Answers Provided by Anthroposophy Concerning the World and Life

GA 108 — 26 December 1908, Berlin

9. Interpretations of Fairy Tales

What I would like to present here today is, first of all, a kind of principle for explaining fairy tales and legends. In a broader sense, this principle can also be extended to the world of myths, and I will then briefly indicate how this can be done. Of course, it is not possible for me to tell you in detail in one hour how to deal with today's children when telling them fairy tales or, when they are older, when explaining them. Today, I will focus more on illustrating what should live in the soul of those who want to tell and explain fairy tales and what they should know.

The first thing we must establish from the outset when we tell fairy tales, legends, or myths, and also when we want to explain them, is that we absolutely must know more than we are able to say, considerably more. And secondly, we must have the will to draw the means of explanation from anthroposophical wisdom. This does not mean that we should simply incorporate whatever comes to mind into the fairy tales, but rather that we must have the will to recognize anthroposophical wisdom as such and then, on the basis of everything we have learned in the anthroposophical worldview, try to imbue the fairy tales with it. It is not certain that this will work equally well for everyone. But even if you get it completely wrong at first, you will eventually find the right interpretation by yourself. Where something is built on solid ground, it will turn out right; but where it is not built on solid ground, it will turn out that all sorts of things can be interpreted into it. So what is said here is meant for both the storytellers and those being taught. We will use examples that are as vivid as possible to illustrate what we mean. The first fairy tale we will look at could perhaps be told as follows:

Once upon a time, something happened, but where was it? Yes, one might also ask: Where wasn't it? Once upon a time, there was a tailor's apprentice. He had only a penny left in his pocket, but that penny drove him to set out on his travels. He was hungry, and with that penny he could only buy a bowl of milk soup. As the milk soup stood before him, a whole swarm of flies flew into it, and when he had finished eating, the whole plate was covered with flies. So he struck the plate a few times with his hand and counted how many he had killed, and counted a hundred. Then he took a writing tablet from the innkeeper and wrote on it: “He killed a hundred at once!” And with this tablet hanging around his neck, he went on his way. He came to a king's castle. The king happened to be looking down and saw someone walking by with something written on his back. He sent his servant down to see what it said. The servant went and read: “He killed a hundred at once!” and reported this to the king. “Stop!” said the king. “This is someone I can use,” and he sent for him. “I can use you!” said the king. ‘Will you enter my service?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I will gladly enter your service if you give me a proper wage, which I will tell you later.’ ‘Yes,’ said the king, ”I will reward you very well if you keep your promise.” Therefore, you shall eat and drink well as long as you like. But then you must also do me a service that is equal to your strength. Every year a whole troop of bears comes to my country and causes terrible damage. They are so strong that no man can kill them. You will certainly be able to do so if you keep your promise. “I will certainly do that,” said the journeyman, ‘but until the bears come, I must ask for as much food and drink as I want.’ For the tailor's journeyman said to himself, ‘If I cannot kill the bears when they come, at least I will have eaten and drunk well for a while.’ And so it went on for some time. When the time came for the bears to return, he did the following: He went into the kitchen and set up a table. He left the door wide open and laid out on the table all kinds of things that bears like to eat and drink, honey and so on. Then he hid himself. The bears came in, ate and drank until they could eat no more and lay down. Then he cut off the head of each of the bears and killed them in this way. When the king saw this, he asked him, “How did you do that?” And the journeyman said, “I simply let the bears jump over the blade and then cut off each one's head!” The king was already very faithful and said, “If you have done that, then you can do me an even greater service. Every year, large, strong giants come to our country. No one can kill or drive them away; perhaps you can do it?” The tailor said, ‘Yes, I will do it if you give me your daughter as my wife afterwards.’ The king was very keen to have the giants driven away, so he promised, and the tailor enjoyed himself again.

When the time came for the giants to reappear, he took everything the giants liked to eat and drink and went to them. But on the way, he took a piece of cheese and a lark with him and arrived at the giants' place with his many things and the piece of cheese and the lark. The giants said, “We have come back to wrestle with the strongest; no one has yet defeated us!” Then the journeyman said, “Well, then, I will wrestle with you!” “That will end badly for you!” said one of the giants. Then the tailor said, “Show us your strength and what you can do!” So the giant took a stone and crushed it between his fingers. Then he took a bow and an arrow and shot the arrow into the air, so that it took a long time to come down again. “Now you shall see my strength! If you want to wrestle with me, you must come up with something else.” The tailor took a small stone and secretly covered it with some cheese, and when he pressed it with his fingers, the cheese squirted out. Now he said to the giant, “I can squeeze water out of the stone, and you can't!” This made a strong impression on the giant, that someone else could do something he couldn't. Then the tailor also took a bow and arrow, but while he was shooting, he let the lark fly up unnoticed; it did not come back. Then he said to the giant, “Your arrow has come back down, but I shot mine so high that it won't come down!” The giants were surprised that someone stronger than them had been found, and they said to him, “Won't you be our comrade?” He agreed. He was small, but he was a good addition. So they took him into their company, and he stayed with them for a while. But it was still terrible to them that there was someone stronger than themselves, and once, when he was lying awake in bed, he heard them decide to kill him.

