The Juniper Tree

Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. "The Juniper Tree." Von dem Machandelboom, Kinder - und Hausmarchen (Children's and Household Tales -- Grimms' Fairy Tales). no. 47. Web. <http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm047.html>.

The Juniper Tree

Summary:

This story revolves around a certain magical Juniper Tree and the wishes and emotions of the family members that live by it. Its winter and a husband and wife couple want to have kids, and even though the wife prays for this to happen, it never does. Until one day while she was peeling an apple while under the Juniper Tree, she cut herself and started to bleed. Looking upon the blood in the snow, she wished to have a child as red as blood and as white as snow. Seasons changed and many months went by, and eventually she came to have a son. The wife was so happy that she was finally able to have a son that she died. After mourning, the father eventually remarried and with his second wife he had a daughter named Marlene. The second wife began to have malicious thoughts about her step-son and how he would get in the way of her daughter receiving the inheritance. She started to treat the boy so horribly, pushing him to the corner, slapping him, cuffing him, to the point where he was even afraid to come home from school. Her thoughts became angrier after hearing voices from “the Evil One,” which persuaded her to do evil deeds, and lured the young boy into a trap. After tempting him with the treat of an apple, she decapitated the young boy, and then tricked her daughter into falsely believing that her brother’s death was her fault. To get rid of the body, the step-mother cooked it into a stew, which was then fed entirely to the father. When the father asked where his son was, the step-mother lied and said he had gone to stay with his mother’s great uncle. When all that was left of the boy was his bones, his sister Marlene gathered them up in her best silken scarf and placed then under the Juniper Tree. A strange mist rose from the tree, the scarf-tied bones disappeared, and a magnificent singing bird emerged. The bird proceeded to sing his song to a goldsmith. The goldsmith who loved the song so much asked the bird to sing it again, but the bird would not do it for nothing. So the goldsmith gave the bird a golden chain to hear his singing again. The same thing happened with a shoemaker who gave him a pair of red shoes, and a group of miller’s apprentices who gave him a millstone. The bird flew back to his father home and sung his song while sitting upon the Juniper Tree. At this point, the father who has done nothing wrong feels amazing, the sister who did not do anything wrong either but was tricked into thinking that she did feels sad, and the mother who killed her son feels agony, uneasiness, and pain. The father went out to see the bird on the Juniper Tree, and was given a golden chain which fit perfectly around his neck. Marlene, after seeing her father receive this gift from the bird and feeling even better also goes out to see the bird, and receives a pair of red shoes! The mother, tempted by these gifts, thinks that if she goes and see’s the bird as well, she will get something that will make her feel better as well. As she walks out the door, the bird drops the millstone on her head, expecting a treat and instead receiving a quick and unsuspecting death, just as she had lured and killed her son. Smoke, Flames, and Fire rose up, and from them emerged the little brother, who took his father and sister by the hand and went into their home. Happily Ever After.

Analysis:

The underlying messages here seem to be “be careful what you wish for” and “what goes around comes around.” The first wife wished for a child, which the Juniper tree granted, but at the cost of her life. The second wife wanted to get rid of the boy, which the Juniper tree helped her do via the voice of “the Evil One”, and she got her wish by sacrificing her innocent son. But in the end she pays for her selfishness and greed in blood when the reincarnated boy rightfully gets vengeance by killing the wicked step-mother. The symbolic apple is seen yet again in this story as a desirable object which leads you down the path of disaster. At first it is the first wife who cuts herself while peeling an apple, which causes her to bleed and start a series of event which will end in her losing her life. It is shown again when the step-mom uses the tempting apple to lure the young boy into her trap which ends up in the boy’s death initially, and then eventually costs the step-mom her life as well.