"The Brave Little Tailor" or "The Valiant Little Tailor" or "The Gallant Tailor" (
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
: ''Das tapfere Schneiderlein'') is a German
fairy tale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...
collected by the
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the ...
(KHM 20). "The Brave Little Tailor" is a story of
Aarne–Thompson Type 1640, with individual episodes classified in other story types.
Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 – 20 July 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University ...
included it in ''
The Blue Fairy Book
''The Langs' Fairy Books'' are a series of 25 collections of true and fictional stories for children published between 1889 and 1913 by Andrew Lang and his wife, Leonora Blanche Alleyne. The best known books of the series are the 12 collectio ...
''. The tale was translated as ''Seven at One Blow''. Another of many versions of the tale appears in ''
A Book of Giants'' by
Ruth Manning-Sanders
Ruth Manning-Sanders (21 August 1886 – 12 October 1988) was an English poet and author born in Wales, known for a series of children's books for which she collected and related fairy tales worldwide. She published over 90 books in her lifetime ...
.
It is about a humble
tailor
A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century.
History
Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...
who tricks many
giant
In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: '' gigas'', cognate giga-) are beings of human-like appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''giant'' is first attested in 1297 fr ...
s and a ruthless king into believing in the tailor's incredible feats of strength and bravery, leading to him winning wealth and power.
Origin
The
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the ...
published this tale in the first edition of ''
Kinder- und Hausmärchen
''Grimms' Fairy Tales'', originally known as the ''Children's and Household Tales'' (german: Kinder- und Hausmärchen, lead=yes, ), is a German collection of fairy tales by the Grimm brothers or "Brothers Grimm", Jacob and Wilhelm, first publi ...
'' in 1812, based on various oral and printed sources, including ''Der Wegkürzer'' (c. 1557) by Martinus Montanus.
Synopsis
![Blue Fairy Book-The Brave Little Tailor-1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Blue_Fairy_Book-The_Brave_Little_Tailor-1.png)
A
tailor
A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century.
History
Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...
is preparing to eat some
jam
Jam is a type of fruit preserve.
Jam or Jammed may also refer to:
Other common meanings
* A firearm malfunction
* Block signals
** Radio jamming
** Radar jamming and deception
** Mobile phone jammer
** Echolocation jamming
Arts and entertai ...
, but when flies settle on it, he kills seven of them with one blow of his hand. He makes a belt describing the deed, reading "Seven at One Blow". Inspired, he sets out into the world to seek his fortune. The tailor meets a
giant
In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: '' gigas'', cognate giga-) are beings of human-like appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''giant'' is first attested in 1297 fr ...
who assumes that "Seven at One Blow" refers to seven men. The giant challenges the tailor. When the giant squeezes water from a boulder, the tailor squeezes milk, or whey, from cheese. The giant throws a rock far into the air, and it eventually lands. The tailor counters the feat by tossing a bird that flies away into the sky; the giant believes the small bird is a "rock" which is thrown so far that it never lands. Later, the giant asks the tailor to help him carry a tree. The tailor directs the giant to carry the trunk, while the tailor will carry the branches. Instead, the tailor climbs on, so the giant carries him as well, but it appears as if the tailor is supporting the branches.
Impressed, the giant brings the tailor to the giant's home, where other giants live as well. During the night, the giant attempts to kill the tailor by bashing the bed. However, the tailor, having found the bed too large, had slept in the corner. Upon returning and seeing the tailor alive, the other giants flee in fear of the small man.
The tailor enters the royal service, but the other
soldier
A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer.
Etymology
The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...
s are afraid that he will lose his temper someday, and then seven of them might die with every blow. They tell the
king
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
that either the tailor leaves military service or they will. Afraid of being killed for sending him away, the king instead attempts to get rid of the tailor by sending him to defeat two giants along with a hundred horsemen, offering him half his kingdom and his daughter's hand in marriage if the tailor can kill the giants. By throwing rocks at the two giants while they sleep, the tailor provokes the pair into fighting each other until they kill each other, at which time the tailor stabs the giants in their hearts.
The king, surprised the tailor has succeeded, balks on his promise, and requires more of the tailor before he may claim his rewards. The king next sends him after a
unicorn
The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead.
In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years o ...
, another seemingly impossible task, but the tailor traps it by standing before a tree, so that when the unicorn charges, he steps aside and it drives its horn into the trunk. The king subsequently sends him after a
wild boar
The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is ...
, but the tailor traps it in a chapel with a similar luring technique.