So he made his preparations. He prepared a large meal from the things he had brought with him. The giants ate and drank until they could eat no more and were out of their minds. But they had made a plan to kill him. He took a pig's bladder, filled it with blood, tied it to his head, and lay down in bed. The giant who was chosen to kill him came and stabbed him, and when the blood flowed out, the giants were very satisfied, for now they were rid of him. And they lay down and slept. Then the tailor got out of bed and killed the sleeping giants one by one. Then he went to the king and told him how he had slain one giant after another. The king kept his word and gave him his daughter in marriage, and the tailor married the king's daughter. The king was very surprised at his son-in-law's strength. But neither the king nor his daughter knew who the stranger really was, whether he was a tailor or a prince. At that time, they did not know. If they have not found out since then, they still do not know today. That is one of the fairy tales we want to look at in principle. But before we go into that, let us look at another one. For if you pick up fairy tales wherever you want, from whatever people you want, and from whatever time you want, fairy tales that are real fairy tales, you will always find that a certain basic set of ideas pulsates through all of them. I would like to point out here that we have already encountered giants who are overcome by cunning. Now jump forward thousands of years and think of Odysseus and the giant Polyphemus in the Odyssey. But let us place another fairy tale alongside this first one.

It happened once, where was it? Yes, where did it not happen? There was a king who was so beloved by his people that he constantly heard them express their wish that he should find a wife who was as good and noble as he was. It was difficult for him to find someone whom he believed would be as suitable as he desired for his people. But he had an old friend, a poor forester who lived simply and contentedly in the forest, but who was very wise. He could easily have become rich, for the king would have gladly given him everything. But the forester wanted to remain poor and keep his wisdom. So the king went to his friend, the forester, and asked him for advice. He gave him a sprig of rosemary and said to him, “Keep this, and the girl before whom it bows—think here of the divining rod motif—that is the girl you are to marry!” So the king had a large number of girls brought before him the very next day. He had a large quantity of pearls spread out before the girls and the name of each one written on the table with pearls. Then he announced that the girl before whom the sprig bowed would become his wife; the others would receive only the pearls. Then he went around with the sprig of rosemary—but it did not move, it did not bow before any of them. The girls received their pearls and were sent away. On the second day, the same thing was done, but it happened again, and on the third day it was no different. The king slept the following night and heard something at his window. It turned out to be a little gold bird. It said to him, “You don't know it, but you have done me a great service twice. I want to do you a favor too. When morning comes, get up, take your sprig of rosemary, and follow me. I will lead you to a place where you will find a horse. It has a silver arrow stuck in its body. You must pull it out. Then it can lead you to where you will find your wife!” The next morning, the king went out and followed the golden bird. They finally came to a horse that was weak and sick and said, “A witch shot an arrow into my body.” The king pulled the arrow out of the horse, and at that moment, the weak animal was transformed into a wonderfully bold horse. The king mounted the horse, the sprig of rosemary moved in front of the horse, and the golden bird flew ahead, leading the king on his magical horse. Finally, they came to a glass castle. There they heard a humming and buzzing from afar, and when they entered, the king, the sprig of rosemary, and the golden bird saw another king standing there, made entirely of glass, and in the stomach of this glass king was a large bumblebee. It was the one that was buzzing so loudly, and it was working terribly hard on the king's stomach, trying to work its way out from the inside. The king asked the glass king what this was all about. Yes,” he said, ”just look at the sofa; there sits my queen in her pink silk robe, and you will soon see the secret of what is happening. For now the web that the thorn bush has spun around the queen is being torn apart, and soon it will be completely torn down. When there is none left, when it is completely gone, an evil spider will come and spin a new web around the queen, and while I am enchanted here in a glass body, my wife will be spun into a web by the spider. We have now been imprisoned here for many hundreds of years, until we are redeemed.”

Indeed, an evil spider appeared and surrounded the queen with a web. But as the spider was busy, the magic horse came along and wanted to kill the spider. It was just about to put its foot on the spider when the buzzing fly worked its way out and wanted to help the spider. But the magic horse killed them both. At that moment, the king, who was made of glass, turned into a real human king, the thorny bush turned into a pretty girl, the queen was freed from the spider's web, and the glass king told everyone how it had all happened.

