Over the last decades our intuitive perception of and relation to the natural world and its dynamic rhythms has all but been eclipsed by our increased reliance upon reason and the pursuits of science.  The more we attempt to exert control over nature, the more we concentrate on technical means of subduing the earth, the less obvious the life forces operative within the cycles of nature become.  Eventually intellectual thought patterns all but displace emotional experiences and feelings, and persons inevitably become blind and insensitive to the vast range of experience still available to those whose hearts have not been hardened.

This, the shortest of Grimm's stories begins in mid-winter, at the time of the winter solstice (December 21).  The changing seasons of the year, the waxing and waning of life - budding (Spring), blooming (Summer), Fruition (August), and dormancy or death (Winter) - is a cycle familiar to fairy tales.  Each season is a window, a doorway opening into the mystery of life.  Each presents us with the metaphors, images and icons that invite us into the transformations of the human soul.

Fairy tales are one of the oldest forms of literature we have.  They originated and were transmitted orally, as stories told, not only for entertainment, but for the spiritual welfare of the individual or community. Some have called them “folk wisdom.” Others speak of them as myths and legends. All of them are metaphorical expressions of spiritual perceptions common to human beings; that is, they reflect the inner iconography of the mind, they reflect our common human condition, and they reflect the universal struggle for selfhood in which we humans find ourselves.

Each fairy tale in its own way deals with the reality of existence. It assumes that, this world is basically good, that this goodness is not merely concealed or hidden, but in the bondage of evil forces, and that there is the possibility of restoration.

In introducing a collection of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the eminent poet, W. H. Auden says, “It is hardly too much to say that these tales rank next to the Bible in importance.” This note of appreciation isn’t at all surprising, since the stories in the Grimm collection, most familiar to us in the western world, emerged within the Christian culture of the Middle Ages and incorporated numerous elements of the Christian tradition such as: the blessedness of the poor, the meek, the persecuted, the pure in heart; the depiction of life as a journey, references to spiritual conflict, and the ultimate victory of life over death.