Duly impressed, the king relents, marries the tailor to the princess, and makes the tailor the ruler of half the original kingdom. The tailor's new wife hears him talking in his sleep and realizes with fury that he was merely a tailor and not a noble hero. Upon the princess's demands, the king promises to have him killed or carried off. A squire warns the tailor of the king's plan. While the king's servants are outside the door, the brave little tailor pretends to be talking in his sleep and says "Boy, make the jacket for me, and patch the trousers, or I will hit you across your ears with a yardstick! I have struck down seven with one blow, killed two giants, led away a unicorn, and captured a wild boar, and I am supposed to be afraid of those who are standing just outside the bedroom!" Terrified, the king's servants leave. The king does not try to assassinate the tailor again and so the tailor lives out his days as a king in his own right.
Analysis
In the
Aarne–Thompson–Uther system of
folktale classification, the core of the story is
motif type 1640, named The Brave Tailor for this story. It also includes episodes of type 1060 (Squeezing Water from a Stone); type 1062 (A Contest in Throwing Stones); type 1052 (A Contest in Carrying a Tree); type 1051 (Springing with a Bent Tree); and type 1115 (Attempting to Kill the Hero in His Bed).
"The Brave Little Tailor" has close similarities to other folktales collected around Europe, including "
The Boy Who Had an Eating Match with a Troll
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
" (Norway) and "
Stan Bolovan
Stan or STAN may refer to:
People
* Stan (given name), a list of people with the given name
** Stan Laurel (1890–1965), English comic actor, part of duo Laurel and Hardy
* Stan (surname), a Romanian surname
* Stan! (born 1964), American author, ...
" (Romania). It also shares many elements with "
Jack the Giant Killer
"Jack the Giant Killer" is a Cornish fairy tale and legend about a young adult who slays a number of bad giants during King Arthur's reign. The tale is characterised by violence, gore and blood-letting. Giants are prominent in Cornish folklor ...
" (Cornwall and England, with ties to "
Bluebeard
"Bluebeard" (french: Barbe bleue, ) is a French folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Barbin in Paris in 1697 in ''Histoires ou contes du temps passé''. The tale tells the st ...
" folktales of Brittany, and earlier
Arthurian
King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a Legend, legendary king of Great Britain, Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain.
In the earliest tradition ...
stories of Wales), though the protagonist in that story uses his guile to actually kill giants. Both the Scandinavian and British variants feature a recurring
stock character
A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a fictional character in a work of art such as a novel, play, or a film whom audiences recognize from frequent recurrences in a particular literary tradition. There is a wide range of st ...
fairy-tale hero, respectively:
Jack
Jack may refer to:
Places
* Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community
* Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community
* Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA
People and fictional characters
* Jack (given name), a male given name, ...
(also associated with other giant-related stories, such as "
Jack and the Beanstalk
"Jack and the Beanstalk" is an English fairy tale. It appeared as "The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean" in 1734 4th edition On Commons and as Benjamin Tabart's moralized "The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk" in 1807. Henry Cole ...
"), and
Askeladden
Ashlad (Norwegian "Askeladden", full name "Esben Askelad" or "Espen Askeladd") is a main character in a number of tales collected in Asbjørnsen and Moe's ''Norwegian Folktales''.
The character starts out being regarded as an incapable underachi ...
, also known as Boots. It is also similar to the Greek myth of
Hercules
Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures.
The Romans adapted the Gr ...
in which Hercules is promised the ability to become a god if he slays the monsters, much like the main character in "The Brave Little Tailor" is promised the ability to become king through marrying the king's daughter if he kills the beasts in the story.
The technique of tricking the later giants into fighting each other is identical to the technique used by
Cadmus
In Greek mythology, Cadmus (; grc-gre, Κάδμος, Kádmos) was the legendary Phoenician founder of Boeotian Thebes. He was the first Greek hero and, alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, the greatest hero and slayer of monsters before the da ...
, in
Greek mythology
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...
and a related surviving Greek folktale, to deal with the warriors who sprang up where he sowed
dragon
A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...
's teeth into the soil. In the 20th-century
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...
novel ''
The Hobbit
''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the '' ...
'', a similar strategy is also employed by Gandalf to keep three
troll
A troll is a being in Nordic folklore, including Norse mythology. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human bei ...
s fighting amongst themselves, until the rising sun turns them to stone.
Variants
Folklorist
Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...
Joseph Jacobs
Joseph Jacobs (29 August 1854 – 30 January 1916) was an Australian folklorist, translator, literary critic, social scientist, historian and writer of English literature who became a notable collector and publisher of English folklore.
Jacob ...
, in ''European Folk and Fairy Tales'' (or ''Europa's Fairy Book'') tried to reconstruct the protoform of the tale, which he named "A Dozen at One Blow".
