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The Goose-Girl and Falada
Tale of the Brothers Grimm translated by M. Hunt [1884] (slightly changed by us)
Interpretation by Undine & Jens in green [2025]
After having looked at the path to golden wholeness from the male perspective of the witnessing spirit in the last fairy tale, we now want to turn to the female side, the pure soul of a birthing nature. This wonderful balance of the different perspectives in the fairy tales already indicates that the wholeness of spirit and nature has long been known, and it only depends on which side you identify with on the path and which role you play in order to finally find true unity again, so that most fairy tales also end with a happy wedding. In this regard, one could again think about the source and age of our fairy tales, because this balance between male and female is rarely found in Christianity, where the trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is in the foreground, while mother, daughter and wisdom are only found in the background, for example as Mary or in the concept of “Sophia”.
There was once upon a time an old Queen whose husband had been dead for many years, and she had a beautiful daughter. When the princess grew up, she was betrothed to a prince who lived over the field at a great distance. When the time came for her to be married, and she had to journey forth into the distant kingdom, the aged Queen packed up for her many costly vessels of silver and gold, and trinkets also of gold and silver; and cups and jewels, in short, everything which appertained to a royal dowry, for she loved her child with all her heart. She likewise sent her chamber maid who was to ride with her, and hand her over to the bridegroom, and each had a horse for the journey, but the horse of the King’s daughter was called Falada, and could speak.
As is typical of the old fairy tales, this story only makes sense on a practical level to children’s eyes, because what queen would send her virgin daughter alone with a chambermaid of a similar age on such a long journey to a completely foreign kingdom? So, we again have every reason to look for the deeper spiritual meaning and message. First, we find a queen whose husband had died. And death means separation, so that the basic problem of the separation of king and queen, or spirit and nature, is already indicated here, which the virgin daughter, as a pure soul of nature, now has to solve. To do this, she was promised to a king’s son, or pure spirit, who lived far away from her “over the field” of this world in a “distant kingdom”. Well, this separation is probably the basic problem that we still suffer from today, and we too are looking to solve this unfulfillment of the separation between man and woman, or spirit and nature. And so, it is already a great vision that the “old Queen” as the Great Mother of Nature sends her beloved daughter as our pure soul with all imaginable wealth as a dowry, all alone into the world, in order to heal this separation and resolve it in the mystical wedding.
What does the “chambermaid” mean, who will play an important role later on? Just as the pure soul is called the “young Queen” below, who is supposed to rule over the entire kingdom of a holistic nature, this part of the soul rules over the chamber in which the pure soul lives. And so, we can think here of our egoistic soul of self-consciousness, which rules in a body and is basically also a form of the pure soul, which is supposed to help and serve on the journey through this world of external forms. It was surely no coincidence that Mother Nature also gave us this part of the soul on the long journey to reunite our pure soul with our pure spirit. She gives us the problem that needs to be solved, so to speak. Because what would the long journey be of any use otherwise?
The two horses remind us of the mobile physicality on which we now ride and travel through the world. But while the pure soul has a horse or a body that speaks to her in a lively way and thus already indicates her holistic nature, the egoistic soul rides on a body that she considers her property but which has never truly become one with her. Just as we still consider the body more as a material machine and less as a spiritual being today. There are various assumptions about the name “Falada”. In the Brothers Grimm’s notes, we find the sentence: “The name Falada (the middle syllable is short) is particularly strange because Roland’s horse is called Valentich, Falerich or Velentin and this almost seems to have an external connection with the Kerling myth.” Others point to the Portuguese word “falada”, which means “spoken language”. This would make the talking horse a spiritual body that can remember and tell its life story, which will play an important role in this fairy tale and is perhaps even a core idea.
Here we already notice that this whole fairy tale is less about external relationships, but rather takes place inside us, where all the different characters can be found in a person to play their roles.
