Grimm Fairy Tales: The Hand With The Knife & The 12 Brothers

We continue bringing much needed fairy tales to our all-to-real world with this duo from The Brothers Grimm.

Written in the early 1800s and first published in 1812, each of these short tales tell how our behavior creates consequences. 

These tales also remind us of the supernatural, the creatures of legend, elves, fairies, angels, witches, heavenly intervention.

And these tales remind us how far out-of-touch our modern world is from imagination, Mother Nature.

What is a constant between these tales and today is the breadth of human behavior- from the most noble to the most horrific, from selflessness to sheer selfishness!

Enjoy, and may my gentle readings bring you a few moments of the world as seen by The Brothers Grimm.

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

I'm taking some risks to connect with you,

Hip.

Hello and welcome to this episode of Confessions of a Mid-Centurion.

September 29th,

2025.

Today I continue reading fairy tales.

As I mentioned as I began this series of my readings from the Brothers Grimm original folk and fairy tales,

I think the world right now is all too real and fairy tales with some perhaps behavioral modification,

Themes and morals are just plain fun,

Just plain almost dream-like,

Are probably quite welcome at least in the circles that I know.

I also want to thank all the people who have subscribed and who are listening.

We are now touching about 14 or 15 different countries and I welcome them all and I hope you enjoy these today as well.

Today I'm going to read to you two fairy tales from the original Brothers Grimm.

The first one is The Hand with the Knife and then after that we'll talk about and read about the Twelve Brothers.

So,

Without further ado on this Monday evening,

September 29th,

2025,

We continue onward.

This is fairy tale number eight in the series,

The Hand with the Knife by the Brothers Grimm.

There once was a little girl who had three brothers and the boys meant the world to her mother.

Yet the little girl was always neglected,

Treated badly and forced to go out early in the morning every day to dig up peat from the dry ground on the heath,

Which they then used for making fires and for cooking.

And to top it all off,

She was given an old blunt shovel to perform this nasty,

Nasty work with.

But,

This little girl had an admirer who was an elf and this elf lived in a hill near her mother's house.

And whenever she went by the hill,

The elf would stretch out his hand from the rocky slope and offer her a knife that had miraculous powers and that could cut through anything.

She used this knife to cut out the peat and would finish her work quickly.

Then she would return home happily with the necessary load and when she walked by the rocky slope,

She would knock twice and the hand would reach out and take back the knife.

When the mother noticed how swiftly and easily she came back home with the peat,

She told the girl's brothers that there must be someone helping her,

Otherwise it would be impossible for her to complete that work so fast.

So the brothers crept after her and watched her receive the magic knife.

They overtook her and they forced her to give the knife to them.

And then they returned to the rocky slope and knocked the way she had always done on the elf's door and when the good elf stretched out his hand,

The brothers cut it off with his very own knife.

The bloody arm drew back and since the elf believed that his beloved had betrayed him,

The elf was never seen again after that.

So there's a kind of a love story,

If you will,

A helping hand,

Literally,

Sorry about that pun,

And if you don't know what peat is,

P-E-A-T,

It is a cooking material,

You know,

It's something that grows in the peat fields and the bogs and it was used as a fuel.

It would do a slow burn on a fire or a furnace or a fireplace.

So that was peat.

So the hand with the knife,

Now it's the elf without the hand.

What that story is all about?

Appreciation.

Being careful doing your work.

Watch who you trust.

I guess also watch your back.

I mean,

Those brothers were nasty and the poor elf disappeared with a broken heart.

We never know what love is,

Do we?

We move on.

The Twelve Brothers by the Brothers Grimm.

Once upon a time,

There was a king who had twelve children,

All boys.

Moreover,

He didn't want to have a daughter and said to his wife,

If you ever give birth to our thirteenth child and it's a girl,

I shall have the twelve boys killed.

That's a nasty guy.

However,

If it's a boy,

Then they'll all remain alive and stay together.

The queen thought of talking him out of this,

But the king refused to hear anything more about this topic.

If everything turns out like I said,

They must die,

I'd rather chop off their heads myself and let a girl be amongst them.

The queen was sad about this because she loved her sons with all her heart and didn't know how she could save them.

And finally she went to the youngest,

Who was her favorite,

And revealed to him what the king had decided.

Dearest child,

She said,

Go into the forest with your eleven brothers.

Stay there.

Don't come home.