Europe
A variant has been reported to be present in Spanish folktale collections, specially from the folktale compilations of the 19th century. The tale has also been attested in American sources.
A scholarly inquiry by Italian ''Istituto centrale per i beni sonori ed audiovisivi'' ("Central Institute of Sound and Audiovisual Heritage"), produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s, found twenty-four variants of the tale across Italian sources.
A
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
variant, ''Brave against his will'' (''"Den tapre Skrædder"''), was collected by
Jens Christian Bay.
Joseph Jacobs located an English version from
Aberdeen
Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...
, named ''Johnny Gloke'', which was first obtained by Reverend
Walter Gregor
Walter Gregor (1825–1897) was a Scottish folklorist, linguist and minister of religion. His anthropological research work won him an international reputation.
Life
The son of James Gregor, a tenant farmer of Forgieside, near Keith, Banffshire ...
with the name ''John Glaick, the Brave Tailor'' and published in ''The Folk-Lore Journal''. Jacobs wondered how the Grimm's tale managed to reach Aberdeen, but he suggests it might have originated from an English compilation of the brothers' tales. The tale was included in ''The Fir-Tree Fairy Book''.
Irish sources also contain a tale of lucky accidents and a fortunate fate that befalls the weaver who squashes the flies in his breakfast: ''The legend of the little Weaver of Duleek Gate (A Tale of Chivalry)''. The tale was previously recorded in 1846 by Irish novelist
Samuel Lover
Samuel Lover (24 February 1797 – 6 July 1868), also known as "Ben Trovato" ("well invented"), was an Irish songwriter, composer and novelist, and a portrait painter, chiefly in miniatures. He was the grandfather of Victor Herbert.
Life
Lov ...
.
In the Hungarian tale ''Százat egy ütéssel'' ("A Hundred at One Blow"), at the end of the tale, the tailor mumbles in his sleep about threads and needles, and his wife, the princess, hears it. When confronted by his father-in-law, the tailor dismisses any accusations by saying he visited earlier a tailor's shop in the city.
A Russian variant collected by
Alexander Afanasyev
Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (Afanasief, Afanasiev or Afanas'ev, russian: link=no, Александр Николаевич Афанасьев) ( — ) was a Russian Slavist and ethnographer who published nearly 600 Russian fairy and folk ta ...
, called "
The Tale of the Bogatyr Gol' Voyanskoy" (the name roughly translatable as "poor warrior") has a peasant kill a number of horse-flies and mosquitoes bothering his horse. After that, he goes to adventure on said horse after leaving a message about his "deed" carved into a tree, inviting other heroes to join him. After being joined by
Yeruslan Lazarevich, Churila Plyonkovich and Prince Bova, the four defeat the defenders of a kingdom ruled by a princess, upon which the peasant drinks the magic water the princess has, becomes a
bogatyr
A bogatyr ( rus, богатырь, p=bəɡɐˈtɨrʲ, a=Ru-богатырь.ogg) or vityaz ( rus, витязь, p=ˈvʲitʲɪsʲ) is a stock character in medieval East Slavic legends, akin to a Western European knight-errant. Bogatyrs appear ma ...
for real and marries her.
Asia
A similar story, ''Kara Mustapha (Mustafa), the Hero'', was collected by
Hungarian folklorist
Ignác Kúnos
Ignác Kúnos (originally ''Ignác Lusztig;'' 22 September 1860, in Hajdúsámson, Hungary – 12 January 1945, in Budapest, Hungary) was a Hungarian linguist, turkologist, folklorist, a correspondent member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. ...
, from Turkish sources.
Francis Hindes Groome
Francis Hindes Groome (30 August 1851 – 24 January 1902), son of Robert Hindes Groome, Archdeacon of Suffolk, was a writer and foremost commentator of his time on the Romani people, their language, life, history, customs, beliefs, and lore.
Li ...
proposed a parallel between this tale with
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
n story of ''Valiant Vicky, the Brave Weaver''. ''Valiant Vicky'' was originally collected by British author
Flora Annie Steel
Flora Annie Steel (2 April 1847 – 12 April 1929) was a writer who lived in British India for 22 years. She was noted especially for books set in the Indian sub-continent or connected with it. Her novel ''On the Face of the Waters'' (1896) desc ...
from a
Punjab
Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...
i source, with the title ''Fatteh Khân, Valiant Weaver''.
Sometimes the weaver or tailor does not become a ruler, but still gains an upper station in life (general, commander, prime minister). One such tale is ''Sigiris Sinno, the Giant'', collected in
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
. Other variant is ''The Nine-killing Khan''.