So, when the hour of parting had come, the aged mother went into her bedroom, took a small knife and cut her finger with it until it bled, then she held a white handkerchief to it into which she let three drops of blood fall, gave it to her daughter and said, “Dear child, preserve this carefully, it will be of service to you on your way.”
Well, the soul of nature now goes into the external world of effects, while the old mother nature goes into “her bedroom”, into a realm of calm, silence and peace, which will ultimately become the wedding chamber of spirit and nature. This fundamental space of conscious silence or emptiness, from which everything arises, can also be experienced in meditation, when thoughts and senses are silent. This is basically the truth, what was before something came into being. And from there she gives the soul one last mysterious and meaningful gift from her own living being: the white cloth reminds us of a certain purity of nature as a pure consciousness that can take on all forms and weaves everything together with spun threads. The red blood of the old mother nature reminds us of eternal life and the colour of love, but also of passion and suffering. And the number three could again indicate the usual three forces, about which we have already written a lot in other fairy tales, and which work everywhere in nature in various forms as triangular relationships to create, maintain and then dissolve everything. All of these principles and forces are of course necessary for the soul of nature as a source of strength, so to speak, on her way to unity and redemption from separation.
So, they took a sorrowful leave of each other; the princess put the piece of cloth in her bosom, mounted her horse, and then went away to her bridegroom. After she had ridden for a while she felt a burning thirst, and said to her waiting-maid, “Dismount, and take my cup which thou hast brought with thee for me, and get me some water from the stream, for I should like to drink.” “If you are thirsty,” said the waiting maid, “get off your horse yourself, and lie down and drink out of the water, I don’t choose to be your servant.” So, in her great thirst the princess alighted, bent down over the water in the stream and drank, and was not allowed to drink out of the golden cup. Then she said, “Ah, Heaven!” and the three drops of blood answered, “If thy mother knew this, her heart would break.” But the King’s bride was humble, said nothing, and mounted her horse again.
The soul begins her great journey and comes first to a small stream that is still close to the source and from which she wants to drink with her golden cup. Why is the pure soul thirsty? Well, she is separated from the pure spirit, and so it is probably the thirst of love between man and woman or spirit and nature. That is why she thirsts for the water of life that flows through the world, in order to find her pure spirit again. But her chambermaid will not and cannot draw and give it to her with the golden cup of pure truth that the Great Mother gave her. The egoistic soul with her separated self-consciousness is not capable of this. If she could do it, she would pay off her debt and be one with the pure soul again. The flowing water of worldly life from the cup of truth would immediately lead her to the true and pure spirit, pure love would be found, thirst quenched and the fairy tale would quickly have a happy ending.
In principle, this story reminds us of the biblical parable of Jesus when he asked the Samaritan woman at the well: “Give me a drink!” And when she refused, he said: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you, ‘Give me a drink!’, you would ask him, and he would give you living water... Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give he will never thirst. Instead, the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:10)
But our egoistic soul cannot do it like the biblical Samaritan woman, because she does not recognize the pure soul in her entirety and thus does not recognize herself, but wants to elevate herself personally as a separate being to ruler and queen. So, the egoistic soul now holds back the golden cup of truth, and the pure soul in her “great thirst” must drink without it, “alight and bend down over the water”, and thus become an actor in the worldly river herself. And what does she drink without the cup of truth? Of course, the worldly water of the illusion of an independently acting soul, even if it is only a small sip from a small stream near the source. And her most heartfelt call for wholeness, “Oh God!”, is now answered by the pure forces of maternal nature that this is not yet the goal of wholeness and pure love. This saying, “If your mother knew this, her heart would break,” runs like a mantra through the whole fairy tale and reminds us of the source and the great goal.
What should the pure soul do now? Should she fight against the egoistic soul, recognize her as a rival, see herself as separate from her and thus put herself on her level? No, she does not take it personally, but remains humble and calm, as is her pure nature, and can forget all supposedly evil.
