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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