Character analysis
* Tailor – this character is clever, intelligent, and confident. He uses
misdirection and other cunning to trick other characters. For example, various forms of
psychological manipulation
Manipulation in psychology is a behavior designed to exploit, control, or otherwise influence others to one’s advantage. Definitions for the term vary in which behavior is specifically included, influenced by both culture and whether referring t ...
to influence the behavior of others, such as turning the pair of giants against each other, and playing on the assassins' and the earlier giants' assumptions and fears. Similarly, he uses
decoy
A decoy (derived from the Dutch ''de'' ''kooi'', literally "the cage" or possibly ''ende kooi'', " duck cage") is usually a person, device, or event which resembles what an individual or a group might be looking for, but it is only meant to lu ...
tactics to lure the
quest
A quest is a journey toward a specific mission or a goal. The word serves as a plot device in mythology and fiction: a difficult journey towards a goal, often symbolic or allegorical. Tales of quests figure prominently in the folklore of ever ...
animals (unicorn, boar) into his traps, and to avoid being killed in the first giant's bed. This reliance on trickery and manipulation by the
protagonist
A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...
is a feature of the stock character of the
antihero
An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero) or antiheroine is a main character in a story who may lack conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism, courage, and morality. Although antiheroes may sometimes perform actions ...
.
* King – this character is very mistrusting and judgmental, who uses the promise of half the kingdom to persuade the protagonist to take on seemingly deadly tasks. The king is one-dimensional as a character, and is essentially a
plot device
A plot device or plot mechanism
is any narrative technique, technique in a narrative used to move the Plot (narrative), plot forward. A clichéd plot device may annoy the reader and a contrived or arbitrary device may confuse the reader, causing ...
, the source of challenges for the protagonist to overcome to achieve the desired goal.
* Princess – the prize for completing all these challenges is the hand in marriage of the princess, and along with it, half the kingdom. She sets great store by the social class of royal birthright, so when she finds out that the man she has married is no more than a poor tailor, she is furious, and tries to have him killed. Her self-absorbed vindictiveness, and its easy defeat, is consistent with the stock character of the
shrewish bride.
Adaptations
*
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon Character (arts), character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime mascot of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red sho ...
appeared in a 1938
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
short cartoon, ''
Brave Little Tailor
''Brave Little Tailor'' is a 1938 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. It is an adaptation of the fairy tale ''The Valiant Little Tailor'' with Mickey Mouse in the title role. It wa ...
'', based on this tale.
*
Tibor Harsányi
Tibor Harsányi (June 27, 1898 in Magyarkanizsa, Kingdom of Hungary – September 19, 1954 in Paris) was a Hungarian-born composer and pianist.
He studied at the Budapest Conservatory under Zoltán Kodály. He toured as a pianist around Europe ...
composed a
suite, ''L'histoire du petit tailleur'', for narrator, seven instruments, and percussion in 1950. One of the most famous recordings of this work was performed by the
Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire
The Orchestre de la Société des concerts du Conservatoire was a symphony orchestra established in Paris in 1828. It gave its first concert on 9 March 1828 with music by Beethoven, Rossini, Meifreid, Rode and Cherubini.
Administered by the philh ...
conducted by
Georges Prêtre
Georges Prêtre (; 14 August 1924 – 4 January 2017) was a French orchestral and opera conductor.
Biography
Prêtre was born in Waziers ( Nord), and attended the Douai Conservatory and then studied harmony under Maurice Duruflé and conducting ...
, with
Peter Ustinov
Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov (born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinov ; 16 April 192128 March 2004) was a British actor, filmmaker and writer. An internationally known raconteur, he was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits ...
as the narrator reading in both English (
Angel Records
Angel Records was a record label founded by EMI in 1953. It specialised in classical music, but included an occasional operetta or Broadway score. and one Peter Sellers comedy disc. The famous Recording Angel trademark was used by the Gramophon ...
, 1966) and French (''Pour les Enfants'', EMI Classics France, 2002).
* The story formed an episode of the second season of ''
Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics
''Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics'', also known as ''Grimm Masterpiece Theater'' (グリム名作劇場 ''Gurimu meisaku gekijō'') in the original version and ''The Grimm's Fairy Tales'' (in Australia and New Zealand), is a Japanese anime antholo ...
'', a 1987–1989
anime
is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
television series.
* The Valiant Little Tailor was featured in the first season of ''
Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child'', a 1995–2000
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
animated TV series, where it was set in the West African
Sahel
The Sahel (; ar, ساحل ' , "coast, shore") is a region in North Africa. It is defined as the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south. Having a hot semi-arid c ...