When he was already king, he had to suffer the persecutions of an evil witch who lived in the forest at the edge of his property. The witch wanted him to marry her daughter. But since he had taken his wife from a neighboring enchanted castle, she swore revenge. She turned him into a glass king and her daughter into a bumblebee that gnawed at his stomach. The queen was tormented by the witch herself, who turned into an evil spider and surrounded the queen with a spider web. The maid was turned into a thorn bush, and the horse he had acquired was shot by the evil witch and had the arrow lodged in its body. Now everything turned out well because the enchanted horse was freed and the others were freed as well.

Now the king asked the transformed former glass king where he could find a wife who would be good for him. He showed him the way to the neighboring enchanted castle. The golden bird flew ahead again, and when they arrived, they found a lily there. It drove the rosemary stalk away and bowed before the lily. At that moment, the lily turned into a beautiful girl who had also been enchanted, for the queen of the neighboring castle had been her sister. Now she too had been redeemed by what had happened. The king took her home with him. They had a wedding and lived in extraordinary happiness for themselves and their people. They lived long, long lives. No one knows whether they have disappeared or died since then, but they must still be alive.

So now we have another fairy tale before us, one that contains different elements. The first thing we must unlearn if we want to understand the content of true fairy tales or legends is that they are some kind of fiction created by the imagination of the people. They are never that. The first starting point for the origin of fairy tales lies in ancient times, in times when all human beings, who had not yet matured to intellectual culture, possessed a certain degree of clairvoyance, which remained as a remnant of an original clairvoyance. People who retained such clairvoyance for a long time experienced intermediate states between sleeping and waking. And when such people, who had this remnant of ancient clairvoyance, were in these intermediate states, they actually experienced the spiritual world, the spiritual world in its most diverse forms. It was not what we call a dream today. For most people today, not all, a dream is something chaotic. In those ancient times, people with this old clairvoyance experienced something very regular, so regular that the experiences were the same or at least typically similar among different people.

What actually happened to people in these intermediate states between waking and sleeping? When people are in their physical bodies, they perceive the world around them as it can be seen with physical organs of perception. But behind this is the spiritual world. In these intermediate states, it was as if a veil had been drawn away from people, namely the veil of the physical world, and the spiritual world became visible. And everything that was in the spiritual world stood in a certain relationship to what was inside human beings. It is just as it is in the physical world: you cannot see colors with your ears or hear sounds with your eyes; what is outside corresponds to what is inside. The outer senses are silent in such intermediate states, but what was inside, in the soul, became active. And just as the eye and the ear enter into relationships with the environment, so now, in these intermediate states, the individual parts of the human astral body entered into relationships with the environment. When the outer senses are silent, the soul lives on.

We initially have three members of the soul: the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, and the conscious soul. Just as the eye and ear have their different relationships to the environment, so these three members of the human soul have their very specific relationships to the environment. This makes it possible for human beings in such intermediate states to perceive one or the other part of the spiritual environment, depending on which part of the soul is directed toward the spiritual environment. Let us assume that the sentient soul is directed in particular toward the spiritual environment. Then the human being sees all those spiritual beings in his environment that are intimately connected with the ordinary forces of nature, that which lives, so to speak, in the elements of nature. He does not see the play of the forces of nature itself, but he sees what lives in the play of the forces of nature, in wind and weather and in the other processes of nature. The beings that express themselves there are seen by the human being through his sentient soul. And when the sentient soul is particularly active, it is just as if the human being were still living in the time when he could not yet use his intellectual soul or his consciousness soul. Man is then transported back and sees his surroundings as he saw them in ancient times, when he did not yet know what to do with his intellectual soul and his consciousness soul. But in those ancient times, he himself was still in intimate union with the forces of nature. He himself was still embedded in all the forces of nature. He was a being consisting only of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and a sentient soul. This is how he populated the world. He could do the same things that the beings around him can do now, who live in the lower forces of nature. They appear to him as the expression of what he once was, when human beings were such that they could uproot trees in a rushing windstorm, that they could control the weather, fog, and rain. Thus, the beings around him appear to him as he himself once was in the past, when he was enormously powerful because he had not yet distanced himself so much from the forces of nature. The figures that appear to him—which are, of course, afterimages of his own form—appear to him as humans with enormous strength. These are the “giants.” In such an intermediate state, humans see the giants as real figures, and they represent a very specific type of being to them: humans with enormous strength. But the giants are stupid because they come from a time when they could not yet use the intellectual soul. They are strong and stupid.