One of you should keep watch on a tree and look over here toward the tower.

If I give birth to a little son,

I will raise a white flag on top of the tower.

However,

If it's a little girl,

I'll raise a red flag.

If you all see that it's red,

Then save yourselves.

Flee into the wild world and may our dear lord protect you all.

I'll get up every night and pray that you won't freeze in the winter and able to warm yourselves by a fire and that when it's hot in the summer,

You all can rest in a cool forest and sleep.

So after the queen gave her blessing to her sons,

They went out into the forest where they frequently looked toward the tower.

One of them had to sit on top of a high tree and constantly keep watch all the time.

And soon,

A flag was hoisted.

But it wasn't a white one.

It was a blood-red flag that foreshadowed their doom.

As soon as the brothers caught sight of it,

They all became angry and cried out,

Why should we lose our lives because of a girl?

Then they all swore to remain in the middle of the forest and to keep on their guard,

And if a maiden were to appear,

They would kill her without mercy.

A lot of killing today,

Folks.

Sorry about that.

Soon after this,

They searched for a cave where the forest was the darkest and that's where they began to live.

Every morning,

Eleven of the brothers went out to hunt.

One of them had to remain home,

Cook,

And keep house.

Whenever they encountered a maiden,

She was treated without mercy and lost to life.

This is how they lived for many years.

In the meantime,

Their little sister grew up and was the only child left at home.

One day there was a large amount of washing to do and amongst the clothes there were twelve shirts for boys.

Whose shirts are these?

The princess asked the washerwoman.

They're much too small for my father.

It was then that the washerwoman told her that she had once had twelve brothers,

But they had all mysteriously gone away.

Nobody knew where because the king had wanted to have them killed and the twelve shirts belonged to those twelve brothers.

The little sister was astonished that she had never heard of her twelve brothers.

And during the afternoon,

As the clothes were drying and she was sitting in the meadow,

She recalled the words of the washerwoman and after giving considerable thought to what she had heard,

She stood up,

Took the twelve shirts and went into the forest where her brothers were living.

The little sister made her way straight to the cave that served as her brother's dwelling.

Eleven of them were out hunting and only one of them,

Who had to cook,

Was at home that day.

And when he caught sight of the maiden,

He composed himself and he drew his sword as they were killing every maiden they saw.

Kneel down,

He said.

Your red blood will flow this very second.

But the maiden pleaded,

Dear sir,

Let me live.

I'll stay with you and serve you honestly.

I will cook and I will keep house.

She spoke these words to the youngest brother and he took pity on her because of her beauty and spared her life.

Later,

When his eleven brothers returned home and were astonished to find a maiden alive in their cave,

He said to them all,

Dear brothers,

This girl came to our cave and when I wanted to cut her to pieces,

She pleaded for her life so much and said that she would serve us faithfully and keep house that I spared her life.

The others thought about this and said that this would be a great benefit to them because now all twelve of them could go hunting and they were satisfied with this arrangement.

And then the maiden showed them the twelve shirts and told them that she was their sister.

And indeed they were all very happy about this and were glad that they didn't kill her.

Now the little sister took over all the household chores and when the brothers went out hunting,

She gathered wood and herbs,

Kept the fire going,

Made up the beds nice and white and clean and did everything with zeal and without ever getting tired.

And one day,

When she was finished with all the work,

She took a walk in the woods and came to a place where there were twelve large beautiful white lilies.

Since they pleased her so much,

She plucked all twelve of these flowers.

And no sooner did she do this that an old woman stood before her.

Oh,

My daughter,

She said,

Why didn't you let the twelve budding flowers just stand there?

They're your twelve brothers and now they've been changed into ravens and are lost forever.

The little sister began to weep and said,

Isn't there any way that I can save them?

No,

There isn't any way in the world except one that's so difficult you won't be able to ever rescue them.

You must spend the next twelve years without ever speaking a word and if you say one single word,

Even if there's only an hour left in the twelve years,

Everything will be in vain and your brothers will die that very moment.

Well,

The little sister,

Having learned about this terrible curse that this witch had put on her eleven brothers,

Responded by climbing a tall tree in the forest where she took a place.

She wanted to sit there twelve years without saying a word to free her brothers.

But it so happened that a king was out riding and hunting in the forest and as he rode by the tree,

His dog stood still and barked.

So the king stopped,

Looked up and was very amazed at the princess's beauty.

