"The Queen Bee" 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 ...

in Grimm's Fairy Tales (KHM 62). It is of Aarne-Thompson type 554 ("The Grateful Animals").

Synopsis

Two sons of a king went out to seek their fortunes, but fell into disorderly ways. The third and

youngest son The youngest son is a stock character in fairy tales, where he features as the hero. He is usually the third son, but sometimes there are more brothers, and sometimes he has only one; usually, they have no sisters. In a family of many daughters, ...

, Simpleton, went out to find them, but they mocked him. They traveled on, and Simpleton prevented his brothers from destroying an ant hill, killing some ducks, and suffocating a bee hive with smoke. Then they came to a castle with stone horses in the stable, and no sign of anyone. They hunted through the castle and found a room with a little gray man, who showed them to dinner. In the morning, he showed the oldest son a stone table, on which were written three tasks. Whoever performed them would free the castle. The first task was to collect the princess's thousand pearls, scattered in the woods. Whoever tried and failed would be turned to stone. Each of the older brothers tried and failed, and they were turned to stone. For the youngest, however, the ants collected the pearls. The second task was to fetch the key to the princess's bedchamber from the lake, which the ducks did for him. The third task was to pick out the

youngest princess The youngest son is a stock character in fairy tales, where he features as the hero. He is usually the third son, but sometimes there are more brothers, and sometimes he has only one; usually, they have no sisters. In a family of many daughters, ...

from the three sleeping princesses who looked exactly alike; the only difference was that the oldest had eaten a bit of sugar before she slept, the second a little syrup, and the youngest some honey. The queen bee picked out the youngest. This woke the castle, and restored those who had been turned to stone. The youngest son married the youngest princess, and his two brothers, the other princesses.

Variants

Household stories Bros Grimm (L & W Crane) headpiece p262

The tale The Enchanted Princess by

Ludwig Bechstein Ludwig Bechstein (24 November 1801 – 14 May 1860) was a German writer and collector of folk fairy tales. He was born in Weimar, the illegitimate child of Johanna Carolina Dorothea Bechstein and Hubert Dupontreau, a French emigrant who disappe ...

is quite similar to this one. Unlike in Grimm's tale there's only two brothers instead of three, called the eldest Hellmerich and the youngest Hans, who are the sons of a leather craftsman instead of a king. In the castle the person who tells them the tasks they need to accomplish to break the spell is not a dwarf but an old woman. Instead of three enchanted princesses, there's only one, that the brothers have to identify among three figures covered in veils. The other two figures are dragons working for the sorcerer that enchanted the princess. In a literary treatment of a

Languedoc The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France. Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...

variant, by Samuel Jacques Brun (''How young Anglas became a Marquis, or the Story of the Ducks, the Ants, and the Flies''), a young peasant named Anglas arrives in Paris after a multitude of young men that have been in the city in the past month to recover the key to the king's treasury, in exchange for marrying the princess. Anglas succeeds thanks to a duck's assistance after he promised not to hurt her ducklings. Soon after, he receives the help from ants and flies and ends up marrying the princess and becoming a marquis.Brun, Samuel Jacques. ''Tales of Languedoc''. San Francisco: W. Doxey. 1896. pp. 23-54.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Queen Bee Grimms' Fairy Tales Female characters in fairy tales Fictional bees ATU 500-559

Synopsis

Variants

See also

References

Further reading

External links