Let us now take what the intellectual soul can see in such intermediate states. It can see that things are already shaped according to a certain wisdom, not merely by force, as in the case of the giants. Through what the intellectual soul is, when a person lives in this intellectual soul, they see beings around them, forms that bring wisdom into everything, that arrange everything wisely. While they usually see the giants as male, they see the formations of the intellectual soul as the formative female beings that bring wisdom into things, into the turmoil of the world. These are the “wise women” who are behind things, who are creative, who shape everything. In turn, he sees in this form his own form, when he did not yet have a consciousness soul, but already had a mind soul. These beings rule wisely behind things. And because he feels deeply related to them, humans very often feel, when they are in such an intermediate state: What I see there as wise female beings is something that is actually related to me. That is why we see the concept of “sister” appear very frequently in fairy tales when these female beings appear.

Now, when a person is in such a state of consciousness, there is something else that he experiences in his soul, something that can only be grasped in a very intimate way. In such a state of soul, the human being is removed from ordinary physical perception. Now he says to himself: Yes, what I see there is actually contained in what I see during the day, what becomes clear to my intellectual soul during the day; but when I see it during the day, it is exactly the opposite. When the human being in the intermediate state remembers the impressions of the day, they appear to him reversed in relation to what he feels when he remembers the intermediate states during the day, the various fleeting figures of his astral system. Now, when he remembers the impressions of the day, it is as if what are actually the fine, ethereal forms behind ordinary reality appear to him in rigid forms. That is why objects appear to man as if they were enchanted and contained within themselves what their essence is. Wherever enchanted forms appear, whether they are enchanted in plants or in something else, this has come about in the following way: Man sees the content of a wise being that is behind the physical appearance, and he remembers: Yes, during the day this is only a plant, and it is separated from my intellectual soul, so that I cannot actually reach it during the day. When humans feel this strangeness between the objects of the day and what lies behind them, for example, the object of the day, the lily, and what lies behind it, the figure related to their own intellectual soul, then they feel the desire of their intellectual soul to connect with what lies behind the object during the day as a “marriage,” like a growing together of the night form with the day form. What the consciousness soul is, arose in man at a time when he had already distanced himself very far from the forces of nature, when he could no longer see behind the secrets of existence, so to speak. What the consciousness soul is capable of is far, far removed from those powerful forces we described earlier. Cleverness is the ability of the consciousness soul, but it is far removed from strength, from great power. With the consciousness soul, we see those spiritual beings who have remained at the stage where human beings initially had only the shell of the I. Human beings see these beings living there; they cannot do much, their powers are small. And since human beings see in images forms that correspond to their inner nature, they appear as “dwarfs.” Thus, in such intermediate periods, when human beings are free from sensory perception, the entire realm that lies behind sensory perception is populated with such figures. When human beings feel, in their higher moments, so to speak, that they have this relationship with the spiritual world, then the external events of life appear to them as they really are, as an expression of all these relationships with the spiritual world. And if a person is particularly astute in life, if they do not view life in a dry and prosaic way, but clarify for themselves the relationships of life to spiritual reality, especially in such states where people can still know something of spiritual reality, then the following can happen to them. Let us assume that he is a somewhat thoughtful person and observes that certain people are clever and, through all kinds of cleverness, overcome the raw forces that otherwise prevail in human life. Then the person says to himself: What actually happens in life, where cunning overcomes the raw forces, is thanks to those powers behind us with which we are related, and which allow a force to become conscious within us that, through intelligence, overcomes the raw forces that we ourselves still had within us when we were at the stage of giants. And the events within him appear to man as mirror images of external world events that have receded but can still be perceived in the spiritual world. The spiritual world reflects the struggles of those beings who are weaker in physical strength but have become stronger in spiritual power. Wherever the defeat of brute forces or giants occurs in fairy tales, the underlying perception is that of such an intermediate state. Man wants to enlighten himself about himself. The spiritual world has disappeared from him, but he says to himself: I can enlighten myself when I am in such an intermediate state. There I will become so wise that cleverness and cunning will triumph over brute force! - And then the powers that actually exist in the spiritual world and correspond to our powers of cleverness appear. They appear and act and enlighten man about what happens in the spiritual world.

Then the person recounts what has happened in the spiritual world, and he must recount it in such a way that he says: What I have seen and am recounting actually happened once; but it always happens behind the sensory world, in the spiritual world, where other conditions of life prevail. It may be that every time the person concerned has seen something in such a state, this event has already died out and the conditions under which such an action can take place have already passed. But it may still be there. That depends on whether someone in an intermediate state appears somewhere to observe it. It is also not here and not there, but everywhere where there is someone who can observe it. Therefore, every fairy tale that is stylistically correct must begin with: Once upon a time something happened—where was it? Yes, where was it not?

