The Wilful Child is a German fairy tale

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 the 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...

 as tale number 117. As a legend, it is widely distributed in Germany.

It is Aarne-Thompson type 779, divine rewards and punishments. Another tale of this type is The Star Money

The Star Money

The Star Money or The Star Talers is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales.It is Aarne-Thompson type 779, Divine Rewards and Punishments.- Synopsis :...

.

Synopsis

Once upon a time there was a child who was willful and would not do what her mother wished. For this reason, God had no pleasure in her, and let her become ill. No doctor could do her any good, and in a short time the child lay on her deathbed. When she had been lowered into her grave, and the earth was spread over her, all at once her little arm came out again and reached upward. And when they had pushed it back in the ground and spread fresh earth over it, it was all to no purpose, for the arm always came out again. Then the mother herself was obliged to go to the grave and strike the arm with a rod. When she had done that, the arm was drawn in, and at last the child had to rest beneath the ground.

Commentary

In their first edition, the girl merely became ill; that God made her ill was added in later ones.

External links

• The Hand from the Grave: folk legends from Germany, Poland, and Switzerland of Aarne-Thompson type 779