The Juniper Tree
"The Juniper Tree" has long been recognized as one of the most powerful of all fairy tales. Its widespread dissemination across the map of European folklore - one monograph identifies several hundred versions of the tale - suggests that there must be something especially attractive or at least compelling about the story.It is a complete tale, beginning with the lack of the child, with other recognizable motifs: the stepmother who plots evil against the child, the magic tree and bird - both reminiscent of Aschenputtel, and the dealing out of a rough kind of justice. It is also ideal for those who wish to analyze the tale, containing psychological elements (the mother’s jealousy for her own daughter, the re-organization of the family to eliminate a mother), sociological elements (woman’s life, goldsmith, shoemaker, miller) that anchor it to a particular time and place, formal elements (the desire for a child/fertility myth, the primal murder), etc. And it is a gripping tale, of a murder and the attempted coverup, and the conclusion that murder will out.- Maria Tatar, Off with Their Heads! p. 212
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