That is the correct beginning of a fairy tale. And every fairy tale must end with: I saw that once; and if what happened in the spiritual world has not perished, has not died, then it still lives today. That is exactly how every fairy tale must be told. You evoke the right feeling for what is being told when you always begin and end in this way. Let us suppose that someone, like our king in the second fairy tale, is looking for a wife. He is looking for a being who, as closely as possible in the human world, reflects what human beings can find as their archetype in the spiritual world, what can be found in the wise working of those powers that can be perceived through the intellectual soul. This cannot be found in outer life. Therefore, he must subordinate the outer human being to the inner human being. On the physical plane, human beings are subject to error. Therefore, he must allow the deeper forces to work if he wants to find something like this. He can do this if he puts himself, even today, into that intermediate state and brings himself into a relationship with the forces that work there. But these people who are the bearers of such forces live in seclusion, where they are not distracted by the great circumstances of life. Therefore, the king must go to his friend, the hermit who lives in poverty and solitude, but who knows the secret of the forces that bind human beings to the spiritual world, and who can give him the sprig of rosemary. And the king cannot find through any external events what can only be decided by his archetypes from the spiritual world. Therefore, he first dreams that the golden bird will come, and he remains in a kind of dream-waking state. And there, through that clear feeling of touching that one has when one is in the spiritual world, he goes through everything I have shown you. He gradually comes to discover, out of those forces that oppose human purity and human dignity, what has been preserved to this day: this pure possibility of happiness in human beings. He cannot be carried there by any of the forces that are bound to the physical world today, but only by a force that appears to him when the intellectual soul, or rather the inner soul force, is directed toward the spiritual world. This appears to him in the image of the magic horse. But this horse in the physical world is only the shadow image of the spiritual being behind it. The harmful soul forces in the physical world, these forces that are embodied in the physical world, have driven the arrow into the horse's body. But the moment these forces are removed, when it is freed from them, the power that enables the king to judge circumstances becomes active, so that if he does not look only at the outward appearance, he can find what is suitable for him. With his ordinary mind, he could travel far and wide in the world and find people here and there, but he would pass by the wife he is looking for, because he does not understand the circumstances that come into play and work against him. The former circumstances have been preserved.

The circumstances he seeks are there, but distorted by the external physical world, where things appear completely transformed. In the physical world, we do not have the forces in their true form at all. But in the transformed glass king, the personality that can point him to where he should seek his wife appears to him in its true form. He has been transformed by the opposing forces of the external world. And these forces assert themselves through that which entangles human beings in external world conditions. The glass king is completely entangled in external world conditions. This has changed him inwardly from what he could actually be. Human beings have things in their karma that are actually like injustices, that disturb them like an evil buzzing fly. All of this is revealed in the image, which is based on truth. One must imagine the whole situation: how, through the forces stirred up in the king, it might be possible to find what lies behind the physical appearances. When his soul forces are aroused within him and he directs them correctly, the king finds what the external physical forces conceal from him: his “wife.” An external appearance takes place, some event, let us say a courtship, but it does not take place under ordinary circumstances, but under circumstances where someone comes together with a spiritual guide, such as the hermit is for the king, who awakens deeper forces within him. This leads the person to the forces through which everything in the physical world appears untrue for a while, and which they need if they are to be enabled to see the truth. Thus we see how external circumstances are the basis, but how other states of consciousness, which bring about true seeing, are also present.

In this way, every fairy tale can basically be interpreted; but it must be interpreted from the spiritual reality that lies behind the whole fairy-tale world, and everything that appears to us in a fairy tale, even as individual features, can be found and interpreted little by little. For example, the mysterious connection that exists between the living, perceptive forces and the mysterious forces of mere life can become visible when one looks inward. It is wonderfully symbolized in the touch of the sprig of rosemary with the lily. Although finer, higher spiritual forces rest in the lily, they must first be touched by the sprig of rosemary; only then are they present.

Thus, the fairy tale world is based on the well-founded belief that everything around us is an enchanted spiritual reality and that human beings come to the truth when they dispel the enchantment of the spiritual world. Of course, we must be aware that a fairy tale is originally the reproduction of an astral event, but that it has been passed on. And people have such a talent for changing individual features! As soon as you collect fairy tales from the mouths of the people, you have the remnants of an old image seen from an astral perspective, but individual features may have been changed. The explainer can then very easily make the mistake of interpreting these added features in a particularly clever way, whereas in the correct explanation of fairy tales one must never misjudge and must accept that one must go back to the original form and recognize it. Everything corresponds to such astral experiences.

Thus, the question may arise: Was man in an earlier time, as recorded in the spiritual experiences of the intermediate states, of such a form as he is today? No, he was not. Man has gone through completely different forms and has only developed into his present form. But even what humans have overcome, what they have cast out of themselves, appears in a very specific external form. In order to alienate themselves from their enormous power, humans had to cast out these giant forms, overcome them, refine their powers, and raise them up to the intellectual soul and the conscious soul. There are also beings who have remained at the stage of raw forces. Wherever something appears to humans as bad, something that should be overcome but has remained on the astral plane, it appears as a “dragon” or something similar, which is nothing more than a grotesque form, transformed in the spiritual world, of what humans had to transform and cast out of themselves. And here, too, we must be aware that this corresponds to a very specific fact.

