In Ep. 39 the Grimms write a clunky, cranky op-ed piece and raise the ghost of Virgil Sollozzo...
Part 1 [11:16] - In which we find the Grimms embellishing the truth, and sneaking some personal complaints into the story — complaints that only you and I were supposed to hear
Part 2 [17:58] - In which we debate the meaning of belief in turtles and end up with too many hot dogs and politics as usual
Part 3 [30:55] - In which we In which we find the N-Word carved into that tree branch thingy — (NAPOLEON!)
[Good evening Mr. and Mrs. North and South America and all the ships and clippers at sea. Let’s go to press. Flash: London]
oops, wrong clip
[Would you listen to this podcast if it could unclog your arteries?]
[I don’t know]
well… this podcast is widely available without prescription or subscription…
[so, you know, effectively, it’s better]
[well, I think it’s good, but there could be more. you know, it could run more often]
[the following presentation is intended only for immature audiences]
hey, not so fast… these next 4 episodes are jam-packed with facts… genuine historic facts that are anything but fairytale sweet…
just don’t blame me for the slightly bitter taste… it was the Grimms who insisted that we listen to them whining and complaining about… well, I’ll let them tell you what got their peppers hot…
[but first]
yeah, first we gotta thank God for her bounty of colorful language:
[the isk is required to make a curse in the curse]
[okee dokee]
😇 🎶 heavenly choir 🎶 😇
["And God said 'Let there be F-Bombs' — And they were good — And they multiplied — right here, in this podcast"]
[good heavens, what a terrible curse]
🎶 🎹 dramatic organ music 🎹 🎶
🎶 🔔 deep church bell 🔔 🎶
bless me father, for I have sinned… geeze, it must be something like 7 or 8 months since my last episode…
[oh you back again?]
uh yeah, uh fader…?
🎶 ANACHRONIST 🎶
[oooh yes, yall… we’re gonna do this again, like it’s normal anymore]
[alright already! get on with it!]
In our last episode:
I said I would spill the beans on that weird contraption Herr Holzhacker built to fool his kids… you know, that tree branch swinging in the breeze thingy that was supposed to sound like an axe…
[I mean I know it’s kind of unrealistic]
exactly…
still, one thing I didn’t say in the episode was that I’m also going to spill the beans on why the Grimms changed Frau Holzhacker from a mother into a stepmother… and believe me… it wasn’t because of their reverence for motherhood…
[why the fuck not?}
just get ready because YOU are going to be the first to know what nobody else seems to have realized… not in well over a hundred years, that is…
as I’ve said before, some of the Grimms’ contemporaries were very likely hip to what this fairytale is all about in between the lines — AND what the Grimms were up to with this stepmother business…
so it’s gonna be a humdinger of a revelation… but I’m saving that for Episode 41 and 42…
[aw why?]
there’s so much information the Grimms packed into that tiny motherhood switcheroo it needs 2 episodes, and then it turns out to be so mixed up and intertwined with that tree branch business, there’s no good way to separate it out…
[it’s all complicated]
yeah, what she said…
so it was either produce one single episode about the length and scope of War and Peace, or figure out where we could do some major pruning and wrap all the essentials into a couple of handy little bundles… and that’s why this episode took so long to produce, and how Episode 39 became episodes 39 through 42
[I don’t get it]
Just remember, neither the stepmother nor the tree branch thingy is in the manuscript version of the story, and they’re not in the Grimms’ 1812 first edition… but they did add the tree branch business in their second edition in 1819
[this is really confusing for me]
it was pretty confusing for me too, but before we can straighten it all out, let’s just listen to the sentence from the 1819 version that started this whole, overgrown mess…
„sie glaubten, der Vater wär noch im Wald, weil sie die Schläge seiner Axt hörten, aber das war ein Ast, den er an einen Baum gebunden hatte und den der Wind hin und her schlug.“
They believed the father was still in the forest because they heard the strokes of his axe, but it was a branch he had fastened to a tree and which the wind blew back and forth.
