The tale was collected by the Brothers Grimm from a man named Hans Truffer from Visp. The tale was included in the 1819 edition of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen, replacing the earlier Der gestiefelte Kater.
Synopsis
A count's only son could learn nothing. Three times the count sent him for a year to famous masters. Each time, the son came back: saying first that he knew what dogs said when they barked; the next time, what birds said; and finally, what frogs said. Infuriated by his uselessness, his father ordered his people to take him to the woods and kill him, but they sympathised with him, and instead brought the count the eyes and tongue of a deer as proof of his death. 's Europa's Fairy Book. On his wanderings, he liberated an area from haunting by dogs, by raising a treasure from under a tower, which he could do because he understood their language. The lord of the castle asked him to do so, and he came out with a chest of gold, and the lord adopted him as a son. He went to Rome. In Rome, the Pope had died, and the cardinals wanted him as the Pope's successor, as two doves had sat on his shoulders as a divine sign. On his journey, listening to the frogs had made him sad and thoughtful. He consented to his appointment, as the doves advised him to do. When he had to read Mass, the doves whispered how to do it in his ear.
Analysis
The tale is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as ATU 671, "The Three Languages". Stith Thompson argues that the tale is sometimes confused with ATU 517, "The Boy Who Learned Many Things". Joseph Jacobs attempted to reconstruct a protoform of the tale in his Europa's Fairy Book, titled The Language of Animals. In his commentaries, the folklorist argues that the story's original format involves a prophecy that the boy would become pope or king. Scholars Johannes Bolte and Jiri Polívka suggested the ATU 671, ATU 517 and ATU 725 types comprised an original single tale. Professor Ralph Steele Boggs lists as a Spanish variant of the ATU 671 the work of Lope de Vega: Novela 6, El Pronóstico Cumplido. Johann Georg von Hahn collected a variant from Greece, named Von einem, der die Vogelsprache erlernte.. The ending of the story harks back to similar legendary tales behind historical papacies, such as Pope Innocent III or Pope Sylvester II, or in fictional tales, such as Gregorius. Sir James Frazer listed some variants of the papacy prophecy connected to tale collection Seven Sages of Rome, and variations on the form of acquisition of animal speech. The story falls under the folklore motif of "The Outcast Child", i.e., the hero or heroine is expelled from home, but later rises through the ranks of society and returns home victorious.
Cultural references
The story is a classic example of the archetypal hero's progress through life. In , there is a rendition of the tale. For the Count's son; learning and education has meaning to the beholder, and in some cases, only to the beholder. In addition, there is an expectation that knowledge is power and can allow the beholder of knowledge to become self-sufficient/self-reliant.