Now, in conclusion, I would like to tell you a fairy tale for your own reflection, which will show you the most diverse motifs we have seen playing out when humans come into contact with the astral world. And if you apply what we have said to this somewhat complicated fairy tale, you will be able to find the thread running through it almost by yourself. This fairy tale is like a synthesis, like a summary of the most diverse forces interacting with one another. Once upon a time—where was it? Yes, it could have happened anywhere, where hasn't it happened? — there lived an old king. He had three sons and three daughters. When he was dying, the king said to his three sons: Give the three daughters to the first men who come to ask for their hands, so that they do not remain unmarried. That is the first lesson I give you. The second is that you must not go to a certain place, especially not at night! And he showed them this place under a poplar tree in the forest.

When the king died, his sons sought to follow his instructions. On the first evening, something called in through the window, asking for a princess. The brothers did so and threw one sister out of the window. On the second evening, something called in again, asking for a king's daughter. So the brothers threw the second sister out of the window. And on the third evening, something called in again, asking for a king's daughter, and the brothers threw the third sister out of the window. Now they were alone.

But now they were curious and wanted to know what the poplar tree was all about. So one evening they went out and sat under the poplar tree, lit a fire, and fell asleep. The eldest had to keep watch. As he paced back and forth with his sword, something appeared that was eating the fire, and when he looked closer, it was a three-headed dragon. He began to fight the three-headed dragon. He defeated it, buried it, but told his brothers nothing about it, and the next morning they went home. The next evening they went out again. They lit a fire and lay down. This time the second brother had to keep watch. Soon he saw something eating the fire, and when he looked closer, it was a six-headed dragon. He began to fight with the six-headed dragon. He defeated it and buried it, but said nothing, and his brothers believed that nothing had happened. And they went home the next morning. On the third evening, they did the same thing, lit a fire, and this time the youngest brother had to keep watch. No sooner had the others fallen asleep and he was pacing back and forth with his sword than he saw something eating at the fire. He looked more closely and hesitated a little, and some time passed. Then he began to fight with the dragon, which was now nine-headed. But when he had defeated it, the fire had gone out. Now he did not want to surprise his brothers, so he set off to find some light. Then he saw some light between the branches; he wanted to fetch it, but it was not enough. Then he saw something fighting in the air and asked what it was, and the fighting beings said, “We are the sun and the dawn; we are fighting for the day.” So he untied the ribbon with which he had tied his leggings and tied the sun and the dawn together so that the day could not begin. Then he went on to find light and fire. He came to a place where three giants were sleeping by a mighty fire. He took some fire, but as he was trying to climb over one of the giants, some of the fire fell on the giant, who woke up. He grabbed him by the hand, showed him to the others, and said, “Look what I've caught!” The prince was extremely unhappy, for the giants wanted to kill him. But first they wanted something from him, so they made a deal with him. They wanted to get three princesses, but there was a dog and a chicken that made such a racket that they couldn't get there. The prince promised to help them, and the giants agreed to let him go in return.

A ball of thread was tied up, and the prince went on his way with it. It was agreed that each of the giants would follow him, pulling on the thread. He soon came to a river, but he couldn't cross it. Meanwhile, his brothers were still asleep. He pulled the thread, and one of the giants came along, threw a tree trunk across the river, and he was able to continue on his way. Then he came to the king's castle, where his sisters were supposed to be. He went inside and entered one of the chambers. There he saw one of the sisters. She was lying on a copper bed and had a golden ring on her finger. He took it off her, put it on his own finger, and went on. Then he came to the second chamber, where the second sister was lying on a silver bed, and she had a golden ring on her finger. He took it off and put it on himself. Then he came to the third chamber. There lay the third sister on a golden bed, and he also put her golden ring on his finger. As he looked around, he discovered that there was an entrance to the castle with a very small opening. He pulled on the thread, and the first giant came out. But at the very moment when he wanted to go through the gate, and when his head was already through but his body was still outside, he quickly cut off the giant's head. And he did the same with the second and third giants. Now he had killed the three giants. Now he returned to his brothers, after first untying the sun and the dawn. They looked at each other and said, “Oh, it was a long night!” “Yes,” he said, “it was a long night!” And he came to his brothers. But as the others had done, he told them nothing, and they went home.