fact is, they left this sentence as is for 24 years — and 3 editions — until 1843 when they added a single important word…
[what’s that?]
well, we’re gonna get to that… for now, let’s just see if we can figure out why the Grimms had Herr Holzhacker make this Rube Goldberg sorta contraption in the first place…
[alright, if you insist]
the very idea of it always made me wonder how you construct such a woodsy sorta thing and actually make it work…
I mean, maybe they teach you stuff like this in the Boy Scouts, but it still sounds clunky… not only that, it’s place in the story has a clunky feel to it as well…
[it’s really terrible]
well, it’s not really terrible…
if we weren’t interested in doing this kind of investigative work we might wonder a little how it was made, and maybe even try to picture it but then we’d just accept it at face value and move on… which seems to be what most everyone does…
[alright well that’s good enough for me. that’s close enough]
yeah, sure, that’s fine, except turns out, this line is well worth investigating because, once again, it’s a metalepsis…
[what?]
you know, that funky literary trope referencing some other, usually older, piece of literature… a metalepsis allows that other, older piece to carry the full weight of meaning the author wants to convey to us readers…
[oh yeah, very nice]
so why use metalepsis, instead of giving us some nice straightforward explanation or clarification…?
[yeah, yeah, why?]
well, for one thing, metalepsis adds a certain amount of literary spice to the otherwise straightforward logic of a story… that’s because each metalepsis acts like an inside joke...
of course an inside joke only works if the audience catches the reference… and in comedy, if you’re not in on the joke, the whole thing falls flat…
[true that]
in the case of metalepsis, though, if someone doesn’t recognize the reference, that’s okay… sure, they miss out on the added bit of meaning — and the fun, but the story itself still works… and then sometimes, like now, the author doesn’t want everyone to pick up on that extra spicy meaning… and that’s when a metalepsis works just like a code — a wartime code…
[or a Hansel and Gretel Code?]
uh, yeah, what he said…
with a code, only the friendlies are supposed to recognize the reference and catch the real meaning… everyone else is supposed to take the words at their logical face value…
[hmm]
if that sounds a little melodramatic or far-fetched, here’s what the Grimms themselves wrote in the preface to their first edition:
“We bequeath this book to well-meaning hands…. We hope that the book will remain completely unknown to (others)….”
[oh]
so what they’re saying plainly and openly is a vanilla version of an ancient alchemical formula the Grimms may or may not have been aware of…nand what they were doing with this particular metalepsis — this tree branch thingy — might best be summed up in the words of an anonymous 17th century French alchemist who wrote:
“NihiIominus tamen, cum fido amico aliquid in au(re)m fideliter dicimus, tunc ipsum occultum secretum sapientum docemus…."
[ahem]
uh, sorry…
“…when we speak somewhat in confidence in the ear of a trusted friend, we teach him that hidden secret of the wise….”
[oh wow, man]
and that’s exactly what the Grimms intended… they wanted to convey a little hidden secret… but only to trusted friends... the wise… cognoscenti who would immediately recognize the metalepsis and its meaning…
they also meant people like you and me… Hansel and Gretel code breakers… those of us who love catching each little metalepsis in the story and really enjoy the work it takes to find the original reference and suss out its meaning…
[I’m outta here]
hey, that’s cool… this kinda work isn’t for everyone… it is actually alchemical, which means, it’ll change you…
[okay, but you go first]
alrighty then, let’s get busy and start sussing…
[ugh… ew]
*🎶*🎶*
PART 1 [11:16]
Teil eins: In which we find the Grimms embellishing the truth, and sneaking some personal complaints into the story… complaints that only you and I were supposed to hear
[I haven’t noticed anything]
as I said, this tree branch thingy isn’t in the 1810 manuscript, and it’s not in the 1812 first edition… in fact. the Grimms very proudly announced in their preface to that first edition:
„Kein Umstand ist hinzugedichtet oder verschönert und abgeändert worden….“
"No detail has been added or embellished and changed….”
so as far as that first edition goes, I guess we can take them at their word…
[unquestionably]
except, I think even the Grimms would have to agree this tree branch is an added detail, or at least an embellishment… and that pretty much tells us they made it up themselves…
[interesting]
we’ve already done the basic philologic detective work, so we know it pops up in their second edition… in 1819… 7 years after their first edition…
oddly enough, in the preface to that second edition, the Grimms doubled down on their original claim of faithful reproduction, saying:
„Wir haben nämlich aus eigenen Mitteln nichts hinzugesetzt, keinen Umstand und Zug der Sage selbst verschönert…."