She rode some miles further, but the day was warm, the sun scorched her, and she was thirsty once more, and when they came to a stream of water, she again cried to her waiting- maid, “Dismount, and give me some water in my golden cup,” for she had long ago forgotten the girl’s ill words. But the waiting-maid said still more haughtily, “If you wish to drink, drink as you can, I don’t choose to be your maid.” Then in her great thirst the King’s daughter alighted, bent over the flowing stream, wept and said, “Ah, Heaven!” and the drops of blood again replied, “If thy mother knew this, her heart would break.” And as she was thus drinking and leaning right over the stream, the handkerchief with the three drops of blood fell out of her bosom, and floated away with the water without her observing it, so great was her trouble. The waiting-maid, however, had seen it, and she rejoiced to think that she had now power over the bride, for since the princess had lost the drops of blood, she had become weak and powerless.
Who could forgive and forget such disrespect except the pure soul? But when the egoistic soul met with no resistance, she became even more arrogant and proud, and with it the problem that was given to her escalated and became more and more embodied. The problem of separation also increased, thirst increased (as predicted by Jesus in the parable above), and the small stream of worldly life became a wide and deep river of cause and effect through space and time, as we practically all experience it today and try to quench our thirst in it. Thereupon the pure soul leaned ever further into this river to drink from it, so that her source of strength also fell from her heart into the river. The pure soul herself became the river of worldly life, so to speak, now flowing with the water and thus also being seized by the worldly “great trouble”, because separation is always associated with great fear. At this sight, the “chambermaid”, as a selfish soul, believed that the royal power of purity and truth had now become “weak and powerless” and that she herself would “take control of the bride”, because she too felt this great thirst.
So now when she wanted to mount her horse again, the one that was called Falada, the lady in waiting said, “Falada is more suitable for me, and my nag will do for thee” and the princess had to be content with that. Then the lady in waiting, with many hard words, bade the princess exchange her royal apparel for her own shabby clothes; and at length she was compelled to swear by the clear sky above her, that she would not say one word of this to any one at the royal court, and if she had not taken this oath she would have been killed on the spot. But Falada saw all this, and observed it well.
So, the egoistic soul wants to become queen, and her thirst for love turns into personal desire, and she seizes the royal horse and the royal clothes. This is the end of the “chambermaid,” and the following section speaks of a “lady in waiting,” who is now, so to speak, married and bound to a man or spirit, and that is the passionate spirit of personal desire and hatred, and thus also the spirit of transience and death. The pure soul “swears by the clear sky” of wholeness that she will keep silent about this act. And that is good, because if she were to accuse and attack the egoistic soul at the “royal court,” then she would descend to her level, see a rival, lose her purity and wholeness, and thus also encounter transience and death. That means, “she would have been killed on the spot.” But in this way the pure soul remains true to her pure being, forgives and forgets everything, and the memory remains only in the physicality of the horse that carries her through the world, so to speak connected to the body as a personal history.
We can now think about the great problem that was given to the soul of nature: How can the ego be defeated? If it is pampered, it feeds and strengthens itself through habit; if it is fought, it feeds and strengthens itself through battle. For it draws its nourishment from the separation in the worldly play of opposites and believes that worldly nature must now serve it. And so it happens that the pure soul becomes a servant and maid, but of course she serves the egoistic soul in the flow of worldly life in a completely different way than she had imagined in her ignorance, namely not in the sense of her bubble of illusion, but in the sense of truth.
The lady in waiting now mounted Falada, and the true bride the bad horse, and thus they travelled onwards, until at length they entered the royal palace. There were great rejoicings over her arrival, and the son of the king sprang forward to meet her, lifted the lady in waiting from her horse, and thought she was his consort. She was conducted upstairs, but the real princess was left standing below. Then the old King looked out of the window and saw her standing in the courtyard, and how dainty and delicate and beautiful she was, and instantly went to the royal apartment, and asked the bride about the girl she had with her who was standing down below in the courtyard, and who she was? “I picked her up on my way for a companion; give the girl something to work at, that she may not stand idle.” But the old King had no work for her, and knew of none, so he said, “I have a little boy who tends the geese, she may help him.” The boy was called Conrad, and the true bride had to help him to tend the geese.