After some time, the three brothers wanted to marry, and the youngest brother told the others that he knew where three princesses were and led them to that castle. The three brothers married, the youngest marrying the most beautiful, the one who had lain on the golden bed. The youngest was the heir to his father-in-law and therefore had to live in a foreign land. But after some time had passed, he wanted to visit his homeland and take his wife with him. However, his father-in-law said to him: “If you embark on this journey, your wife will be snatched from you at the border, and you may never see her again!” But they wanted to travel anyway, so they set off and took thirty travelers with them for protection. But when they reached the border, the wife was snatched away as if by an unknown force. He returned and asked his father-in-law how and where he could find his wife again. His father-in-law told him, “If you must, you can only find her in the white land.” So he set out on his journey to find his wife again. But he had no idea where the road to the white land lay. He first came to a castle and wanted to ask there where the road to the white land was. When he entered the castle, he saw the lady of the castle sitting there, and he saw that she was one of his sisters whom the brothers had thrown out of the window, and he asked about her husband. He was called in. It was a four-headed dragon, and he was asked for directions to the white land. But the four-headed dragon said he did not know where the white land was; perhaps the animals knew. The animals were called in, but none of them knew the way to the white land. So the prince went on and came to a second castle. There he found the second of his sisters, whom his brothers had given away. He asked about her husband. He was called, and he was an eight-headed dragon. But he also knew nothing of a white land. Perhaps, he said, the animals knew. The animals were called together again, but none of them knew the way to the white land, and the prince had to go on. After a while, he came to a third castle. When he entered, he found the third of the sisters there. He told her what he wanted, and she answered him very sadly. Her husband was called, and he was a twelve-headed dragon. He was asked about the white land, but he said he did not know, though it might be that one of his animals knew. The animals were called, but none of them knew the white land either. Finally, a lame wolf came. He said, “Yes, I once came to a land where I was wounded, so that I am now lame. I know the white land, alas, I know it!” Then the prince said, “I want to be taken there!” “But the wolf would not, even if he were promised whole flocks of sheep. Finally, however, he agreed to lead the prince's son far enough that he could see the white land from a mountain. They came to this mountain, and there the lame wolf left him. The prince's son came upon a spring. He drank from it and felt wonderfully refreshed by the water. Then a woman came up, whom he immediately recognized as his kidnapped wife. And she, who also recognized him at once, said to him, “You cannot win me back, for if you did, the sorcerer who now has me as his wife would immediately come and take me back on his magic horse. He can fly through the air as fast as a thought!” The prince said, ‘Yes, what shall we do then?’ She replied, ”There is a way, and that is: we must have a faster horse. Go to the old woman who lives on the border of the country. You will hire yourself out as a servant to her. She will give you difficult tasks to do, but you will see how you can succeed; and you will ask for your wages the youngest foal and a saddle, and you will tell the old woman: the one lying on the floor, covered in chicken manure—and thirdly, you will ask for a very old bridle!

With these instructions, the prince set off and came to a stream. As he rested there, he saw a fish lying on the bank of the stream. It begged him, “Take me and throw me back into the water, and you will do me a great favor!” He did so, but as he was about to do so, the little fish gave him a whistle and said to him, “If you ever need anything, just take the whistle and blow it, and I will do you a service!” He took the whistle and went on his way. After a while, he came upon an ant being pursued by its enemy, a spider. He freed the ant, and the ant gave him a whistle and told him that if he ever found himself in need and blew the whistle, help would come to him. He put it in his pocket and went on his way. Soon he came upon a fox. It was wounded and had a silver arrow in it; and the fox said to him, “If you pull out the arrow and give me some comfrey for my wound, you will be helped in a difficult situation!” The prince did so, and the fox gave him another pipe. With these three pipes, the prince went to the old woman at the border of the country. He told her that he wanted to be her servant. “You can do that,” she said, “but my service is very hard; no one has ever been able to do it. And with that, she took him out into the field. There were ninety-nine people hanging there. The old woman said, “These are all those who have been hired by me as servants, but none of them can do the work. So if you feel like it and don't succeed, you can be the hundredth!” But he hired himself out to her for a year, but in that region, a year is only three days. On the first day, the old woman cooked him a dream soup, and then she sent him away with three horses. But he had drunk the dream soup, and so he soon fell asleep, and when he woke up again, the three horses were gone. He thought of the pipes, took out the first pipe, and blew it. There was now a kind of spring at that spot. Three little goldfish swam up, and when he touched them, they turned into the three horses. He took the horses back to the old woman. She was the one who had turned the horses into goldfish in the first place. When she saw him with the horses, she scolded him and threw herself from one side to the other.

The next day, the old woman cooked him another dream soup and sent him away with the horses. He fell asleep again from the dream soup, and when he awoke, the horses were gone. So he blew the second whistle, and at that moment three golden ants appeared. When he touched them, they were his three horses again, which he now brought back to the old woman. The old woman became very angry because she had enchanted the horses herself, and she scolded the horses even more. But the prince was saved.

