailor tricks giants and a king into believing his might.
"The Brave Little Tailor" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm (KHM 20) and classified as Aarne–Thompson Type 1640. It tells of a tailor who uses trickery to convince giants and a king of his extraordinary strength, ultimately winning wealth and power. The tale has been widely anthologized, including in Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book and Ruth Manning-Sanders's A Book of Giants.
Quick Facts
- Also known as
- The Valiant Little Tailor
- Aarne-thompson grouping
- ATU 1640 (The Brave Tailor)
- Country
- Germany
- Published in
- Grimm's Fairy Tales
- Related
- "Jack and the Beanstalk"; "Jack the Giant Killer"; "The Boy Who Had an Eating Match with a Troll"
Facts from the source article.
Synopsis
A tailor kills seven flies with one blow while eating jam and makes a belt reading "Seven at One Blow." He sets out into the world and meets a giant who interprets the belt as referring to seven men. The giant squeezes water from a boulder; the tailor squeezes milk from cheese. The giant throws a rock far into the air; the tailor tosses a bird that flies away, making the giant think the rock never landed. The giant asks the tailor to help carry a tree; the tailor directs the giant to take the trunk while he climbs into the branches, so the giant carries him as well. Impressed, the giant brings the tailor to his home, where other giants live. That night the giant tries to kill the tailor by smashing the bed with an iron bar, but the tailor had slept in the corner. Seeing the tailor alive, the other giants flee. The tailor enters royal service, but the other soldiers fear that if he loses his temper he might kill seven of them with each blow. They tell the king either the tailor leaves or they will. The king sends the tailor to fight two giants with a hundred horsemen, offering half his kingdom and his daughter's hand if he succeeds. The tailor throws rocks at the sleeping giants, provoking them to fight each other until both are dead, then stabs them in their hearts. The king then sends him after a unicorn, which the tailor traps by standing before a tree and stepping aside as it charges, driving its horn into the trunk. Finally the king sends him after a wild boar, which the tailor traps in a chapel using a similar technique.
Analysis
In the Aarne–Thompson–Uther system, the core of the story is motif type 1640, named The Brave Tailor for this story. It also includes 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). The tale has close similarities to other European folktales, including "The Boy Who Had an Eating Match with a Troll" (Norway) and "Stan Bolovan" (Romania). It shares many elements with "Jack the Giant Killer" (Cornwall and England), though that protagonist actually kills giants. Both the Scandinavian and British variants feature a recurring stock hero: Jack and Askeladden (also known as Boots). The story is also similar to the Greek myth of Hercules, who is promised godhood if he slays monsters, much as the tailor is promised kingship through marriage. The technique of tricking giants into fighting each other is identical to that used by Cadmus in Greek mythology to deal with warriors who sprang from dragon's teeth. In The Hobbit, Gandalf uses a similar strategy to keep three trolls fighting until sunrise turns them to stone. Folklorist Joseph Jacobs attempted to reconstruct the protoform of the tale, which he named "A Dozen at One Blow." In the English collection Grimm's Goblins: Grimm's Household Stories, this story and "The Young Giant" are combined as one story called "The Young Giant And The Tailor." A variant has been reported in Spanish folktale collections, and the tale has also been attested in American sources.
Character analysis
The tailor is clever, intelligent, and confident, using misdirection and psychological manipulation to trick others, such as turning the pair of giants against each other and playing on their assumptions and fears. He also uses decoy tactics to lure the unicorn and boar into traps and to avoid being killed in the giant's bed. This reliance on trickery is a feature of the antihero stock character. The king is mistrusting and judgmental, using the promise of half the kingdom to persuade the tailor to undertake deadly tasks; he is one-dimensional and serves as a plot device. The princess, the prize for completing the challenges, values royal birthright and becomes furious upon learning her husband is a poor tailor, trying to have him killed. Her self-absorbed vindictiveness is consistent with the stock character of the shrewish bride.
Adaptations
The tale inspired a 1938 Mickey Mouse short titled Brave Little Tailor. In 1950, Tibor Harsányi wrote a suite for narrator, seven instruments, and percussion called L'histoire du petit tailleur; a well-known recording featured the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire under Georges Prêtre, with Peter Ustinov narrating in both English and French. The story appeared as an episode in the second season of the anime series Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics, which aired from 1987 to 1989. The HBO series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child adapted it in its first season, setting it in the West African Sahel; the tailor, renamed Bongo, was voiced by David Alan Grier, with James Earl Jones as King Dakkar, Mark Curry as the Giant, Dawnn Lewis as Princess Songe, and Zakes Mokae as Mr. Barbooska. A 2004 French novel by Éric Chevillard, Le vaillant petit tailleur, retold the story in a postmodern style. Bengali writer Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury wrote a short story inspired by the tale, "Satmaar Palowan" ("The Wrestler Who Kills Seven"). The Brumberg sisters directed a Soviet cartoon adaptation in 1964. The story was also adapted in the 1999 animated series Simsala Grimm. In the game Fairytale Fights, the tailor serves as the main antagonist, stealing credit from Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Beanstalk Jack, and the Naked Emperor; after they defeat him and reveal his fraud, the father giant drops the heroes' books on him, killing him and restoring their fame.
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