So, the soul comes to a “royal castle”. We can imagine a reasonable person here with his entire royal court. First there is an old king who intuitively feels that something is not right here, and thus reminds us of the holistic reason with his intuition that should rule. And just as the pure soul is a daughter of holistic nature as queen, so too should the pure spirit be his king’s son. But he is probably not yet so pure, because unlike the old king he is deceived by external appearances, “lifted the lady in waiting from her horse and thought she was his consort” and left the “true king’s daughter standing below”, so to speak in the unconscious. The boy Conrad would then be the mind in man, because “Konrad” also means “courageous advisor” in its root word. But he is still small and young, and the king immediately recognizes intuitively that he needs the help of the pure soul to look after the cackling geese, that is, the thoughts and senses of man. For it is they, above all, that separate spirit and nature from one another, subject and object or observer and observed. And only when these thoughts are pure the human spirit or prince can be pure and recognize the pure soul as his true bride, who is promised to him for eternity.
Soon afterwards the false bride said to the young King, “Dearest husband, I beg you to do me a favour.” He answered, “I will do so most willingly.” “Then send for the knacker, and have the head of the horse on which I rode here cut off, for it vexed me on the way.” In reality, she was afraid that the horse might tell how she had behaved to the King’s daughter.
This is a very special symbolism that we should look at more deeply, because it indicates the hidden nature of the egoistic soul: it is the soul that ensures that our bodies must die, because it is connected to the passionate spirit of transience and death and knows no other. It actually demands this spirit of death in order to protect its own illusory nature, because it is afraid that the body might speak and reveal its false nature. Because if it became clear that the body is also just pure and eternal consciousness, then there could no longer be a separation between spirit and nature, the egoism of mine and yours would be deprived of any basis, and this bubble of illusion would have to burst. Is this perhaps also the reason why most of our modern natural scientists fear the concept of “spirit” as if it were a threatening poison? Then they are like the young king in our fairy tale, who does not see through this desire for physical death and thus approves the principle of separation. Only an egoistic person who lives in his bubble of illusion believes that something is really lost with death. The pure soul has no such idea and ensures secretly and unrecognizedly with her holistic power, even in the worldly flow of life of cause and effect, that nothing is lost.
Then she succeeded in making the King promise that it should be done, and the faithful Falada was to die; this came to the ears of the real princess, and she secretly promised to pay the knacker a piece of gold if he would perform a small service for her. There was a great dark-looking gateway in the town, through which morning and evening she had to pass with the geese: would he be so good as to nail up Falada’s head on it, so that she might see him again, more than once. The knacker’s man promised to do that, and cut off the head, and nailed it fast beneath the dark gateway.
We can also find this symbolism in a person: the city with its city walls is his body, the gates are his thinking and sensory organs, where the senses and thoughts go out into the world during the day and come back in at night. The large and dark gate could above all mean the thoughts that are particularly obscured by ignorance. Here the pure soul serves as a goose girl and, together with the young mind, guards the senses and thoughts when they go out into the world to find their nourishment.
Which being in us would then be the knacker (in German: Schinder)? “Schinden” (= to flay) originally means “to peel off skin”. In the past, the knacker looked after the sick and worn-out animals, which later shaped the meaning of “to ill-treat”, when someone is treated like a miserable animal. In this respect, the knacker could be reminiscent of our arrogance or pride, which comes with egoism and also likes to nail a trophy over the dark gate of thoughts. The desire of the egoistic soul gives the cause, the will of the human mind gives the power, and the pure soul of nature in the worldly flow of cause and effect gives the power or energy, so to speak “the money for the service”. Where else would the power come from? But we do not recognize this pure source and think that it is our own personal or egoistic power. This is precisely the ignorance that darkens the door of thought and conceals the wholeness of mind and nature.
