I never realized that this would shape my childhood so hard and be from the 19th century. God, my childhood was so nice and without Smartphones ☺️
Man… This one has lived rent free in my mind for almost thirty years. I had to read this and other German tales in German class.
Who says Germans don’t have a sense of humor
I just woke up and had this post open on my phone, what happe…zZZ zZz
My parents never read them to the end.
I wonder why.
As a German: 🥱
Gute Nacht!
Danke, Bruh
Max und Moritz…2 boys commit 7 pranks, got murdered and fed to the ducks, good night.
They are based on a true story.
And a meat company has been named after them in my country lol
Is that M&M?
Maks ja Moorits, an Estonian company
Asshole boy abuses animals and gets bitten by a dog. Gute Nacht.
Little girl is alone at home, plays with a box of matches despite her mother telling her she can’t and burns to a pile of ashes. Gute Nacht.
Boys are racist towards a black guy and in turn get drowned in a barrel filled with black ink. Gute Nacht.
All these stories were written by a psychiatrist btw. The “now he has no thumbs” one from Family Guy too.
Little girl is alone at home, plays with a box of matches despite her mother telling her she can’t and burns to a pile of ashes. Gute Nacht.
And then Rammstein make a badass song about her.
Boys are racist towards a black guy and in turn get drowned in a barrel filled with black ink. Gute Nacht.
I remember it as him having to be black like the kids that he mocked as his punishment. (Essentially, “think about how you would feel being as black as them.”)
He was also dunked into the inkwell by a giant St. Nicholas, of course.
The book is called Struwwelpeter and it is from 1844. The stories are intended for children and are all cautionary tales about how bad behaviour can have disastrous consequences. I loved them as a child and I probably could recite the whole book from memory. There is an English translation available at Project Gutenberg.
Why would I not eat my soup? I don’t need a cautionary tale about that.
And they were not intended as good-night-stories.
Some nursery rhymes:
Bet’, Kindchen, bet’. Morgen kommt der Schwed’.
(Pray, child, pray, tomorrow the Swede will come [from the 30 year war])
and
Eya popeya popole, Unser Herrgottche wird dich bald hole, Kömmt er mit dem gulderne Lädche, Legt dich hinunter ins Gräbche: Über mich, Über dich, Kummer mitnander ins Himmelrich!
(Eya popeya popole, Our Lord God will soon come for you, He comes with the golden cart, Lays you down in the little grave: Over me, Over you, Together we’ll go into the Kingdom of Heaven!)
Lullabies that are pretty grim seem to be a thing in a lot of cultures. I read an article from the university of Oslo about that recently.
The Icelanders can beat that; a traditional Icelandic lullaby translates as “sleep, you black-eyed pig, and fall into a deep pit full of ghosts”
I remember that German lullaby which goes
“Tomorrow, if god allows it, you will awake again.”
Way to give me existential dread as a child 😂 Like, this god guy could kill me in my sleep, or what?
As a father of two, I get the sentiment 🤷♂️
Vikings living up to their reputation. 😁
Even English “nursery rhymes” are passively threatening and morbid when you think about it.
Half of them are coded sedition against the king at the time.
My father taught me that song as a kid:
Warte, warte nur ein Weilchen, bald kommt Haarmann auch zu dir, mit dem kleinen Hackebeilchen, macht er Schabefleisch aus dir.
But since he went to an English school, he also taught me English songs and nursery rhymes and I am having so much fun at therapy.
In case anybody is wondering.
holy shit
Classic fairy tales were horror shows meant to teach important life lessons for their times. They say a lot about the cultures that told them. Like just how insanely many are about teaching women about the importance of being a “good wife” or marrying up the socio-economic ladder. At least the rest of them are about why you shouldn’t trust hobos living under bridges or some shit.
There’s nuance to this.
Fairy tales, as we know them, are a fairly recent (18th century) invention. The traditional European folktales they were based off of, didn’t include morals, weren’t aimed at children, nor were they intended to be used as teaching tools. More likely, they were stories to be told around campfires or at hearths while sewing, weaving or whatever, and mostly were told amongst adults to amuse each other. Thus the very mature topics and dark humor tone of many traditional tales, specially those that didn’t include children or animal characters.
Stories with morals where usually of the tradition of Aesop’s fables, and more common on academic or philosophy circles as study material. It was Perrault and Grimm’s innovation, popularizing these folk stories by adapting them and mixing in a fable structure and aiming the stories to an audience of the high class, first the high royal courts, then the Victorian aristocracy. This audience were the one’s who emphasized moral rectitude and using the folk stories as teaching aids for children.
Then the 20th century saw the commercialization of fairy tales as stories aimed at children through the rise of bedtime stories literature and Disney’s animated film tradition.
Buddy, read better fairytales, damn.
The ones I grew up with emphasized the power of sorceress’, and made the “hobos under the bridge” just people, as they are.
Normal German bedtime story
He doesn’t eat his soup. What will you expect from feeding him the same meal every day, 3 times the day?
That’s not what German meals look like. We are very proud of our “Abendbrot”, bread for dinner and our breakfast is always sweet. Unless you want to engage in the “müsli is soup” debate, only at lunch soup is an option
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