“We did not add anything of our own, nor did we embellish any circumstance or feature of the tales.”
that, my frents, is what you might call bullshit… er, I mean, a little white lie…
[(group-shocked) ooh!]
in the greater scheme of things, this little prevarication doesn’t rise to the level (or fame) of uh, you know:
[I did not have sexual relations with that woman…]
[ooh!]
still I’d like to know for sure if the Grimms added embellishments like this to any of their other tales…
I suspect there are (and turns out there is one in particular we’ll have cause to mention later on) still, given there are over 160 tales in that second edition alone, finding embellishments like this, even using AI would take some effort…
[I don’t think it would be that hard to implement]
yeah maybe, but you can’t leave investigating their meaning to AI… that takes real Intuition — the kind of work we’re doing… and that would be work for another lifetime or three…
[OMG, omg]
[that is fine. please move on]
okay, all we need to know right now is that in 1819, they not only added this seemingly minor detail to Hansel and Gretel, they also added another, major detail to the end of the story…
[who cares?]
well, for those of us who do care, it seems obvious that the Grimms liked to sprinkle in lots of minor story-telling flourishes — all of which serve to support the literal logic of the story line…
[that’s correct]
we’ve also discovered that each tiny addition provides a kind of softball clue to help us understand the intuitive meaning hidden between the lines of the story…
[this is repetitive]
yeah, I get it… but it bears repeating… because the truth of that makes it obvious how not only were the Grimms aware of an intuitive, hidden meaning in the original story, but so too was their intended audience: the literary cognoscenti of the Grimms’ Zeitgeist and of posterity, meaning, you and me…
so what was that intuitive, hidden meaning…?
[I don’t think you know]
well, we’ve been sussing that out, little by little, episode by episode… but as I said last time, with this little story-telling flourish, this sneaky little metalepsis, the Grimms went off the reservation and manufactured a hidden meaning of their own — one that radically deviates from the underlying meaning our fairytale author had originally intended…
[oh dear, that's rather alarming]
yeah, and this wasn’t the first instance… back in Episode 20 we looked into another, earlier line the Grimms added to the story that hadn’t been in the manuscript:
that business of Frau Holzhacker calling her husband a fool, and telling him he might as well start planing the planks of their coffins…
[I remember]
right, that was a dazzling metaleptic gem the Grimms added to their 5th edition in 1843… and we discovered the literary source it referenced…
but we didn’t go into the full meaning behind it… a meaning the Grimms themselves (and not our fairytale author) intended… and we certainly didn’t go into the full meaning behind the Grimms’ decision to change Hansel and Gretel’s mother into their step-mother… did we…?
[no sir!]
we’re about to learn how this hidden meaning the Grimms manufactured with their coffin carpentry, their tree branch contraption, and their step-mother switcheroo… how it’s all connected…
[how?]
by one simple fact: the Grimms were complaining… and they wanted you and me to know it…
[are you kidding me?]
I kid you not…
so… what were they complaining about…?
[I don’t know]
let’s get into it…
*🎶*🎶*
PART 2 [17:58]
Teil zwei: In which we debate the meaning of belief in turtles and end up with too many hot dogs and politics as usual
um, that’s Tertullian, but I think I prefer turtles…
oh yeah… me too
here’s the manuscript version of the issue we’re about to dig into: „[...] und die Mutter sagt: schlaft dieweil ihr Kinder, wir wollen in den Wald gehn und Holz suchen, wartet bis wir wieder kommen. [...] Sie warten lang bis es Nacht ward, aber die Eltern kamen nicht wieder.“
"[...] and the mother said: You children sleep while we go into the forest to look for wood. Wait here until we get back. [...] They waited a long time. Night came on, but the parents didn't come back."
