The Willful Child

He was lowered into a grave and covered with earth, but his little arm suddenly came forth and reached up, and it didn't help when they put it back in and put fresh earth over it, for the little arm always came out again. So the mother herself had to go to the grave and beat the little arm with a switch, and as soon as she had done that, it withdrew, and the child finally came to rest beneath the earth.

• Source: Das eigensinnige Kind, Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales -- Grimms' Fairy Tales), no. 117.

• Although the Grimms' precise source is unknown, this tale, usually told as a local legend, is widely distributed throughout northern Germany. For more examples see The Hand from the Grave.

• Translated by D. L. Ashliman. © 2000.

• This tale, in a slightly different version, was introduced to the Grimms' collection in vol. 2 of the first edition (1815, no. 31). One small but significant change: The first edition states only that the child "became ill," not that "God ... caused him to become ill," as recorded in later editions.

• I have arbitrarily assigned male gender to the child, whose sex cannot be determined by the German text.

• Titles used by other translators: "The Stubborn Child," "The Wayward Child," "The Naughty Child."

Related links

• D. L. Ashliman's folktexts, a library of folktales, folklore, fairy tales, and mythology.

• The Grimm Brothers' Home Page.

• The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales (Grimms' Fairy Tales).

• The Hand from the Grave. Additional folk legends of Aarne-Thompson type 779 about parent beaters' hands that refuse to remain buried.