This & That in Jakob Grimm’s Notebook

Jakob Grimm presented at the Guttenberg Fairy Tale Symposium on October 15, 1862. Dear brother Wilhelm Grimm passed from this earth three years previous, so Jakob stood alone.

“Here is the story of Drizella’s Toe, an odd tale of authorial prerogative and scholarly judgment. I ask you to hear the story and decide whether we were not most ardently faithful to the original tale as told to my late brother and me. Here is what occurred…”

Once upon a time as I stood in deep contemplation before a churchyard grave, I heard a voice through the morning mist. An unwomanly girl made herself known at my elbow, her skirts caked with earth. Two luminous China blue eyes, weeping, stared out from tangled rusty hair. Wicked awful came the scent of her flesh where maggots crawled her neck.

“Ah, Brother Jakob,” said she, gathering her arm through mine. I knew not how she gleaned my name.

“Hear my story! You'll know me by my first name for you stand before it here: Drizella. An epitaph below reads my simple message: ‘And outcastes a'lwys bemurne.’”

“Beside this tomb is a smaller marker carved in stone: Drizella's Toe. For didn't I cut off my own toe to befit the enchanted shoe? Who wouldn't cut off her best and biggest toe in dream wish for a prince?”

“Alight! You? The Drizella of Anastacia-Drizella fame, the late mean stepsisters of dear Queen Ella?” said I.

The sight of her was a burden to contemplate.

"The same!" said she in relief that I knew her history.

Uncomfortable as it was, I took a seat on a nearby tombstone to listen in shocked preoccupation at her grim appearance.

"Allow me tell of my mother," Drizella began, her ghostly form settling upon her own gravestone. "She was not always mean as nails. Before father died, she taught us proper things, like singing to bird song. But father's death changed her. The auctioneers came. Our fine dresses were sold. Our jewelry, gone.

"She married Ella's father not for love, but for a mouth of food. And then something more twisted than poverty took hold of her: hope. Hope that through Ella's father, we might regain our station. This hope wound her like poison ivy around an oak, strangling what warmth remained.

"We became her ladders to be climbed. Each morning she'd pinch our cheeks for color, lace our corsets tighter, and say, 'All beauty is suffering, and suffering is the path to dignity.'

"Like I had a mouth full of ailing teeth, I believed her! When that glass slipper came ‘round, I saw my chance. The knife I used was my grandmother's silver fruit knife. One quick slice, and my toe was gone - a small price for a crown, so thought I."

She emitted a laugh that smelt of hell.

“But do you know what I learnt, Brother Jakob? The darkest spell wasn't in that glass slipper. It was in believing that mutilating ourselves for ‘love’ could ever lead to happiness.”

Why did she tell me this tale? For I cared not!

"Will you write that truth in your book, Brother Grimm? That sometimes the villains of the tale are mere lasses who believed what their mothers taught them?"

Though I longed to part ways with her putrid presence, I said: "Tell me your truth, and I will consider revising the Tale of Cinderella.”

The apparition barely paused.

"Once, when mama ordered me pour ash upon fresh-swept floors, I did sweep them clean again while Ella slept. When mother commanded I tear Ella's dress before the ball, I merely loosened threads that could be easily mended. Small mercies, aye, but they were all I dared."

Her spectral fingers traced the weathered stone of her grave.

"But you seek grander gestures? There is that which brokered me early death. Mother's poison found me before my wedding day – the baker's son offered for my hand, you see, whom I did love. Too low for her aspirations. No longer of utility, she gave me my doom from the contents of her glass vial. Me own mama!"

The morning mist curled around us like a shroud. Church bells tolled near. Drizella's form grew thin as acrid smoke.

"Write this too, Brother Jakob - that I died with my soul in pieces. Would be better to have kept my toe and lost mother's love than to have mutilated myself for a dream of acceptance that was never mine to claim. For, if ever you try to fit yourself into another person's fairy tale – life won't abide it! The glass slipper simply refuses to fit!"

As her form faded, I noticed fresh flowers on her grave - forget-me-nots in Cinderella's royal blue. This sight troubled me more than her spectral form. Flowers that bloom eternal on a cursed grave speak of unquiet spirits that loved her - perhaps even our own Ella.

Tho - we Grimm brothers deal in morality, not mercy.

Let Drizella's true tale rest here among the weeds and worms. Let her ghost wail its justifications to the moon.

And yet... as I walked away, the forget-me-nots seemed to whisper with her voice: "And outcasts always mourn."

The words followed me home like a curse, though I never changed a word of Cinderella's tale.

***

The audience was attentive, though confused at Jakob Grimm’s self-satisfied tone. They had begun to drift from him when he launched the next parcel of his tale:

“Once upon a night, a little midget man, waylaid me self and Wilhelm as we veered to our lodgings.

He emerged from shadows cast by streetlamps, his misshapen form no taller than a child of ten. A once fine lavender velvet robe hung in moldering tatters that scraped the cobblestones. Wilhelm, ever the frailer of us brothers, clutched his manuscript case tight against his chest.

