I thought that the Juniper Tree story was very interesting! It seemed a little more violent that some of the other tales, especially with the decapitation, father being fed his own son, and the crushed skull death of the step mother. The revenge at the end was both fitting and a little unexpected to me. I knew something bad was going to happen, but it ended falling right into place! (Forgive the bad pun.)
While reading it I was actually reminded of a few other old stories. The most obvious was the reference to the phoenix being born out of its own ashes. Similarly, the boy became a bird only after his bones were buried under the Juniper Tree and he burst forth from the smoke. The next might be a stretch, but the mother feeding the boy to his father reminded me of a story from Greek Mythology - A human man named Lycaon attempted to trick Zeus into eating flesh of his son (who he killed) and was punished by being turned into a wolf. Zeus then resurrected the son Lycaon tried to feed him.
In my opinion the boy was resurrected as something in between. The bird was kind of like a ghost - his soul could not rest until the step-mother was punished and the whole 'world' knew what she had done. Only once his revenge was exacted could his soul finally rest. I initially interpreted the end of the story to mean that he turned back into a boy in the real world, but upon a second reading I think it is more likely that him 'turning back into a human' was more like his soul being able to finally rest and the description of him, his sister and his father going back inside and living happily ever after represented his heaven.
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Yea, the boy is somewhere in between. He could not die because he is an innocent little boy and only evil old people, usually a stepmother, dies at the end of a fairytale. If the boy had have died, what moral would the tale have left? So the bird's body is a temporary one until the evil that put him in this state is destroyed. Now that harm is out of his way, he can return to being a human because he has nothing to fear. I think your post also links to mine because you definitely see that its quite unclear if the boy is fully human or not, hence why you describe him as somewhere in between. In my post, I suggest that possibly, he is able to transform into animal form because of his mother. And that him being turned into a bird in the first place has something to do with his mom being buried under the Juniper tree too. So maternity defeats all, even death.
ReplyDeleteI think your idea of the boy being in some in-between, 'restless ghost' stage is very interesting. I disagree with this interpretation, but only because of the traditional role of birds in fairy tales. The bird in the typical fairy tale is usually more mystical than a simple vessel for a vengeful soul. I would say that his turning into his bird could represent some super human quality about him, enabling to take his revenge, or perhaps insinuating that the care of his sister with the bones transformed him to something greater than a normal human. I also find your interpretation of the ending very interesting; I would never have thought to think of it as though he had died and gone to heaven by killing the stepmother.
ReplyDeleteI think your ideas are really interesting. I, too, couldn't really believe that the boy came back as a whole human. I believe that the trauma of his death would have marred him so much that he could never assume a truly human form again. The parallels you drew between Greek mythology and this fairy tale were also interesting. The cannibalism shows up in multiple places through mythology, also in the story of Atreus and Thyestes. I think it would be interesting to know if these Germanic regions had been influenced by Greek visitors, or if it was just a case of similar stories popping up concurrently in different areas.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your responses! Chelsi, I like what you said about the reason the boy could come back being because his mother was there with him under the juniper tree. I hadn't even thought about that! It makes sense, because a theme in a lot of tales is that the love between mother and child can be so strong that it almost possesses magical qualities - like in the modern Harry Potter stories.
ReplyDeleteBen, your argument makes sense, and I definitely agree with you that the bird must be more that just a simple vessel for revenge. Maybe he was helped into his new form by his mother like Chelsi argued, and this allowed him to become something more than human.
Thanks for commenting on my mythology ideas, Lindsay! While reading the Juniper tree the story of Lycaon came to mind first because it involved cannibalism AND the dead son coming back to life. I like your reference to Atreus and Thyestes though as well because that story really highlights how highly punishable tricking someone into cannibalism is - because of it many generations of their family was cursed.