The Glass Mountain (fairy tale)
Encyclopedia
The Glass Mountain is a Polish fairy tale
collected by Hermann Kletke. Andrew Lang
included it in The Yellow Fairy Book.
The name also appears as a mythical location in a different story, one of the original Brothers Grimm
fairytales. ("Glassberg" or "Glasberg" in the original German.)
A knight in golden armor tried. One day, he made it halfway up and calmly went down again. The second day, he tried for the top, and was climbing steadily when an eagle attacked him. He and his horse fell to their deaths.
A schoolboy killed a lynx and climbed with its claws attached to his feet and hands. Weary, he rested on the slope. The eagle thought he was carrion and flew down to eat him. The boy grabbed it, and it, trying to shake him off, carried him the rest of the way. He cut off its feet and fell into the apple tree. The peels of the apples cured his wounds, and he picked more, to let him into the castle. He married the princess.
The blood of the eagle restored to life everyone who had died trying to climb the mountain.
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
collected by Hermann Kletke. Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.- Biography :Lang was born in Selkirk...
included it in The Yellow Fairy Book.
The name also appears as a mythical location in a different story, one of the original Brothers Grimm
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...
fairytales. ("Glassberg" or "Glasberg" in the original German.)
Synopsis
The Polish story begins with: On a glass mountain grew a tree with golden apples. An apple would let the picker into the golden castle where an enchanted princess lived. Many knights had tried and failed, so that many bodies lay about the mountain.A knight in golden armor tried. One day, he made it halfway up and calmly went down again. The second day, he tried for the top, and was climbing steadily when an eagle attacked him. He and his horse fell to their deaths.
A schoolboy killed a lynx and climbed with its claws attached to his feet and hands. Weary, he rested on the slope. The eagle thought he was carrion and flew down to eat him. The boy grabbed it, and it, trying to shake him off, carried him the rest of the way. He cut off its feet and fell into the apple tree. The peels of the apples cured his wounds, and he picked more, to let him into the castle. He married the princess.
The blood of the eagle restored to life everyone who had died trying to climb the mountain.