"Brothers," the creature rasped, his voice like thorn scraping stone, "you who collect tales of the wicked and wonderful - do you never wonder what becomes of those you name monster?"

I stepped forward, shielding Wilhelm. "We name none monster who didn't earn the title fair."

The thing's laugh came hard as hail. "Fair? Was it fair to name me in your tale?"

At this, Wilhelm gasped. "Why, Rumpel-"

I asked, “Why you accost us here? What do you mean, man?”

“Accost you? Why Grimms One and Grimms Two, it is you who besmirch the actions of a much-accomplished man whose powers of alchemy turn straw into gold.” The little man laughed at us, dancing quick footed. “See you! What can ye do? Not so much as me!”

“Kindly step aside,” said I. “This is no theatre for your performance.”

“Nay!” said he, still dancing ‘round, which inhibited our ability to move forward or back. With each circuit he made, the fog grew thicker, until we scarce saw beyond his circling form. His tattered robe left trails in the air like smoke, and where his feet touched cobblestone, tiny sparks flew up golden-bright.

"Brothers who profit from others' pain," he sang in his rasping voice. “Who write of my shame again and again! Did you ever ask how I learned to spin gold from straw?  Easier to paint me monster than master!"

Wilhelm clutched at his throat, for the fog had grown thick as wool. I felt myself growing dizzy from watching the creature's endless circling. The streetlamps seemed to dim, though whether from the fog or some darker magic, I daren't guess.

"Stop this devilry!" I commanded. My voice shook. "We tell the tales as they come to us, no more and no less!"

The thing's laugh came sharp as broken glass. "Oh yes, the tales as they come to you! But who brings you these tales, Brother Jakob? The victors' decedents? The pretty young queens who live happily ever after?"

“Sir,” I tried a new tack, “We’re most interested in your story. Please retire from this place and give a proper audience.”

In a fling of his cloak, the little man whisked we three inside an inn. There we sat, Wilhelm and I, trying to recover our bearings.

“Speak now,” I told the midget, for I could not say his name as if “Rumpelstiltskin” held sway over me.

First came the beer, situated dark and foaming to set his scene. A scurrying barmaid set ha'pints before us in the nick of a moment.

“I’m a magical man as old as Rome,” he scoffed at us, sipping great greedy gulps. “I’m in fact a Roman and not German – write that down!”

I fumbled for the notebook in my breast pocket and a piece of lead. “Rome,” I wrote in haste.

In the brief pause it occurred to me: I will not tremble in my own shoes. Why I am the Great Grimm and should stand up to this child-man!

“Why did you demand to claim the queen’s firstborn child, a daughter? How is that a noble action for an alchemist? A mortal with the Midas touch?” asked I.

The creature's eyes flashed copper-bright in the tavern's gloom.

"Ah! Now you ask the proper question, though you leap to improper conclusions." He leaned forward, and the candles fluttered as if in fear. "Tell me, Brother Grimm, what becomes of a child born to a mother who would trade her firstborn for a crown? What life awaits the babe whose father would wed a woman he threatened to kill if not for her false gift of spinning gold?"

Wilhelm shifted uncomfortably beside me. Indeed, we had never questioned this part of the tale.

"I would have raised the child in the old ways," the thing continued, his voice grown soft as cemetery moss. "Taught her true alchemy, not the lies her mother spun. For what is more magical - turning straw to gold, or turning an ill begotten child into a loved one?"

"You speak falsely," I declared, though doubt gnawed like a squirrel at my certainty. "The queen loved her child enough to guess your name and win the game."

His laugh this time came bitter as wormwood.

"Loved her child? No, Brother Jakob. She loved her crown, her king, her life of luxury bought with my magic. She set her servants searching every village, every town, paying gold - my gold! - for any whisper of my name. She did not guess it. She bought it, as she bought everything else."

The barmaid brought more beer, though neither Wilhelm nor I had called for it.

"And when she spoke my name..." Here he paused, running one gnarled finger around his cup's rim, drawing forth an eerie singing note. "Alas! Some prices are beyond even an alchemist's power to calculate. Who was she to speak MY Name?”

“Come to a point, man,” I spoke impatiently. I finished the first half-pint and started on my second. “Why do you mean to take our time?”

“I propose a puzzle,” the midget said. “If you understand my motives, you must change your tale written of me.”

He shifted his loathsome body in the dim candle flame until we were apprised of his full profile: a hooked nose, wide generous eyes and ample brows, full lips in a clean-shaven face. He drummed misshapen fingers on the table, as the tick of a clock.

Wilhelm found his voice at last. “Your motives? Why, you want to commit mischief!”

“Now brother,” calmed I. “Let’s play his puzzle.”

The creature's smile widened, showing teeth that looked like they could tear flesh from bone. In the candlelight, his profile cast two shadows - one a twisted thing of hooks and angles, the other oddly noble, like some ancient Roman coin come to life.

"Three questions you may ask," he said, his drumming fingers marking time with terrible precision. "Three answers will I give. But mark you well - ask slanted questions, and you'll regret what Future hands you."

