The Brothers Grimm’s Fairy Tale, ‘The Riddle’

Bolstered by wisdom, the king’s son sets out on a adventure and encounters a riddle.

A 19th-century bronze statue of the Brothers Grimm in Hanau, Germany, marks the beginning of Germany’s Fairy Tale Road. In this story, the Brothers tell a tale of the importance of wisdom. Rolf G. Wackenberg/Shutterstock

As they grow, children are told to be good. Such advice should also be followed by the admonition to be wise. The Brothers Grimm show in their fairy tale “The Riddle“ that wisdom bolsters goodness and preserves it in a scheming world.

Like many youths, the king’s son desires to go on an adventure. Accompanied by a loyal servant, he sets out to experience the world.

One evening during their adventure, the prince and servant find themselves in the middle of a great forest, unsure of their way and without shelter for the night. Luckily, as they ponder their unfortunate situation, the prince notices a house among the trees. Though this house belongs to a witch, he still decides to spend the night, since he and his servant have nowhere else to stay.

Despite not being afraid of the witch, the prince and his servant practice wisdom and prudence, heeding the witch’s stepdaughter’s warnings. She warns them against eating or drinking anything, “for the old woman [brews] evil drinks.” The night in the house goes by without any problems.

The next morning, the witch tries to entrap the prince and his servant by offering a drink before they leave. But, when she returns with the drinks, she finds the prince gone. She approaches the servant, who is still preparing his horse, and tells him to take the drink to his master.

But before the servant can, the glass suddenly breaks. The drink lands on the servant’s horse and it falls down dead. Startled, the servant runs after the prince to tell him what happened.

The servant returns to retrieve his saddle, only to find a raven eating the dead horse. He kills the raven for food, then follows after the prince.

Strengthened by Wisdom

The prince and servant continue on. By nightfall, they find an inn to stay for the night. They enter, procure rooms, and give the innkeeper their raven, asking him to prepare it for their dinner.

Little do the prince and servant know that the inn is run by murderers and thieves, who are friends of the witch from the forest. Along with the witch, these robbers intend to murder and rob the prince and his servant of all they have.

Before they carry out their dastardly plan, the robbers and evil stepmother take the raven, cook it, and eat it themselves. However, because the raven ate the poisoned horse, the witch and thieves die from that same poison.

Having survived two dangerous ordeals, the prince and his servant travel on. They soon come to a town in which a beautiful, proud princess lives. Immediately taken by the princess’s beauty, the prince seeks to win her hand.

To win the princess’s hand, the prince must “set her a riddle which she [cannot] guess ... but if she [guesses] it, his head must be cut off.” The prince is determined to win her, so he gives her a riddle and hopes she won’t guess it.

Through this story, children can come to understand that, as they search for adventure, they should always seek goodness and reinforce this goodness with wisdom.

Wisdom sees the evil in the world as it truly is, and properly combats it with goodness and justice. Hand-in-hand, goodness bolsters and beautifies wisdom, while wisdom allows goodness to flourish.

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