[aww]
of course there’s no mention whatsoever of that silly tree branch contraption… that not only eliminates the Grimms’ complaint, it leaves the original meaning of the fairytale intact…
by saying only that the children waited, it implies a certain belief — belief that their father was still around and that he would come back for them…
[that doesn’t make any sense]
right… it sounds completely absurd because they were already hip to their parents plan to abandon them…
back in episode 38 we talked about how their belief translates metaphorically into religious faith, meaning a trust or belief in Martin Luther’s Deus absconditus — the hidden or disappearing god — or even belief in a Deus otiosus: the disinterested creator god…
one thing I didn’t mention was how this also works as a reference to Tertullian…
[who’s this]
Tertullian was a cranky 3rd century theologian famous for his maxim on religious faith regarding the resurrection of Christ... he wrote:
Et sepultus resurrexit; certum est, quia impossibile.
He was buried and rose again; it is certain because it is impossible.
it’s a saying that got twisted over the centuries into the viral, but apocryphal, sound byte known as:
credo quia absurdum.
I believe because it is absurd.
[wow]
and because such a belief was implied in the manuscript, it only makes sense that our original fairytale author did, indeed, intend the absurdity of the children’s belief to be a subtle reference to Tertullian…
[that’s ridiculous]
just sayin…
anyway, in their second edition, the Grimms, not content with subtlety, made sure to spell out that issue of religious faith by saying specifically that the kids believed…
they literally used the word: believed… but then they did a really weird thing…
[what?]
they completely undermined the Tertullian reference by giving the kids a logical reason for their belief… which is the exact opposite of the concept Tertullian tried to convey…
[huh?]
thing is, Belief in Tertullian’s time was more likely to be a question of Intuition rather than Logic…
[can you believe that?]
what I mean is short of some ridiculous, literal miracle — like Doubting Thomas sticking his finger into Christ’s gall bladder — there should never be a logical reason for religious belief… except without Intuition, there always is…
I mean most everyone on the planet was taught to believe in some god or other according to their upbringing… and that sort of teaching bypasses Intuition…
to give Tertullian his due, knowing exactly what HE meant by belief would require a helluva lot of reading… but his famous maxim jibes with Intuition because Intuition can never have logical proof at its disposal…
[oh, it cost too much]
…very funny
later, in the Vatican dominated Middle Ages, Tertullian’s idea of belief and religious faith regressed into a standardized trust in the teaching of Vatican authority — an authority our fairytale author considered corrupt and bankrupt of Truth…
[OMG]
our fairytale author would insist that no Authority — especially not that of the Vatican — is proof of anything… Authority is simply a logical reason for belief…
and yes, it’s okay to have faith in a logical Authority, but no logical Authority can guarantee Truth…
[OMG]
on the one hand, Logic will always demand proof that’s been furnished by some Authority or other… and Logic will never accept Intuition as any sort of Authority…
on the other hand, Intuition has no need of Logic or Logical postulates to furnish it with Truth…
as far as Intuition is concerned, Truth is its own Authority, and Truth is the only Authority available to Intuition…
[this is really confusing for me]
I get it… there’s no good way to explain Intuition with words… it’s just something the Gnostics inherently understood… and as Carl Jung famously said:
"I know. I don’t need to believe. I know."
see that’s what Gnosis means: to know the Truth without logical proof…
and that’s something the original author of this fairytale wanted us to consider…
[how many times have we been over this?]
well, getting a feel for Intuition is an essential aim of the story… and Intuition is key to the meaning hidden between the lines of this story…
I recently read a version of this line:
"A good story is always, at its heart, a paradox, telling us something that can’t be told in words."
the ultimate literary paradox is metaphor… where Logic says A is A, Metaphor says A is B, or C, or B and C…
Story IS metaphor… it’s made of metaphors and speaks in metaphor...
