Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2009] WHEN FAIRY TALES KILL 189
the Grimms’ stories reflect the folk beliefs of the times. Yet the Grimms’
efforts may have single-handedly transported antisemitic folktales into the
nineteenth century.
“Legend telling is often a fundamentally political act,” observes folklorist
Bill Ellis (1991, xiv). Kamenetsky (1992) observed that the Grimms
enhanced the lore to better reflect German values and social mores and
character, particularly emphasizing ordung, fleiss, and sparsamkeit (order,
diligence, and thriftiness) (Lipson 2001). Violence was not unknown, and in
general, themes favored poverty over wealth, peasant wisdom over sophisticated
outsiders. Conversely, all things non-German were lampooned,
degraded, or viewed as suspect (Zipes 2002). Consistent with the social
narrative of the times, Jews were portrayed as a negative, undermining
force. Six of the Grimm Brothers fables appear below.
The Good Cloth
A Jewish trader buys a magic cloth from a girl. Anything wrapped in the
cloth will turn to gold. He enters the scene with a street cry such as could
be heard in any town. “Fine new cloths fore sale or exchange against the
old ones, come and see my wares!” Then the Jew turns into a dog, the
two girls become hens, the hens turn into people once more and batter the
dog to death.
Judel, the Jew Ghost
If the Judel won’t let the children sleep, give him something to play with.
When children laugh in their sleep, or open and turn their eyes, we say
the Judel plays with them. Buy without bearing down the price asked, a
new little pot, pour into it out of the child’s bath and set it in the oven: in
a few days the Judel will have sucked every drop out. Sometimes eggshells,
out of which the yolk has been blown into the child’s pap and the
mother’s caudle, are hung on the cradle by a thread, for the Judel to play
with instead of with the child . . .in a lying-in room lay a straw out of the
women’s bed at every door, and neither ghost nor Judel can get in. . .
when cows growl in the night, the Judel is playing with them.
The Sun Will Bring It to Light—abridged
A tailor’s apprentice was traveling about the world in search of work, and
at one time he could find none, and his poverty was so great that he had
not a farthing to live on. Presently he met a Jew on the road, and as he
thought he would have a great deal of money about him, the tailor thrust
God out of his heart, fell on the Jew, and said, give me your money, or I
will strike you dead. Then said the Jew, grant me my life, I have no
money but eight farthings. But the tailor said, money you have, and it
shall be produced, and used violence and beat him until he was near
death. And when the Jew was dying, the last words he said were, the
bright sun will bring it to light, and thereupon he died. . . . but before