Early in the morning, when she and Conrad drove out their flock beneath this gateway, she said in passing,
“Alas, Falada, hanging there!”
Then the head answered,
“Alas, young Queen, how ill you fare!
If this your tender mother knew,
Her heart would surely break in two.”
So, this dark gate of the senses and thoughts itself comes to life, and the pure soul can speak to herself here at this physical boundary wall between inside and outside. With whom else? In the whole there is only one pure soul. And she speaks something very mysterious, which could perhaps be translated as follows: “Oh pure spirit, you are pure mobility and now cling firmly to this physicality!” And the spirit of the body answers: “Oh pure soul of holistic nature, you are eternal constancy and now pass through space and time in the flow of worldly life as if you were transient! If your mother were aware of this, her heart could no longer be whole and she would have to fear losing her daughter.”
In this way the pure soul lets the body speak at the gate of the senses and thoughts, so that young Conrad can hear it as a mind. And perhaps we should also sometimes ask our body why it clings so tightly to a form? Although it is essentially pure energy or pure consciousness, which can move freely and assume any form, but remains constant and formless. Perhaps we will get an answer in silence, if we have not yet completely degraded the body to a material machine, like a city built of dead stones.
Then they went still further out of the town, and drove their geese into the country. And when they had come to the meadow, she sat down and unbound her hair which was like pure gold, and Conrad saw it and delighted in its brightness, and wanted to pluck out a few hairs. Then she said,
“Blow, blow, thou gentle wind, I say,
Blow Conrad’s little hat away,
And make him chase it here and there,
Until I have braided all my hair,
And bound it up again.”
Well, our mind will not be able to understand this mystical answer of the wholeness of form and formlessness as well as movement and stillness as long as it only looks at external forms and relies on the mental play of opposites. Therefore, Conrad cannot grasp the golden hair or true or holistic thoughts of the pure soul, and certainly not separate it from her and take it as his own property, even if he already sees its pure shine with joy. Because he only chases his own personal hat in the wind of the spirit through the external world “across the country” in order to take on a certain form and represent something, which also made the hat an important status symbol. This power of the wind to move the spirit also comes naturally from the pure soul of nature, which arranges her pure hair or thoughts herself and braids or weaves them holistically in the flow of worldly life, which again reminds us of the white cloth of the Great Mother with her three drops of blood as a natural source of power.
And there came such a violent wind that it blew Conrad’s hat far away across country, and he was forced to run after it. When he came back, she had finished combing her hair and was putting it up again, and he could not get any of it. Then Conrad was angry, and would not speak to her, and thus they watched the geese until the evening, and then they went home.
It is now clear that our mind cares more about the hat than the truth. And yet he cannot hold on to it, because it is a transitory hat in this world that no one can hold on to for long.
“I saw all the work that is done under the sun, and behold, it is all vanity and a striving after wind... And I applied my heart to learn wisdom and to recognize madness and folly. But I saw that this too is a striving after wind. (Eccl. 1.14)”
And who does not know how the mind becomes annoyed and even angry when it cannot understand something? Then it usually reacts with contempt and aversion and withdraws into itself. But the pure soul remains tirelessly faithful to her service and allows the body under the dark gate to speak to the mind again and again.
Next day when they were driving the geese out through the dark gateway, the maiden said,
“Alas, Falada, hanging there!”
Then the head answered,
“Alas, young Queen, how ill you fare!
If this your tender mother knew,
Her heart would surely break in two.”
And she sat down again in the field and began to comb out her hair, and Conrad ran and tried to clutch it, so she said in haste,
“Blow, blow, thou gentle wind, I say,
Blow Conrad’s little hat away,
And make him chase it here and there,
Until I have braided all my hair,
And bound it up again.”
Then the wind blew, and blew his little hat off his head and far away, and Conrad was forced to run after it, and when he came back, her hair had been put up a long time, and he could get none of it, and so they looked after their geese till evening came.