metaphor doesn’t speak to Logic, metaphor speaks to Intuition… and that’s what Story does, and that’s how Story works
that’s why we’re using our Intuition to suss out the meaning in Hansel and Gretel — line by line, metaphor by metaphor…
[alright already!]
okay, okay…
I’m thinking, it could very well be that the Grimms considered Wilhelm’s awkward and absurd tree branch contraption to be a good metaphor for the absurdity Tertullian originally meant… but I sense this is a bridge too far… maybe not for their theologic sensibility… but it’s definitely a stretch for their limited artistic prowess…
[what are you talking about?]
I don’t mean to disparage these guys, but they didn’t write these stories; they tinkered with them, and put a frame around them… and in some instances — like now — we’re gonna see that their egos got in the way, and played more of a role in this business than their religious faith…
[OOH!]
[OMG!]
[WTF!]
alright let’s all take a breath… then we can take another listen to the Grimms’ tree branch addition:
Hänsel und Grethel saßen an dem Feuer…; sie glaubten, der Vater wär noch im Wald, weil sie die Schläge seiner Axt hörten, aber das war ein Ast, den er an einen Baum gebunden hatte und den der Wind hin und her schlug.
H&G sat by the fire…; they believed the father was still in the forest because they heard the the strokes of his axe, but it was a branch he had fastened to a tree and that the wind was blowing back and forth.
see, they literally used the word: glaubten… believed…
that’s a softball clue you and I didn’t need in order to catch the author’s intuitive, intended meaning — a meaning which has so far been consistent throughout the fairytale; a meaning that had everything to do with ridiculing the Vatican… and specifically the imposition of Catholicism on the early Germanic tribes…
[so what’s your point?]
the main point of the fairytale — the underlying meaning created by the author has everything to do with religion and Intuition, and includes an exposé of narcissism… most specifically, the arrogant narcissism of the Vatican in its treatment of Germans and Germany…
[don’t say that!]
wait, you know what I just said… that is one helluva simplification… not the narcissism part… the Germany part… because for the nearly 1800 years of Vatican influence over the Lives, Laws, and Culture of German speakers North of the Alps there really was no single geo-political entity that could properly be called Germany…
[really?]
yeah, not until the late 19th century…
I mean sure, the Romans called it Germania… but they meant the part east of the Rhine… the part they had a hard time conquering…
the land where all those native German speakers lived — both east and west of the Rhine — was a vast territory in the middle of Europe; it was all broken up into hundreds of tiny, independent kingdoms and duchies and ecclesiastic principalities ruled by swarms of kings and dukes and prince bishops…
outside of language they were all defined by one single constant…
[what?]
the inconstancy of their borders… their legal borders were constantly shifting…
[so what?]
so what I’m getting at is that while the power and authority of the Vatican plays a dominant role in the meaning of the tale… the politics involved in the history of those Germanic lands and their native German speakers does not…
[oh really?]
yeah, and that’s why I can say that the Grimms went off the reservation… because while the majority of their tiny refinements and revisions stay true to and support the intent of the manuscript version… this little contraption built by the father to fool his kids has nothing whatsoever to do with the Vatican… instead it has everything to do with Politics…
[it’s such a prank to pull on people, you have no idea]
well, I’d have to agree… and what we’re talking about here is something the Grimms were intellectually and emotionally invested in: the politics involved in creating a strong and unified entity known as
[zuviel Würste in Deutschland]
[ha, you made me smile!]
uh, just plain Germany is fine…
[okee dokey]
*🎶*🎶*
PART 3 [30:55]
Teil drei: In which we find the N-Word carved into that tree branch thingy
[group shock]
not that word... Napoleon!
