Is Grimms' "The Death of the Hen" about The Black Death?

The Grimms recorded “The Death of the Hen” with the Audience/Purpose of preserving their German culture. With this in mind, the tale can be read as a morality tale (greed causes downfall) or a tale of death and dying (all die in the end). Yet neither reading explains the more bizarre story elements. If we consider that these stories were handed down orally through generations, we glimpse another Audience/Purpose.

A close study of the text provides clues to a possible original Audience/Purpose: memorializing the Black Death.

First is the brook’s centrality: Water frequently represents the passage from this life to the next, so the brook becomes a door of sorts. When it demands red silk, we might dig down to correlate the silk with the red cross that was painted on plague victims’ doors.

Likewise, we might see the wreath caught in a willow as a representation of Shakespeare’s willow: “the tree of forsaken love” and the traditional bridal wreath: symbol of memory and purity. Both may represent the hen’s promise to the cock, and her grief at violating that promise.

In the end, straw, coal, and rock all fail to save the animals. Reading with an eye to meaning: Bundles of straw were placed at the door of plague victims, so straw promulgates death. Bodies were often burned, so coal is powerless over death. And the impenetrable rock does not even have power over the Black Death.

Other versions of the tale exist, some less in line with this suggested reading. However in one telling, after all the animals board the cart, a flea assures the group that his weight will be no trouble. Yet he causes the cart’s collapse. Interestingly, fleas spread the plague.

This troubling story seems confusing when applied to the Grimms’ Audience/Purpose, but when read with other Audiences/Purposes in mind, it takes on rich new meaning.

[I read the Crane translation, and initially wrote this little blurb for a Coursera class.]

Sites consulted:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/07/23/120723crbo_books_acocella

http://www.project-hamlet.info/scenes-soliloquies/muddy-death.html

http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/80deathlittlehen.html

Cinderella or Cinderella or Cinderella - All the Same

Cendrillon: A Caribbean Cinderella by Robert D. San Souci. S&S, 1998.

Immediate connection with the narrator appearing before the title page. The fabulous voice is already rich and engaging, then add the surprise of the narrator being the “fairy godmother,” well!

Such a different take from Yeh Shen (a Chinese Cinderella retelling by Ai-Ling Louie), yet Yeh Shen is so much more culturally rich. It’s a truly different version of a classic tale, not a retelling of one with a switch in cultural setting.


I had this complaint about a Halloween version as well, Cinderella Skeleton. It was the same old story but with skeletons and undead vs. humans. I know we all just adore Pinkney (the illustrator) and San Souci is better known than Ai-Ling Louie, but honestly, the writing and originality of this tale pale compared to Yeh Shen; even the illustrations are lacking in the artistry of Ed Young’s paintings. If a culturally rich adaptation of a classic tale is going to be on a required reading list for any MFAC program, I think it should be Yeh Shen.

Traditional African Tale

Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale by John Steptoe. 1987

Any MFA in Children's Writing must have this book on it's required reading list -- such an important tale. Uniquely South African and full of stunning, authentic illustrations. This morality story is much like an Aesop’s fable. The kind girl is favored over the nasty one. The plotting is tight, the storytelling clear with a voice like a classic folktale. A favorite.

Aesop Rewrites: So lovely and Gentle

Aesop’s Fables by Jerry Pinkney. 2000.

Compression and storytelling meld with just enough detail to set the stage and uphold the story. I found a mix of familiar and more obscure stories (i.e. “The cat, the Rooster and the Mouse”). All included small details that made the story more vivid, like garlands of flowers around the heifer’s neck. This is a compilation, so there's not much to say on the whole. A few notes on individual stories:

• “Shepherd Boy and the Wolf”: I think the story is more powerful when the boy gets eaten, but hey, it’s Pinkney’s book. 
• But there was a mixed meaning on p. 44. “Those who complain most often suffer least.” Maybe better would be: those who suffer least often complain the most. If it were a story of a squeaky wheel getting oiled, then the moral of “complain to get what you want” could come out of the current phrasing.
• Some are hysterically funny. Like a drowning boy being lectured—“there’s a time and a place for everything.” No kidding! It makes me wonder what Dahl or Edward Lear would do with these tales.

Too Tall for Truth: Tall Tales

John Henry by Julius Lester. Dial, 1994.

An authentic, engaging voice mingles fantasy with reality.

Pinkney’s vivid artwork combines with Lester’s picturesque text to make the telling of the story every bit as “larger than life” as the subject of the story. Lester fills his pages with word pictures, “bat wings on tombstones” and personification, the sun flossing, the wind out of breath. Yet he tosses in modern items, “like the school bus is never going to come,” which walks the line between contextualizing the fable and distracting from it (I’d vote for distracting).

But with other similes, “mountain as big as hurt feelings,” Lester touches the child’s world. A fabulous example of a Tall Tale capturing a bit of culture and history.

Three Little Piggies, Take Two

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieska. Viking, 1989.

Twisting and turning a traditional story to make something new. Scieszka takes the well-known 3 Little Pigs story and tells it from the wolf’s point of view. Many of the details remain the same, yet the story has new depth and humor as the wolf’s supposedly “innocent” motivation comes to play. He’s not a big bad wolf! Merely misunderstood.

This favorite loses meaning if the original story isn't known. I can't imagine any child not knowing the story of the Three Little Pigs, but is it so unreasonable? With Dora and Disney overtaking our culture, I wonder at times if the classics will be lost.