Why does the goose girl arrange her hair while tending the geese in the meadow? Well, that is the purpose of her service, because she guards the senses and thoughts of the rational person when they are out in the world looking for food, and arranges them in silence to purity and truth, whereby the conceptual mind actually interferes more than he helps. But it is also important that the mind recognizes that he cannot understand this truth, because in doing so she achieves the great goal that the conceptual mind turns to holistic reason and goes to the old king.
But in the evening after they had got home, Conrad went to the old King, and said, “I won’t tend the geese with that girl any longer!” “Why not?” inquired the aged King. “Oh, because she vexes me the whole day long.” Then the aged King commanded him to relate what it was that she did to him. And Conrad said, “In the morning when we pass beneath the dark gateway with the flock, there is a sorry horse’s head on the wall, and she says to it,
“Alas, Falada, hanging there!”
And the head replies,
“Alas, young Queen, how ill you fare!
If this your tender mother knew,
Her heart would surely break in two.”
And Conrad went on to relate what happened on the goose pasture, and how when there he had to chase his hat.
When the conceptual mind turns to holistic reason and tells him what he cannot understand, then man has a real chance of getting closer to the truth.
The aged King commanded him to drive his flock (of geese) out again next day, and as soon as morning came, he placed himself behind the dark gateway, and heard how the maiden spoke to the head of Falada, and then he too went into the country, and hid himself in the thicket in the meadow. There he soon saw with his own eyes the goose-girl and the goose-boy bringing their flock, and how after a while she sat down and unplaited her hair, which shone with radiance. And soon she said,
“Blow, blow, thou gentle wind, I say,
Blow Conrad’s little hat away,
And make him chase it here and there,
Until I have braided all my hair,
And bound it up again.”
Then came a blast of wind and carried off Conrad’s hat, so that he had to run far away, while the maiden quietly went on combing and plaiting her hair, all of which the King observed.
So, reason observes the mind as he passes through the dark gate, hears the body speak and drives the senses and thoughts out into the field of the world. In doing so, he does not allow his hat as a royal or holistic crown to blow away, but watches the soul, hidden and quiet, as she combs the thoughts, organizes them and weaves them holistically. Well, something similar also happens in meditation when one enters conscious silence as a conscious observer. And in the evening, when the senses and thoughts return from the outer world to the inside, he questions what is happening.
Then, quite unseen, he went away, and when the goose-girl came home in the evening, he called her aside, and asked why she did all these things. “I may not tell you that, and I dare not lament my sorrows to any human being, for I have sworn not to do so by the heaven which is above me; if I had not done that, I should have lost my life.” He urged her and left her no peace, but he could draw nothing from her. Then said he, “If thou wilt not tell me anything, tell thy sorrows to the iron-stove there,” and he went away.
This is again a very profound symbolism that you can think about for a long time. The pure soul of holistic nature can of course only ever speak to herself, otherwise she would not be a pure and holistic soul and would be subject to separation and thus also to transience and death. This is of course also the oath that she has made for the free heaven of wholeness. Therefore, just as the head spoke to the conceptual mind at the dark gate of the senses and thoughts, she can now also let the whole body (symbolized as an oven) speak to holistic reason. And the body not only complains to reason about suffering, but also tells the whole life story from its physical memory. In this case, it is not just the partial story that the ego in its bubble of illusion would like to hear from the mind, but the whole story from the repressed subconscious, from the gut feeling, so to speak, where the pure soul sits in the oven that digests and burns our food and maintains the animated body. And the old king, as holistic reason, listens through intuition at the “stovepipe” through which the smoke of illusion otherwise rises into the head or mind. And if we listen quietly and attentively, then we could hear the whole history of humanity here, how life arose from the holistic basis of spirit and nature, how a small stream became a great river of worldly life and how a soulful animal became the human being of today, whose spirit is still connected to the egoistic soul.