[hello? Napoleon?]
so the logical reason for the appearance of this tree branch contraption is that it emphasizes the subterfuge of the father… and we all know that subterfuge and politics just naturally go together
[like peas and carrots]
except it turns out, the clue to the politics involved isn’t in the subterfuge… it’s in the mental image of that swinging tree branch and its connection to both Paris and the Olympics…
[can you please explain what the fuck you are talking about]
all right AI boy, I’m talking about history, and I’m gonna explain how that swinging tree branch is a sneaky, albeit clumsy, metalepsis referring back not to some literary gem, but to certain facts of history… facts that the Grimms — and not our fairytale author — meant for readers like us to pick up on…
[now well that sounds like Grade A BS]
well, you don’t have to believe me… but if we’re gonna get to the bottom of what the Grimms were doing here we’re gonna have to take a little walk through history…
[oh no!]
hey if you were a contemporary of the Grimms — and a member of their preferred audience — in order to catch the inside joke about this tree branch thingy, and get what they were complaining about, all you had to do was read the papers… although even that’s not strictly true since the press in 19th century Germany was pretty heavily censored… and complaining in print was a big Bozo no-no…
[that’s correct]
[no one wants to go to jail for things]
[nyahh!!]
truth is, you had to be on the same page both politically and intellectually… which really meant you had to run in the same circles and attend the same salons and coffee houses where honest opinions about politics and literature could be more safely exchanged…
[where’s my Starbucks?]
[ahem]
that means you and I have to do some digging into the factual history of the Grimms’ Zeitgeist…
[oh crap!]
hey, I absolutely hated history in school… I couldn’t remember squat about names and dates and facts, so for me it was all a jumble, and an excruciating waste of time…
if you wanna bail on this episode, I can understand…
[oh, thanks]
no problem… but these facts tell an interesting story the Grimms wanted you and me to know… they also give us the inside scoop on why Wilhelm Grimm added this completely gratuitous sentence to the fairytale…
[no, nope, forget it. forget it]
hey, I get it… I’m not Dan Carlin… but this isn’t History 101, either… there ain’t gonna be no test you gotta to study for… in fact, these facts add up to some juicy gossip the Grimms hoped you’d wanna hear and pass on…
[that’s a horse of a different color. come on in]
uh thank you…
we know for certain that this extra sentence first appeared in 1819, in their second edition… so first thing we gotta do is ask ourselves what happened in those 7 years between their first and second edition… between 1812 and 1819… what was the historical gossip, er I mean, issue, the Grimms wanted to share…?
wait… let me rephrase that…
back then, the issue wasn’t historical, it was big news… so not only their readers — who were by the way, not as many as they and their publisher would have liked — but most everyone in Europe would have been well aware of…
what the Grimms really wanted their readers and intellectual equals — people like us — to know, was how THEY felt about it…
so the answer to that question — like most questions about European history — has roots going back well over 1000 years…
[oh fuck!]
don’t worry, in this case, we’re just gonna go back 56 years from our starting point of 1812… That would take us to 1756…
just so you know, that was 29 years before Jacob Grimm was born (1785) and 30 years before his little brother Wilhelm came along (1786)…
still there’s an important connection between the Brothers Grimm and 1756… and that is the outbreak of the so-called 7 Years War…
I don’t wanna get on the time machine for this… cause, uh, you never know…
[thank you]
this war was was so fucking huge and involved so many countries across the globe (including North America and India) it might as well have been called the first world war…
that said, there’s only one detail we need to know… and it’s what connects the Grimms to that big fucking war…
[what is that?]
it’s the fact that war is fucking expensive…
[I don’t like violence, Tom. I’m a businessman. Blood is a big expense.]