. The tailor was called Bongo and was voiced by
David Alan Grier
David Alan Grier (born June 30, 1956) is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his work as Bernard on '' Damon'' (1998), as David Bellows on ''Life with Bonnie'' (2002–2004), as Joe Carmichael on ''The Carmichael Show'' (2015 ...
and also featured the voice talents of
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is an American actor. He has been described as "one of America's most distinguished and versatile" actors for his performances in film, television, and theater, and "one of the greatest actors in America ...
as King Dakkar,
Mark Curry as the Giant,
Dawnn Lewis
Dawnn Jewel Lewis (born August 13, 1961) is an American actress. Lewis is best known for her role as Jaleesa Vinson–Taylor on the NBC television sitcom ''A Different World'' from the series beginning in 1987 until the end of its fifth season in ...
as Princess Songe, and
Zakes Mokae
Zakes Makgona Mokae (5 August 1934 – 11 September 2009) was a South African-American actor of theatre and film.
Life and career
Mokae was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, moved to the United Kingdom in 1961, and to the United States ...
as an exclusive character named Mr. Barbooska.
* ''Le vaillant petit tailleur'' is a 2004 French-language novel by
Éric Chevillard
Éric Chevillard (born 18 June 1964) is a French novelist. He has won awards for several novels including ''La nébuleuse du crabe'' in 1993, which won the Fénéon Prize, Fénéon Prize for Literature.
Chevillard was born in La Roche-sur-Yon, Ven ...
retelling the fairy tale in a
postmodernist
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
way.
* "Satmaar Palowan" ("The Wrestler Who Kills Seven"), a short story by Bengali writer
Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury
Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury (12 May 1863 – 20 December 1915) was a Bengali writer and painter. One of his written book is ''Chotoder Shera Biggan Rochona Shongkolon''. He was the son-in-law of reformer Dwarkanath Ganguly. He was also an entre ...
, was inspired by this tale.
* A
Soviet cartoon based on the fairy tale was produced in 1964, directed by the
Brumberg sisters
Valentina Semyonovna Brumberg (russian: Валентина Семёновна Брумберг; — 28 November 1975) and Zinaida Semyonovna Brumberg (russian: Зинаида Семёновна Брумберг; — 9 February 1983), commonly kn ...
.
* In the game ''
Fairytale Fights
''Fairytale Fights'' is a hack and slash action-adventure game developed by Playlogic Game Factory and published by Playlogic Entertainment for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Fairytale Fights allow the player a chance to reclaim the fairytale stat ...
'', he acts as the main antagonist who is stealing all the fame and glory from four fable characters (
Little Red Riding Hood
"Little Red Riding Hood" is a European fairy tale about a young girl and a sly wolf. Its origins can be traced back to several pre-17th century European folk tales. The two best known versions were written by Charles Perrault and the Brother ...
,
Snow White
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a 19th-century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' and numbered as Ta ...
,
Jack
Jack may refer to:
Places
* Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community
* Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community
* Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA
People and fictional characters
* Jack (given name), a male given name, ...
, and
The Naked Emperor) by stalking them throughout the game and lets them do all the life-threatening hard work before swooping in after every victory to steal the prize and claim the credit for himself. His fame was short-lived after the heroes defeated him and exposed his storybook to the fairytale village that he's a fraud, the Tailor tried to escape but was flattened and killed by the father giant who drop the heroes' books on top of him and taken his book, this resulted of the heroes' fame finally being restored and the villagers cheering them on.
Citations
References
* Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. ''Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm''. Erster Band (NR. 1-60). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1913. pp. 148–165.
* Gregor, Walter. "John Glaick, the Brave Tailor." The Folk-Lore Journal 7, no. 2 (1889): 163-65. .
* Jacobs, Joseph. ''European Folk and Fairy Tales''. New York, London: G. P. Putnam's sons. 1916. pp. 238–239.
* Thompson, Stith. ''The Folktale''. University of California Press. 1977. pp. 215–217. .
Further reading
* Bødker, Laurits. “The Brave Tailor in Danish Tradition”. In: ''Studies in Folklore in Honor of Distinguished Service Professor Stith Thompson''. Ed. W. Edson Richmond. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1957. pp. 1–23.
*
* Senft, Gunter. "What Happened to 'The Fearless Tailor' in Kilivila. A European Fairy-Tale — from the South Seas." In: ''Anthropos'' 87, no. 4/6 (1992): 407-21. .
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brave Little Tailor, The
Fiction about giants
Fictional German people
Fictional tailors
German fairy tales
Grimms' Fairy Tales
Male characters in fairy tales
Textiles in folklore
ATU 1640-1674
ATU 1000-1199