He called to her and asked her whether she wanted to become his wife.

However,

She remained silent and only nodded a bit with her head.

She couldn't speak.

So the king himself dismounted,

Helped her down from the tree,

Lifted her up before him onto his horse.

Then he brought her home to his beautiful castle and meanwhile,

The princess did not utter one word and the king thought that she was mute,

That she couldn't speak,

As opposed to the fact that she wasn't speaking because she wanted to save her brothers.

They would have lived happily with one another if it hadn't been for the king's mother who began to slander the young queen right in front of her son,

The king.

Oh,

She's just a common beggar that you dug up from nowhere and she's doing the most disgraceful things behind your back.

That's a terrible thing for the king's mother to say about the new queen.

Since the young queen could not defend herself,

The king was led astray and finally believed what his mother had said.

So,

He sentenced his wife to death and an enormous fire was built in the courtyard where she was to be burned to death.

Soon,

The queen was standing in the flames that grazed the fringes of her dress.

One minute only was left before the 12 years of her silence would be completed and she would save her 12 brothers.

There was a noise in the air and 12 ravens swooped down into the courtyard.

As soon as they touched the ground,

They all became 12 handsome princes who instantly put out the fire's flames and led their beloved sister to safety.

Then she spoke out once again and told the king how everything had happened and how she had to save her 12 brothers by being silent.

And indeed,

They were all pleased that everything turned out so well.

And now,

They had to decide what they should do with the evil mother-in-law.

Well,

They stuck her into a barrel full of boiling oil and poisonous snakes.

Excuse me,

I'm laughing at the ending.

And she died a ghastly death.

So,

The 12 brothers.

And at the end,

The queen who was down-mouthing the young princess who became the queen for the king fell in love with her but she couldn't talk because she wanted to get the 12 brothers out of the curse from the wicked witch.

What they did to that evil mother-in-law?

They stuck her into a barrel full of boiling oil and poisonous snakes and she died a ghastly death.

That's a terrible thing.

Anyhow,

I believe at one time I said 11 brothers but there were 12 the whole time.

And I'm just thinking about the barrel full of boiling oil and poisonous snakes.

I don't know if poisonous snakes would survive inside a boiling oil barrel.

But,

Hey,

It's a fairy tale.

So,

That's fairy tale number 9.

The hand with the knife.

And number 12,

The 12 brothers.

Number 8,

Number 9,

The 12 brothers,

Sorry.

We've now done 9 of them.

And on Friday we'll do a couple more.

And I hope you get something out of these.

Interesting stories.

Gory stories,

Really.

But a lot of heroics in there.

A lot of human behavior.

The good,

The bad,

And the ugly,

As they say.

And I'm enjoying revisiting these Brothers Grimm's because I haven't read these since I was like an adolescent.

And they hit me a lot differently than they used to hit me.

They're fantastic stories.

They're parables on human behavior and how we can correct ourselves to do the right thing.

They touch upon the supernatural.

We've had the Virgin Mary involved,

And witches,

And elves,

And all kinds of things.

So,

Who knows what's going on today?

And it's a noisy world,

And yet it's so less colorful than the world of the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales.

Where are all the elves?

Where are the 12 brothers who are going to come save us all?

Anyhow,

Happy Monday,

Happy week.

We're going to go into autumn.

Next time we talk,

It's going to be.

.

.

Well,

We're in autumn already.

Next time we're going to talk,

It's going to be October.

So,

Enjoy it all.

This episode of Confessions of a Mid-Centurion.

Fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm and with the knives and the 12 brothers.

It's going to play itself out.

More to come by Friday.

Wish you all the very best.

Again,

Thank you for subscribing,

Liking,

Sharing,

Commenting,

Pining in any way,

Shape,

Matter,

Or form.

Subscribe if you want to.

I'm trying to keep this all free.

So far,

So good.

We're playing it out.

Bye all.

I'm taking some risks to connect with you here.

We don't know how we got on this ship.

Together.

This juggernaut of excess seems a soggy lip joint.

There is no final landing field.

This journey is the point.

Where are all the elves?

There's no grand finale.

Don't you understand?

The heroic 12 brothers.

This ain't no opening number.

And I ain't no headline man.

Rest well,

America and around the world.

And hello to you out there in Cambodia,

Los Angeles.

That's the smallest things are the biggest things.

And this is still not,

This is still not everything.

Oh,

No.

Oh,

Yeah.