Then she crept into the iron-stove, and began to weep and lament, and emptied her whole heart, and said, “Here am I deserted by the whole world, and yet I am a King’s daughter, and a false waiting-maid has by force brought me to such a pass that I have been compelled to put off my royal apparel, and she has taken my place with my bride-groom, and I have to perform menial service as a goose-girl. If my mother did but know that, her heart would break.” The aged King, however, was standing outside by the pipe of the stove, and was listening to what she said, and heard it. Then he came back again, and bade her come out of the stove. And royal garments were placed on her, and it was marvellous how beautiful she was! The aged King summoned his son, and revealed to him that he had got the false bride who was only a waiting- maid, but that the true one was standing there, as the sometime goose-girl.
The symbolism of the stove is also something to think about. In the first edition from 1815, it was still a tiled stove, which became an iron stove in 1840. The tiled stove is even more reminiscent of our brick-built or material body, which is increasingly solidifying into a prison and, as a place of transformation, is probably not only meant to burn material food, but also spiritual problems. The pure soul has sat in this stove and laments her suffering to herself. And it is a very powerful meditation if we listen quietly and attentively without judgment as an uninvolved listener, that is, as a holistic reason. Because only in this way separation can burn and disappear and the basic problem that we have been given along the way can be solved.
So, the mantra saying “If the mother knew...” resounds from the heart of the soul, first at the stream near the source, then at the river of worldly life, then from the animal body and finally from the human body, in the course of a long development from the elements to the human being, in which all these stages are united. And the saying reminds us again and again at all stages of the holistic heart of maternal nature, which is pure love, pure energy and pure consciousness. As a result, holistic reason as king now recognizes the pure soul of holistic nature, frees her from the furnace of the body, gives her back the royal dress and lets her full beauty shine, so that now the dark gate of the physical city will surely shine in bright light. In doing so, he also reveals this knowledge to his son, the young king or human spirit, who can now see the beauty and virtue of the pure soul with purified and light-filled thoughts and senses full of joy.
The young King rejoiced with all his heart when he saw her beauty and youth, and a great feast was made ready to which all the people and all good friends were invited. At the head of the table sat the bride-groom with the King’s daughter at one side of him, and the waiting-maid on the other.
This brings us closer to the mystical wedding in which everything is reunited. Everyone is invited to the great meal and gathers around the pure spirit, of course also the egoistic part of the soul, which cannot be excluded from the whole. And certainly, there is a “golden goose” or true wholeness to eat for the main course at this great meal.
In principle, this symbolism also reminds us of the famous Last Supper of Jesus Christ, in which Judas, who served as the “traitor”, also took part: “Jesus took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ And he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them and said, ‘Drink from it, all of you! This is my blood... (Matthew 26:26)” In this way, the bread as the diversity of nature and the wine as the unity of the spirit are reunited into a holistic consciousness. Something similar is happening here now, and there is only one problem left to solve, which has been recognized: What happens to the egoistic soul?
But the waiting-maid was blinded, and did not recognize the princess in her dazzling array. When they had eaten and drunk, and were merry, the aged King asked the waiting-maid as a riddle, what a person deserved who had behaved in such and such a way to her master, and at the same time related the whole story, and asked what sentence such a one merited? Then the false bride said, “She deserves no better fate than to be stripped entirely naked, and put in a barrel which is studded inside with pointed nails, and two white horses should be harnessed to it, which will drag her along through one street after another, till she is dead.” “It is thou,” said the aged King, “and thou hast pronounced thine own sentence, and thus shall it be done unto thee.” And when the sentence had been carried out, the young King married his true bride, and both of them reigned over their kingdom in peace and happiness.