it goes without saying that wars usually involve somebody getting ambitious and wanting somebody else’s real estate… and the 7 years war involved a helluva lot of blood, a helluva lot of ambition, and a helluva lot of real estate…
and of course, even if nobody paid for any of the real estate that changed hands somebody hadda pay for all that blood and all that ambition…
and that somebody is always the tax payers… and back then (less than 300 years ago) the tax payers were called
[a bunch of riffraff]
well, yeah, well, that, too… officially, they were known as the 3rd estate…
and they had no say so in how much they had to fork over to the guys of the 1st and 2nd estate — the clergy and the nobles… the guys with all the ambition… and they certainly had no say in how those guys chose to spend those tax dollars or thalers or pounds or whatevers…
but I digress…
[please, don’t do that]
well, in a never ending vicious circle — war (and colonization - which amounted to the same thing) was how governments expanded their tax base… to pay for their big motherfucking wars…
the Grimms, being born into the 3rd estate, were an awful lot like you and me… taxpayers, with virtually no say in how, when, where and why wars get started and ended… And when and how they get paid for…
and that was the Grimms connection to 1756…
[I don’t get it]
they were born into a time when the bills for that big fucking war were still coming in… and it’s wars and taxes — and who gets to decide on them — that are all built into Herr Holzhacker’s tree branch contraption…
[but that is not all]
right, 12 years after the 7 years war, which was still 10 years before the Grimms were born, there was another big war that influenced this tree branch business from a slightly different angle…
the year was 1775 and this time it was an 8 year long war declared by those damned Yanks…
[you mean the New York Yankees?]
well, New York did play a part, but I’m talking about the American colonists who got sick of paying the bills for all of Britain’s wars, and started a war of their own…
you know, the American War of Independence — otherwise known as the Revolutionary Wars... the key word here being
[pizza]
huh? uh no…
it’s true that Boston’s Italian North End played a big role in the revolutionary wars, but the key word is revolutionary… because for the first time, the taxpayers chose to stand up to the guys in charge…the nobility… the guys with all the ambition… and whaddya know, they made it stick…
[awesome, man]
lotta good it did them considering they ended up replacing fucking ambitious nobles with fucking ambitious politicians
[everything is bad and we’re gonna straighten it out, we’re gonna bring prices way down]
[argidurgadurg]
but this is where Paris comes in…
[ah, gay Paris, the City of Lights]
in 1783, after another 8 years of expensive fighting the Brits finally cried uncle and agreed to recognize their 13 American colonies to be free, sovereign and independent… and they did so by signing the so-called Treaty of Paris…
[ooh la la!]
calling this thing the treaty of Paris is a little silly because in the last 800 years, between 1229 and 1951, there have been 34 Treaties of Paris, which averages out to one about every 23 years…
[I don’t get it because the name is just kinda boring]
well maybe that’s why, aside from those 34 treaties, they decided to switch up the names and call some treaties the Paris Accord or the Paris Principles or
[Paris Hilton?]
[ahem]
well, I was thinking of the Paris Protocols, but you know, actually, it was less than 10 years ago that the last treaty of Paris was signed… it was otherwise known as the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and according to Wikipedia was negotiated by 196 parties…
[yes! put your hands up in the air]
[the party’s starting right now!]
[party, party, party]
[yes, y’all. let’s party time]
sure… given that there were politicians involved, it’s not hard to figure that their choice of a place to party, er I mean hold meetings for months on end and negotiate over international peace and real estate depended an awful lot on the entertainment value of the locale…
[hey, where are the hookers?
[I have some exotic dancers]
[hookers, man. where are the hookers?]
[ahem]
the successful revolution of the Yanks, demonstrated as it was in Paris, made such a huge impression on the French, that 6 years later, in 1789, they started their own Revolution… famously doing so on a tennis court…
[sounds of Roland Garros]
well, not that exact tennis court… and tennis is not why that tree branch thingy is connected to the Olympics…
[why not?]
hang on, we’re gonna get there…
anyway, the French succeeded in forcing their king, Louis XVI, to start making concessions to the 3rd Estate, you know, the ordinary French taxpayers… except any tax relief that translated into had to have been more fictional than any fairy tale…
[lotsa booing]
so the more obvious question is: what does the French Revolution have to do with the Grimms…? after all they were just 3 and 4 years old at the time… and they had already dropped whatever revolutionary spirit they had back in their terrible twos…
[they call it the terrible twos for a reason]
well, just remember we’re talking about monarchs and their wars and the people whose taxes paid for those wars having to just shut up and pay — or else… that is until the yanks said let’s have politicians and tax attorneys and April 15th instead of monarchs…
of course the French just said [Qu'on lui coupe la tête! Qu'on lui coupe la tête!]