On the third day, the old woman said to herself: Now I must be much more clever! She cooked him another dream soup and sent him out with the horses. When he fell asleep from the dream soup, she turned the horses into three golden eggs, which she placed under her own seat and sat on them. The prince awoke, the horses were gone, and he blew the third whistle, and—now think how clever it all seems—the fox came running. The fox said, “This time it's a bit more difficult, but we'll do it. I'll go to the chicken coop and make a great racket. The old woman will jump out, and at that moment you touch the three golden eggs under her seat; and when you touch them, they will be transformed. And so it came to pass. The fox went to the chicken coop, made a great noise there, the old woman jumped up, ran out, the prince touched the golden eggs, and when the old woman came back, the three horses were there. Now the old woman had no choice but to ask the prince, “What will you have as your reward?” She thought he would want something very special. He said, “I only want the foal that was born tonight, along with the saddle that is on the floor, covered with chicken droppings, and an old bridle.” He got what he asked for. The horse was still small. He had to carry it on his back. When evening came, the little horse said, “Now you can sleep for a while; I want to go to a spring and drink some water.” In the morning it came back. On the second day it could already run at tremendous speed. The second night was the same as the first. And on the third day, it led him to the place where his wife had been enchanted. There, his wife was placed on the little horse, and—this is a passage that is deeply revealing of the occult origin of the fairy tale to anyone who knows the story—the prince said, “How fast will we now fly through the air?” And his wife replied: “With the speed of thought.” When the unlawful owner noticed this, he also mounted his magic horse to follow them. Then the horse asked him, “At what speed shall we travel through the air?” And he said, “At the speed of will or thought!” It rushed after them, came closer and closer, and when it was very close, the horse said to the one in front that it should wait. “I will wait until you are very close,” was the reply. At that moment, the other horse reared up and threw the robber off, joining the first horse, and the queen was freed. Now the king's son could return with his wife, and they lived happily ever after in their land. And if the story has not faded from memory, they are still alive today.

This is now a different, somewhat more complicated fairy tale that contains a wide variety of features. Until we are in a position to say more about the interpretation of this particular fairy tale, let us allow it to sink into our souls so that we can unravel for ourselves the various features that come together so wonderfully in this fairy tale. Of course, what has been added through false tradition will have to be discarded. But if you look at it according to the principle that has been described today, you will be able to find the thread running through everything that appears here: the dragon motif, the motif of the three sisters who are cast out, the motif of overcoming the dragons by fire, the motif of cleverness, the motif of the marriage of the intellectual soul with the outer world; and now, once again in a unique way, the motif of cleverness in the form of subtle magical powers. Then Nemesis, karma, appears in a strange way when the king's son confronts his sisters again: the three brothers have cast out their higher sisterly nature, hence the slaying of the dragon by fire, and so on. Such fairy tales are experiences of people from the common people who are in such intermediate states. Similarly, the great myths of the gods of the peoples are representations of what the initiates experience on the astral plane and the higher planes. Fairy tales relate to the great myths of the peoples in the following way: We can reveal the great myths of the peoples if we take the great, comprehensive conditions of the cosmos as our basis, and we reveal the fairy tales if we take the secrets of the people as our basis. Everything in fairy tales appears in such a way that the various events and images are nothing other than retellings of astral experiences. All human beings had such astral experiences in a certain primeval time. Then they became rarer and rarer. Some people told them to others, others took them up, and so fairy tales migrated from region to region. They appeared in a wide variety of languages, and we noticed the similarity of the treasure trove of fairy tales throughout the world when we were able to extract the astral experiences underlying them.

Anyone who wanders through the world today as a sensible person can still find the last remnants of atavistic clairvoyance. Here and there, someone will come up to them and tell them what they have seen in the astral world as their own experiences. Such a person, wandering through the countries in this way, can then hear about those who still have an inkling of the true reality, the fairy tales. This is how they are recorded in our books. This is how the Brothers Grimm collected fairy tales. This is how others collected them, most of whom were not clairvoyants themselves, but received the fairy tales from third, fourth, fifth, and sometimes even tenth hand, so that they came to them in a manifold distorted form. But the time of twilight was drawing to a close, when people still had their intimate connection with the spiritual world, which has just been characterized. People are increasingly withdrawing from this spiritual world. Atavistic clairvoyance is becoming rarer and rarer, at least that which can be described as healthy, and true clairvoyance will increasingly be something that can only be attained through training. And of what people saw in ancient times, most people who still know something about these things will be able to say in a certain future: Once upon a time, old people told this or that from their astral experiences. Where was it? It could have been anywhere. But today you will rarely find anyone who can tell you about it from a real source. And one will be able to say of fairy-tale experiences: They happened once—and if they have not died, these fairy-tale experiences, they still live today. But for most people who are inwardly entangled with the physical plane, they died long ago.