The Good Bargain
Now to the
anti-Semitic fairy tales (as collected by the Brothers Grimm).
Fairy tale No. 7: Der
gute Handel (The Good Bargain).
The story is a bit lengthy, but it boils down to a farmer making
something stupid, then making something else even more stupid, then getting beaten
up and finally complaining about all this to the King. His stupidity makes the
King’s daughter loudly laugh (which she never did). The King was so happy about
this that he promised the farmer his daughter. But the farmer (stupidly) denied
the offer which made the King very angry. So he promised him a different ‘reward’,
namely 500, which he will receive in three days.
The farmer thought that the king had promised him 500 in (valuable) Curant
Coins - whose value was defined by the metal they were made of, i.e. good hard money.
Now, the farmer was approached by a guard who overheard the conversation
and he pressed him for some of the reward because in any case 500 would be far too
much for the farmer to deal with. The farmer agreed and promised him 200 that
the guard could collect in three days.
This was overheard by a greedy merchant who then also approached the
farmer who addressed him as ‘Meuschel’. The merchant offered him the deal that
he would be willing to exchange the remaining 300 (unfavorably heavy) ‘hard
coins’ immediately with (the better) ‘light coins’ (so-called Scheidemünzen
whose ‘metal value’ was lower than their nominal value, i.e. the material they
were made of was of lower value). The farmer agreed to this deal (for he surely
liked immediate reward) and allowed the merchant to collect his 300 (hard
coins) from the King in three days.
The Guard, the Farmer and the Jewish Merchant
Von Hermann Vogel (1854-1921) -
https://archive.org/stream/kinderundgesamme00grim#page/n5/mode/2up, Gemeinfrei,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17401773 |
Mauschel: comes from Moshe, Mosche, Moyshe, Moses. In Germany, the word ‘mauscheln’ originally meant: to speak like a Jew, i.e. Yiddish. The other connotation is to engage in unlawful agreements, to make a secret deal in disfavor of another party. The word ‘mauscheln’ is even used nowadays (probably not knowing the origin of the word).
In the 3rd edition from 1819, the Grimms replaced the name
‘Mauschel’ with ‘Jew’.
As the story continues …
all
three of them went to the King after 3 days ... and the guard and the Jew got
the real (intended) ‘reward’, i.e. beatings. (Well, the guard was brave, the
Jew screamed).
The farmer was again rewarded by the King, but later on at a pub, the
farmer complained about all this to himself (could this possibly have been too
low of a reward?). This was again overheard by the Jew who then wanted to
discredit him to the king. … there is one more twist in the story …. but
finally, at least one of them needs to be guilty, the farmer or the Jew, both
standing before the King, and as you can imaging, the Jew got another fine
‘reward’ while the farmer got his ‘good reward’ and went happily home.
The moral of the story:
Jews a
greedy, sneaky, sniveling, and devious – and all of that deserves punishment.
But surprisingly, this tale was not the best suited for NAZI purposes
since it depicts the farmer as rather stupid, in contrast to the NAZI ideology
of Blood and Soil and Germans being brave heroes.
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