Of course, the egoistic part of the soul must also remain in the whole, even if she perceives herself as something separate and cannot recognize the pure soul or the pure spirit as a whole. The egoistic soul thus renders her own sentence and must therefore live in a separated body, which was supposed to be a heavenly palace full of pleasures, but ultimately became the hellish chamber of a narrow barrel, a place of suffering with many thorns. For when she separated herself from the pure soul and wanted to be something of her own in her bubble of illusion, she married herself as a “chambermaid” with this passionate spirit of desire and thus of transience and death and is now bound to this body. And the “two white horses” could remind us of the wedding horses that are harnessed as worldly opposites to this “wedding carriage” of suffering for spirit and nature, which is now pulled back and forth along the well-trodden streets of the world until death. Yes, this freedom also has the pure consciousness of experiencing such a life, for it can take on any form. Who can prevent it? But one can recognize that it is a path of suffering and one must not hold on to it any longer.
In principle, this symbolism of the “sentence” also reminds us of the crucifixion of Christ, who as pure spirit and pure reason was nailed to the physical cross of this world with a crown of thorns of suffering. The only difference is that our fairy tale describes this path on the female side as the soul of nature, i.e., more from the perspective of the evildoers who were crucified alongside Christ, of whom one says: “We are indeed rightly so, for we receive what our deeds deserve; but this man has done nothing wrong. And he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’” (Luke 23:41) Thus our fairy tale describes the path of suffering of the pure soul of nature, which ends in the paradise of natural diversity through marriage with the pure or holy spirit. And the Bible describes the path of suffering of the pure soul of the spirit, which ends with the marriage with the pure nature of the Father as Creator God on the throne of God in the heaven of spiritual unity. Just as Jesus also died with the words: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit!” And these two paths are basically one, because spiritual unity is found in natural diversity and natural diversity in spiritual unity, so that everything is again a whole and divinity, which our intellect cannot comprehend because it only thinks in opposites.
On this holy and healing path to wholeness, the pure soul finds the pure spirit again in our fairy tale, which was hidden in the physical world “in a distant”, where he had forgotten the pure soul and thus his own purity and truth and could no longer recognize her. But knowledge returned with the help of reason, and so spirit and nature unite again as king and queen, who in truth were never separated, to form a great whole, so that the daughter also becomes one with the mother and the son with the father, as Christ also says: “I and the Father are one. (John 10.30)” This then means for our fairy tale: the pure soul becomes one with the entire diversity of nature, the holistic reason with the pure spirit of unity, and both are united in the great wedding to form a pure consciousness.
And what happens to Conrad, the conceptual mind? Well, he takes care of the body while he is still alive in the world and while there is still accumulated karma or the sin of separation to burn in this stove. Under a wise king he will certainly be a good and useful advisor, just as the chambermaid should serve the natural queen. In this way the part should serve the whole and not the whole the part, because as soon as the part voluntarily integrates itself into the whole, the part becomes whole again. And with that the happy ending is in sight, a “kingdom in peace and happiness”, ruled by pure consciousness, a paradise and kingdom of heaven on earth. OM
So, we too may ask our reason to whom we are inwardly engaged and whether we are thereby serving the whole, the unity in diversity and diversity in unity. And so, we too may recognize who here wants to arrogantly rise up in order to selfishly rule over nature and spirit, and where this path leads us...
• ... Table of contents of all fairy tale interpretations ...
• The Origin of Stories - (topic: material and spiritual world)
• Hans Stupid - (topic: realize wishes)
• The Drummer - (topic: Mind and path to salvation)
• Swan Prince - (topic: soul, spirit and salvation)
• The Six Swans - (topic: senses, thoughts and expansion)
• The poor Girl and the Star-Money - (topic: poverty in spirit)
• Death and the Goose Herder - (topic: geese and wholeness)
• The Fox and the Geese - (topic: mind and wholeness)
• The Goose-Girl at the Well - (topic: spirit, soul and nature)
• The Golden Goose - (topic: recognize true wholeness)
• The Goose-Girl and Falada (topic: unity and diversity)
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[1884] Grimm's Household Tales. Translated from the German and edited by Margaret Hunt. With an introduction by Andrew Lang, 1884, Vol. 1/2, London: George Bell and Sons |