Here he paused, and I noticed with growing dread that his second shadow now moved independent of the first, dancing upon the wall like a puppet cut loose from its strings.

"But succeed..." He lifted his cup, "Succeed, and I'll show you magic that makes spinning straw to gold look like a child's party trick. For what is alchemy, truly, but the art of the gods? Of taking the base and worthless and revealing its hidden worth? For isn’t that the writer’s true art?"

Wilhelm's hand found mine beneath the table, trembling. The drumming of those misshapen fingers grew louder, now a heartbeat in a tomb.

"Your first question, Brothers Grimm?"

“Why did you lend your help to the maid?” Wilhelm burst forth.

“Now Willy, slowly,” whispered I. “The maid was victim of a braggart father.”

“That’s one question,” the little man grinned broadly. “Two more have you.”

Wilhelm and I put our heads together. (“What was the quickest way to get away from him would not count,” I whispered.)

“Why were you willing to pay a high price in gold for the child?”

The creature nodded admiringly.

“Why did hearing your name make for your destruction?”

“That’s three – that’s three questions without slant,” he gleefully laughed, taking up an untouched cup of beer and pouring it down his throat. As he drank, his shadow puppet on the wall grew taller, more regal, while his physical form seemed to shrink further into his tattered robe.

"First answer then: Why help the maid?" His voice took on a hollow echo, as if speaking from the bottom of a well. "I helped her because she was like me - trapped by another's lies. Her father's boast became her prison, just as my Name became mine. But where was the father when his daughter faced death? Gone, leaving her to spin lies into truth or die trying."

He lifted one twisted hand, and the candle flames bent toward him like flowers seeking sun.

"Second answer: The child. Ah, the child! What price would you pay to break a curse? What wouldn't YOU give to pass on your arts to one untouched by greed? I offered gold to prove I wanted no riches - I wanted only to teach her true alchemy, to show her how to be herself. To be a woman with such power, ah now, the world has not seen such since Cleopatra."

His eyes had taken on the gleam of molten metal. His noble shadow now towered over us both.

"And lastly, my Name..." Here his voice dropped to a whisper that seemed to freeze the very air. "Names have power, Brothers Grimm. You of all people should know this, you who collect them like butterflies and pin them to pages. My Name was given to me by the same alchemist who taught me to spin gold. It was a binding, a contract written in soul-stuff and starlight. To speak it was to break it. To break it was to unmake me. And now..."

He spread his hands wide, and suddenly both shadows vanished, leaving only the twisted form before us.

 "Now I am neither what I was nor what I wished to be. A creature caught Betwixt, forever unfinished."

The candles near blew out in a wind we couldn't feel.

"But that's not the real puzzle at all, is it, Grimm Weeper Brothers?"

Scholars such as Wilhelm and myself! We settled deeper into our coats fearing the creature grasped hold the better of us. I sat staring at the inn’s cluttered walls, its memorabilia and mediocre paintings of unleashed seas.

 It occurred to me that the great puzzle before us was why did he care? “A story is but a trifle! ‘Tis neither here nor there in the scheme of things,” said I.

The thing's smile turned sharp as a blade's edge. The paintings of ships on the wall began to move ever so slightly, waves lifting and falling as if the canvases breathed.

"At last! The scholar shows his worth," he rasped. "You see, Grimm duo, your tales are no child’s trifle. Each telling binds us tighter to the shapes you've given. With every reading of my tale, I grow more twisted, more malformed. The greedy imp who would steal a baby - that's who I become, year by year, telling by telling."

Wilhelm's voice came weak as wind through willows: "You mean we're changing you? Our tales are a kind of alchemy?"

"Better and better!" The creature clapped his gnarled hands, and golden sparks flew up. "Words shape reality, learned brothers. Names bind and unbind. Stories build. You've made yourselves the new alchemists of our age, turning complex truths into simple morality tales, spinning our suffering into gold for your coffers."

I watched, horrified, as the sea in the nearest painting began to roil and storm, its tiny painted ships tossing on waves that seemed to reach toward our table.

"So here is your choice, Brothers," he said, rising from his seat until he loomed over us, though his physical form had not grown an inch. "Will you edit my tale once more? Or fade me into the contumely you've made me?"

“Nay!” said I. “You fool us even now. You fiddle to your amusement. Prove in one statement why you deserve a revisionist’s brush?”

“Fiddle Faddle Fuddle,” said he. “I am Rumpelstiltskin. Your fate will rise or fall with mine.”

And off he went, out the door, laughing loudly.

Wilhelm and I scooted apart.

“What say you, brother?” he asked.

“You’re the editor, Willy,”

Outside, Rumpelstiltskin danced in the streets to loud whooping, a solo celebration as people’s eyes reluctantly followed the extraordinary little man, the giant of thought and resilience.

He had shown us what Drizella's ghost could not - that our tales were more than trifles. They were chains we'd forged ourselves. And now their characters had come to rattle them.

Our way out? Why, through revision, of course.

It is but the artist’s salvation.