"The Golden Key" (german: Der goldene Schlüssel) is a fairy tale (of type 2250 on the Aarne and Thompson Index), which is in place 200 of

Grimms' Fairy Tales ''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 Brothers Grimm, Grimm brothers or "Brothers Grimm", Jacob Grimm, Ja ...

Plot

A poor boy gathering wood with a sleigh wants to warm himself by a fire and finds a small golden key beneath the snow; then he finds a small iron box in the ground. The text ends with the statement that the reader now has to wait until he has unlocked it.

Origin

Since the second part of the first edition of ''Grimm's Fairy Tales'' in 1815, ''The Golden Key'' was always in the last place; since the edition before the last one, in 1850, it was in place 200. According to their notes, the Brothers Grimm got it from

Hessen Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major historic cities are Darm ...

(probably from

Marie Hassenpflug Marie Magdalene Elisabeth Hassenpflug (27 December 178821 November 1856) was a German author whose versions of various Fairytale, folk tales were an important source for the collection of tales by the Brothers Grimm. She is best known for her ve ...

). They mention a "similar fairy tale in the ''Deutsches Sprachbuch von Adolf Gutbier''" (German Language Book by Adolf Gutbier), about two chickens who find a little key and a little box in the dung. The box contains a short piece of fur made of red silk, and "if it had been longer, the fairy tale would have become longer, too". '' The Fox and the Geese'' has a similar function for the first part, which was released in 1812.

References

''All references are in German.'' *Grimm, Brüder. Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Complete Edition. With 184 illustrations of contemporary artists and an epilogue by Heinz Rölleke. Düsseldorf and Zurich, 19th edition 1999. (Artemis & Winkler Publishing; Patmos Publishing; ) *Grimm, Brüder. Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Final edition with original notes by the Brothers Grimm. With an appendix of all fairy tales released in any earlier editions, and with origin notes, edited by Heinz Rölleke. Volume 3: Original notes, list of origins, epilogue. Corrected and bibliographically expanded edition, Stuttgart 1994. (Reclam-Publishing; )

External links

''In German Wikisource.'' {{Brothers Grimm Grimms' Fairy Tales German fairy tales