The Grimm brothers released seven editions of their fairy tale collection over the course of 40 years. What we read today are mostly translations of the later editions. In 2014, Jack Zipes released a translation of the first edition.
I was actually at the launch party for this book. Jack Zipes is super cool, and more or less local—I’ve met him a couple times, and he's awesome. But I didn’t buy the book at the time. It was a large, brand new hardcover, which meant it was expensive, and I was in college. And I already had a Grimm brothers book, although it was a later edition. I bought another, older book at the event and had him sign it for me. I forgot all about it.
Then I did my research for the origins of the shift from victim to jerk for Beauty and the Beast, and came across a mention of this story. Wikipedia told me it was included it the first edition, but the Grimms later removed it because it was too similar to Beauty and the Beast.
I remembered that this book existed, requested it from the library, and here we are. Hopefully I’ll have time to read more of the later-removed stories before it’s due back.
The story begins with a man whose daughter has asked for a rose, but it’s winter. He stumbles upon a palace with a garden. It is winter in one half of the garden, and summer in the other. He finds a rosebush there and picks a rose.
A black beast appears and threatens to kill the man unless he gives back the rose. And I’m nominating this guy for most useless fairy tale dad, because this is a clearly reversible situation. The beast just wants the rose back, and we’ll be good. But the dad is determined to give this rose to his daughter.
The beast says he can keep the rose in exchange for the daughter. He says he’ll collect the daughter in a week. The man goes home, gives the rose to the daughter, and MENTIONS NONE OF THIS.
A week later, the girl is chilling at home with her sisters—the dad isn't even there—and the beast grabs her and takes her to the palace. The dad comes home and is SHOCKED AND HORRIFIED that his daughter has been KIDNAPPED. Dude. That is not a kidnapping. That is a deal that you made. All you had to do was leave the rose. The beast stated his terms very clearly. I’m sure your daughter would rather not have a rose if it meant she wasn’t going to be taken by a beast.
Once the girl is at the palace with the beast, they get along pretty well, and end up being quite fond of each other.
One day the girl gets this horrible feeling that there’s something wrong with her father, so the beast lets her go visit home for a week, warning her that if she stays longer, he’ll die.
Dad has made himself sick with guilt and anxiety over letting his daughter get taken and probably eaten by a monster, so, like, I can’t say I have a lot of sympathy. He very much brought this upon himself.
Father and daughter have a brief reunion, then father dies, which is obviously a bit of a distraction, with the mourning and the funeral and everything. So she forgets about her time limit, and gets back to the palace well after her deadline.
She can’t find the beast anywhere. She searches the palace. She searches the winter garden. She searches the summer garden. Finally she spots a pile of cabbages, and goes digging in it until she finds the beast’s body. The text does specify that it is a body. He is dead. He is dead. But she pours some water on him, and he stops being dead, and also turns into a prince. They live happily ever after.
Why cabbages? Why did the beast, knowing his end was near, decide that a huge pile of cabbages was the place to die?
Red cabbage is sometimes associated with life, fertility, and the cyclical nature of existence. Sometimes associated with purity. Prosperity. Vitality. Longevity. But we have no indication that this is red cabbage specifically, and none of those traditions appear relevant to nineteenth century Germany. Eating cabbage soup has been used as a shorthand for poverty and stupidity. None of this seems helpful. Please feel free to share any insights you might have on the symbolic relevance of cabbage.
In the notes at the back of the book, Zipes mentions some of the sources the Grimms cited for this story. These include Cupid and Psyche and a story by Villeneuve, the author of the original novel Beauty and the Beast—an unspecified story from a collection of fairy tales. The title is provided in French (contes marins ou la jeune americaine) but seems to translate to Sea Tales or the Young American. This was written in 1740, so before America was a country. I’ve never heard of this collection and don’t know where to find an English text, though I’ll certainly be looking. The only detail Zipes provides about the story in question is that the beast is a dragon.
The notes also include the Grimms’ summary of a similar story from a Leipzig collection, and I guess Leipzig is another person I need to look up soon. So I thought I would summarize that summary, as long as we’re here.
Father tries to get gift for daughter, has a run-in with a beast. A bear, this time. The usual. Beast goes to collect daughter. First two nights he can’t get her—the father locks him out. Third night, the doors magically unlock, the suitcases pack themselves, and the girl sleeps through the process of magically being dressed as a bride and having her hair curled. Beast takes her home. She never goes to visit her family, but sees them in a magic mirror. After she has a baby and three years pass, the spell is broken and the bear becomes a handsome prince. The end.
Apparently, the Grimms liked the beginning of this story, but felt the ending was contrived.
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