Brothers Grimm 3. Our Lady's Child
Okay this one is a strange one. I mean they all are but this one hit me from left field.
So basically a woodcutter and his wife have a daughter and they can no longer afford the cost of living anymore (unfortunately topical 200 years later) so the actual Virgin Mary from the bible says "Let me take that kid off your hands for you" and the woodcutter says "Okay I guess I have to"
Which is a wild premise for a story btw. Her father never comes back up ever again, so that scene's not really relevant for the girl's character arc, BUT it does help establish Virgin Mary as a cheritable mother figure to those in need. Showing that she's virtuous and kind does a lot to provide context for her actions in this story.
The Virgin Mary raises the child in heaven until she's a young woman and one day trusts her with a set of 9 keys, only 1 is really important tho cuz Mary says it goes to a door that the girl can't open under any circumstances because it's a sin. The girl of course does this as soon as she's alone and bears witness to the holy trinity who turn her finger to gold, at which point she slams the door and runs away. Mary later asks "did you open the door?", to which the girl answers "no" and Mary is onto her imediately so she asks again twice, each time noticing evidence of her lying, but giving her the chance to come clean nonetheless. The third time the girl lies she's cast down to earth without the ability to speak.
So now we know that the Virgin Mary will dish out divine retribution for sinning with malice or selfishness. We also learn that the girl is the type to disobey her parent/guardian. Which is interesting. Could being raised in heaven be what lead her to develope this way? The lack of hardship, the lack of consequence, or never being taught the importance of honesty? You'd think living in heaven would teach one to be more virtuous, especially being raised by THE mother figure of christian mythology (and yes I'm going to call it mythology since this story is more akin to the divine comedy than the bible (not that I don't also consider that mythology cuz I kinda do)). Idk it's just interesting to me. I don't *think* it's necessarily the lack of hardship or concequence, cuz as you'll see she faces pleanty of consequence in this story and doesn't change her stance.
Once on earth, the girl is in the woods, unable to speak, navigate, or anything. She's not really a native to earth cuz she'd been in heaven her whole life, so she can only really survive on nuts and berries she finds. Her clothes get worn and dirtied to rags and she manages to survive several months like that until a king for some reason finds this filthy forest woman and says "yeah I'd marry that" and they get married. Like immediately. And like, good on him I guess for seeing a woman for who she is but idk what he saw in her tbh
She ends up having a son, Virgin Mary shows up to her when she's alone and asks "Did you open the door?" and the girl, now Queen, is allowed to reply, the first words she's spoken in years and she uses them to deny the allegations once again. So Mary just straight up vanishes her son, gone. People start rumoring that the Queen is a cannibal, that she just ate her sone and that's what happened.
The King of course is like "C'mon that's ridiculous" and dismisses the claims
This then happens two more times.
The second time is exactly the same, but the third time the Queen has a daughter and the Queen is allowed to see all her children in heaven and how well they've been treated and everything, and Mary says if the Queen tells the truth about opening the door here, she'll be given all her kids back and she'll be able to speak again.
Girl, you know the routine by now, even if you *didn't* do it, at this point most people would just say what they think Mary wanted to hear even if it wasn't true.
But I wanna try to analyze this because I don't just sumarize these, that'd be stupid
Obviously the Queen has smth she's not understanding about this whole settup. There's a disconnect here, clearly. She knows she did it, Mary knows she did it, they both know it's the lying that's causing these punishments and it's the truth that'll make it all better in the end. Which it does, she's about to be burnt at the stake for her alleged crimes of cannibalism and right when she thinks "I wish I could admit to my lie now" that she's able to speak. So she speaks the truth and Mary saves her and brings her kids back. The moral is obvious here, don't lie, listen to your parents, the truth is always better than a lie, whatever.
There's more to this tho. Why is it the punishment put on her by her fellow humans that pushes her to tell the truth rather than the punishments Mary inflicted? Was it self motivated? Obviously her lies have been selfish, but is she really so selfish as not to care about what happens to her children even when she knows what's going to happen?
