3
Wealth through Stealth: Evening the Odds,
or Flirting with Disaster?
1. Ruth Bottigheimer summarises the most common wish-fulfilment fantasies
evident in the
Grimm Tales
as ‘sudden riches, an advantageous marriage for
an impoverished heroine or hero, or unlimited food’ (1987: 9).
2. Tatar provides another salient reason for the seemingly arbitrary distribution
of good fortune in fairy tales, and their equally uneven approach to moral
conduct, asserting that because tales frequently invert one another this leads
to resulting contrariness in what is approved and reproved. As she concludes,
‘the fairy tale, in sum, knows no stable middle ground. Inversion of charac-
ter traits, violation of narrative norms, and reversal of initial conditions are
just a few ways in which it overturns notions of immutability and creates a
fictional world in which the one constant value is change’ (2003: 102).
3. In ‘The Golden Goose’, ‘How Six Made their Way in the World’ and ‘The
Devil’s Three Golden Hairs’ a duplicitous king defies a lowly hero’s attempt
to win his daughter’s hand, setting a series of seemingly impossible tasks.
4. Zipes especially commends tales celebrating collective enterprise. ‘The
Musicians of Bremen’ features outcast animals working together to secure a
home, while ‘How Six Made their Way in the World’ unites a group of men
to outwit a king, a tale Zipes observes is comparable to
The X-Men
as figures
with extraordinary skills such as strength and superhuman vision combine
to defeat a tyrant. Whether it be inadvertently scaring robbers to set up resi-
dence in their home, or an unlikely union forged to win a wager, combined
efforts, and a degree of stealth, help disenfranchised figures get ahead.
5. Disney’s film version enhances Aladdin’s character considerably, eventually
setting the genie free. Limiting him to three wishes means he cannot exploit
the genie indefinitely, yet the gesture is also intended to affirm his good
nature, just as being forced to woo his princess – rather than winning her
through magical feats – redeems the roguish elements some have associated
him with.
6. Sibling rivalry is often exacerbated by material success, resulting in murder-
ous deceit, found in tales from various cultures, and between siblings of
either gender. Sisterly enmity in ‘The Porter and the Ladies’ and ‘The Jealous
Sisters’ has corresponding tales about treacherous brothers in the
Arabian
Nights
, while the
Grimm Tales
include stories of sisters killed through envy
(eventually gaining revenge as spirits) as well as fraternal counterparts like
‘The Singing Bone’, in which a callow youth slays his brother to prosper
from his achievement yet is also undone when the discovered remains tell
their story.
7. Zipes elaborates the context for this theme, describing the misery faced
by common soldiers, forcibly conscripted to serve, treated poorly, and
discharged with little pay, as well as noting the Grimms’ anti-monarchist
sentiments as each having a bearing on the kind of stories and sympathies
favoured. See Zipes (2002b: 82).
8. Godwin’s apparent intent was a politically motivated rewrite of a traditional
folk tale and it is interesting to note socialist leanings in a version told a cen-
tury later by Amabel Williams-Ellis, suggesting that the father was punished
for being altruistic. As the woman selling the life-changing beans informs
182
Notes to Chapter 3
Jack, his father was ‘a good man and had shared his money with those who
had nothing’, conduct that sufficiently enraged the giant to kill and steal
from him, and stirring his son, a notorious idler, into action (1976a: 160).
9. The
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