King Thrushbeard

King Thrushbeard is a very popular German fairy tale published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. They first published this story in the first edition of Kinder-und Hausmarchen, and then later, they published a slightly modified version in the second edition that was issued in 1819.

Summary of the Story: King Thrushbeard

The story is about a very pretty princess who, even though very beautiful, was also very arrogant and unkind whose father, the King, is trying to find her a suitor to marry, but the princess very brutally rejects everyone. She insults every suitor present by commenting something demeaning related to their appearances.

She calls one too tall, one too pale, one too fat and one too short. She also insults the first prince in line, who has a crooked jaw and ends up laughing at him, compared to King Thrushbeard. Her unkind and arrogant behaviour ends up angering her father, the king.

The Princess and the Suitors

Angered, the King announces that he will marry her off to the first beggar that shows up at the place’s gates. A few days later, a beggar does come, asking for a prize in return for the song he sings in front of the King and his daughter. In the end, the king ends up marrying the princess off to the beggar, as he had initially announced.

The princess has no choice but to follow her father’s words and is sent off to the palace to live with the beggar who is now her husband.

The Beggar and the Princess on Their Way Through the Forest

On the way to the beggar's house, the newly formed couple go through a large beautiful forest, a large meadow, and a large town upon seeing the beautiful forest, meadow and town the princess asks the beggar to whom do all these beautiful, and large lands belong to? It turns out that all of that belongs to King Thrushbeard, whom she had rejected brutally. Upon hearing this, the unfortunate girl starts singing about her bad luck and how she should have chosen the Thrushbeard king. All throughout the journey, she did nothing but sang about her misfortune.

Upon reaching their destination, the girl realises that her new home is a very small and shabby hut deep in the forest; this upsets her even more, making her realise how she brought this upon herself. In the home, she is expected to do all the housework by her husband, but she ends up not knowing how to do any of the chores around the household, which makes her husband have to help, and this is how they barely make it through.

A few days later, the husband asks her to weave baskets in order to earn some money, but the plan fails, making him turn to other alternatives, like spinning the wheel or selling pots, but the wife is not capable of doing any of those works. Thus, in the end, the husband asks her to get a job in the palace kitchen as an assistant.

The wife does get that job which is not easy and makes her realise how bad of a person she had been. One day it is a huge celebration in the palace, it is the marriage of the king, and she is also present as the maid in her dirty clothes with jars in her pocket filled with leftovers.

Later in the event, she finds out that it is King Thrushbeard who is getting married, and she feels ashamed to face him again. Thus, she tries running away, but the king tries pulling her back into the hall, which makes the strings holding her pockets together break, making all the soup in the jar fall, making everyone present, embarrassing her even further.

She tries even harder to leave, but the king stops her and tells her how the beggar and he are the same person, how he disguised himself as a beggar to correct the foul attitude. This makes the girl feel bad and not worthy of being the king’s wife. But in the end, she realises her mistake and  suddenly becomes a princess by marrying the king and then living happily after.

Moral of the Story: King Thrushbeard

The moral of the story is that one should not be arrogant and unkind to anyone. No matter how beautiful or pretty someone is, in the end, what matters is inner beauty; that is, one should be king and down to earth to be considered a good person; that is what true beauty is. The story also teaches us not to judge anyone based on their looks and outer appearance. Everyone is beautiful as long as they are nice too and respect everyone around them.

Conclusion 

In this article, we discussed a story named King Thrushbeard; it is a story about a very unkind and arrogant princess who rejects every suitor, which ends up angering her father, who then announces that he will marry his daughter off to a beggar. After the marriage, the princess is made to leave the palace and live with her husband, doing that she struggles a lot and realises her mistake.

Later we find out that the beggar is none other than King Thrushbeard himself, who had disguised himself as a beggar to teach the princess a lesson. Once the princess realises, they live happily ever after.