Saturday 21 March 2009

Kywitt, kywitt!





"My mother she killed me,
My father he ate me,
My sister, little Marlinchen,
Gathered together all my bones,
Tied them in a silken handkerchief,
Laid them beneath the juniper tree,
Kywitt, kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!"


(Extract from "The Juniper Tree" from Grimm's Fairy Tales. I'm rediscovering many loved old treasures, post-move; like this 1975 edition, in near perfect condition. Apparently, mine since I was 2.5yrs. Contains some truly frightening engravings.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Never heard of this fairy tale before and had to look it up first.
Seems to be an especially cruel one to me.
"Von dem Machandelboom" is the title (just learned that) in what we call "Low German", a dialect I am not really familiar with.
Thank you for mentioning this!
For some reason it will be necessary that I learn more about it.

Is the slide-show with your flickr photos something you installed only recently ?
On browsing it I chose "moon-tree" as my favorite (for today).
This is magic, bcr! *smile

You should write a poem going with this one.
Please let me know, in case you do so.