How’s your day looking? Bright, crisp and full of opportunity or did you wake up with your goggles on backwards?
If you’re feeling a bit ‘soft focus’, that’s okay. There’s nothing that a Berocca and quick dip into some pre-Christian Germanic folklore can’t sort.
When I’m short on time/inspiration - I heat up my half drunk coffee for the third time (yep, out of control) and have a ‘free read’ to widen my life lens for that day.
That’s grabbing something from the bookshelf (short stories and poetry work well) and flicking over to a random page. Here I’ve picked up the Routledge modern edition of the Grimm Complete Fairy Tales - I’ve also got a lovely threadbare 1920s edition that my mum gave me, but the paper’s a bit crumbly for flicking.
Now, most readers know the stories collected by bros Jacob and Wilhelm a few hundred years ago include the absolute bangers, Cinderella, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Grimms’ treasure trove of tales is more vast, beautifully surreal and terrifying than Disney would have you believe - and deem commercial - though.
Plots touch on ethically questionable child disowning (The Three Spinners) to regular barrel drownings (The Three Men in the Wood) and often point out the obvious with some hard-hitting dad-style wisdom - In The Cat and the Mouse in Partnership the mouse declares the cat a “true friend” before being pounced on and swallowed whole: “Verily, that is the way of the world.”
The brothers had every metaphorical base covered.
Get yourself a copy to press reset on whatever dilemma you're having that day - or just to muse on some dark, delightful strangeness. W.H Auden - generally considered ‘the greatest English poet of the twentieth century’ - claimed that the Fairy Tales were; “...first and foremost, an educational ‘must’ for adults.” This was before wikipedia, remember.
Base your moral compass (with a hefty pinch of salt) on centuries of oral wisdom and you’ll be in good/weird company.
A Grimm way to propose
Found a plus one with kind eyes, great trainers and tolerable annoying habits? Stop. Right. There. Germanic folklore dictates that you really need to see how seriously your potential partner deals with cheese before you commit to anything longer term.
In Looking for a Bride a young shepherd is acquainted with three sisters and “he could not decide who to give the preference (of a marriage proposal) to.”
Obviously this tale can be adopted to suit the needs of your modern quandary. In Looking for a Bride, we’re making some trad assumptions - also taking as read that these girls were open to the idea of marriage with a basic-at-best shepherd who sounds absolutely clueless.
Anyway, the hapless shepherd goes to his mother for advice - rest assured, some things never change. Mum helpfully suggests that he extends an invite to all three girls, “Set some cheese before them and watch how they eat it.”
This is where things really start to hot up.
The first one? She swallows the cheese with the rind on (bit keen). The second one hastily cuts the rind off the cheese, but she cuts so fast that she leaves loads of good stuff with it, and throws that away too (kinda sloppy).
On the edge of your seat yet? (remember just a few centuries ago, our attention-span was razor-sharp when it came to cheese rind etiquette).
Lastly, “The third one peeled the rind off carefully and cut neither too much or too little.” BINGO.
The shepherd’s mother states that the third, moderately-minded girl - the one with meticulous rind-trimming skills - is best.
Next thing we know, the shepherd marries the third girl and lives “contentedly and happily with her.”
Again, we have to assume the girl was happy about this and didn't just accept the original invite for the free cheese board. She probably had a great relationship with the mother-in-law too, who probably never dictated any critical decision-making from there on in.
As trigger happy author and ‘chaos magician’ William S.Burroughs (who was infamously ‘nice’ to his second wife) once said;
“Is Control controlled by its need to control? Answer: yes.”
I think we can all see a few important moral messages here - even if the main ones are really just about seeking close counsel and taking a hard line on food waste.
Oh, and a useful lesson too if you’re eating cheese with a local suitor. Swallow it whole or over-cut the sides to escape the clutches of a vague husband and controlling mother-in-law to live free - and happily ever after.