Or maybe, *maybe*, the Queen knew whatever Mary did wasn't going to be that harmful to her children. I mean they were given the same upbringing as her, raised in heaven, all the food, water, warmth, and love they could ever need or ask for. Literally an upgrade from being raised as the most privilaged class in earth society and that's saying something. Is that a punishment to the Queen? Probably not. She knows they're taken care of, she definitely knows Mary is a good mom, and she's still got her literal King husband and god knows how many loyal servants.
Initially being cast to earth kind of was a punishment AT FIRST, but she wasn't given the oprotunity to tell the truth again before just becoming Queen. So does the punishment really count if she's given a reward before actually making it right? Kind of, but she can't really learn from it. If anything she learns that silence is a virtue, because she couldn't do anything else.
People can project whatever truths they want onto you if you can't tell them the truth yourself. I think, maybe, that might be the real lesson here. Kinda.
I mean think about it, it wasn't having her home, voice, and kids taken from her that taught her the lesson. Those are punishments unrelated to the sin she commited. Basically it didn't teach her what she did wromg or why it was wrong, just that she did something wrong. Think of it like taking your kid's toys cuz they hit their sibling and the sibling told on them to you. It doesn't teach why they should stop hitting their sibling or that it was the hitting that was wrong specifically. Next time it happens, they're more likely to just lie about hitting their sibling or force their sibling into silence to avoid the punishment rather than apologize for what they did wrong.
This is similar to that I think. The punishments didn't teach her not to lie. The Queen's still hung up on the fact that she knows opening the door was a sin and she thinks the only way out of it is if Mary thinks she didn't do it. But she's wrong. Mary's looking for atonement. Mary wants an admition of guilt so the Queen can finally be absolved.
You can only be forgiven if you know what you did wrong, why it was wrong, and you're sorry. The Queen didn't learn this until as a direct result of her lies and inability to speak (possible analogy for omission of truth), people project their own proposed truths onto her like I said before. They call her a cannibal and she can't defend herself. Her husband, the King, defends her until he has no more excuses to make. But all it takes is the true desire to repent, to tell the truth, to be sorry in order to save yourself.
It's idealistic sure, but it's a good lesson and it's good to know. In personal conflicts with friends and partners, this lesson is very likely to help people communicate better and understand when they're wrong. At the very least it gets you toe be more open to the possibility of being wrong. I kinda like it
I can't speak on the Grimm Brothers' religeous views, but I can guess that they were probably christian and this is how they understood the functions of atonement. You get like infinite chances, but you have to be honest and genuine to be able to overcome a sin. I know some people see this as a bullshit feature of Christianity, and it kinda is cuz some people can justify some heinous shit to themselves by saying "well I attone at church" or whatever and that makes it okay. BUT FOR THE AVERAGE PERSON, I can see this being extremely affirming and comforting. It's nice to not think that your every mistake piles up until the day you die and it can just be too much for anyone to forgive you. I used to feel that way and it gave me a lot of panic attacks any time I did something bad and knew why it was bad and I felt bad for doing it. I think this feature of christianity exists to make it easier to forgive ourselves because we know some higher being sees us and hears us and says "Nah it's good, you feel bad so you're not bad"
Not to say you can't have that if you aren't christian, it's not impossible to learn if you aren't religious at all cuz it's a fairly simple concept. In fact I'm sure there are tons of christians who "know" this idea, but don't fully understand it or how it works. And there are pleanty of christians and non-christians who believe in the exact opposite. There's nuance here, there always is.
Honestly idk what I'm talking about at this point, it's late at night and I feel the progesterone capsule kicking in so I'm kinda out of it rn. I enjoy writing these blogs tho cuz it helps me keep my thoughts in order and gives me a space to think way too hard about what I'm reading. I'm looking forward to reading more and making more of these
Understand each other and yourselves. Be kind to each other and yourselves. Forgive each other and yourselves. There's nothing more important than that for the human race at large. Love will get us through
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