[uh, oh!]
and as I said, this line of the fairytale we’re investigating — which is a complete fabrication of Wilhelm Grimm — is all about politics and taxes and wars… and revolution…
you know
🎤 🎶 we all wanna change the world 🎶 🎤
[oh yeah]
now if we want to know exactly what the Grimms were complaining about, we gotta have a passing acquaintance with a few more historical facts they were old enough to complain about… the shit that really got their peppers hot…
[ooh!]
just as the French took notice of the American revolution, the rest of Europe took notice of the French revolution…
of course most notably nervous were the nobles… they were all afraid that French revolutionary fever was just as dangerous and just as contagious as that other famous mal français: syphilis…
[nasty! that is disgusting]
according to wikipedia:
"all the European monarchs wondered whether or not they should intervene, either to support King Louis XVI and prevent the spread of revolution, or to take advantage of the chaos…"
and make a killing in French real estate…
[I’ll take Paris for 200, Alex]
[oh brother]
so when the Austrians and Prussians started making passive aggressive threats to invade France, the French said fuck you… or however you say it in French… and they declared war…
and so began the French Revolutionary Wars…
[crowd noise]
[who’s fighting and what for?]
eventually the Brits and the Russians jumped in too
[why are we fighting? Why are we fighting?]
because all of Europe was up for grabs… and everyone was interested in expanding their territory (and tax base) at the expense of everyone else — whether enemy or ally…
[this is relevant to my interests]
plenty of expensive fighting went on for 10 years, when all of a sudden Napoleon showed up and took over the French government, the French army, and the French revolutionary wars — which continued for another 13 or 14 years, and had now become the Napoleonic Wars…
[what’s this punk think, he’s Napoleon?]
well, uh, yeah…
now I don’t know for sure, but it’s just possible that Napoleon’s wars cost the French taxpayers a helluva lot less than what they were used to paying, simply because Napoleon didn’t supply his soldiers the way modern armies do…
sure, there musta been some sort of military budget for weapons, but there wasn’t much of a budget for food…
Napoleon sent his soldiers out to live off the land… in other words, he let his enemies’ taxpayers feed his army and supply it with horses — the 18th century equivalent of gasoline…
of course he kept winning and winning and winning
[that’s how it’s done!]
and the French did what all victorious armies do… they expanded their territory - which really means they expanded their tax base… and so large portions of what we think of as Germany became part of la France… and that meant many of the ideals and governmental reforms of the French revolution, including the French language, spread far and wide across Europe…
now that delighted some people and annoyed the fuck out of others…
[sound of anger]
[son of a bitch!]
despite living through a near constant state of war and having French soldiers running around everywhere (and in many cases acting like psychopathic mafiosi) [Them lousy bums, they bled me for five grand. Broke two of my teeth, too, look here.]
[ugh, no]
things were never completely bad or good, or black and white…
[is that so]
yeah, in fact, Napoleon brought Europe out of the Dark Ages when he did away with the Holy Roman Empire and took its hundreds of territories, all ruled by various princes and herzogs and fursten and ecclesiastic what-have-yous, and distilled them down into 35 Germanic states and 4 so-called free cities…
[oh, very nice, much better]
by 1806, when the Grimm boys were 20 & 21, the French had taken over their hometown and essentially annexed most of the German speaking territory outside of Austria… and, just so you know, 1806 was also the year they began collecting fairytales… [yes, I know]
aside from the business of Johann Gottfried von Herder and German Nationalism we spoke about in Episode 37, very few if any of these historic details seem to have worked their way into the Grimms’ first version of Hansel and Gretel… the 1812 edition
and while the Grimms had plenty to complain about, especially with the French systematically looting the library Jacob was in charge of, still, their first version of Hansel and Gretel stuck pretty close to the manuscript, and they basically kept their heads down and their fairy tale noses clean…
[Mr. Capone says leave you alone, so long you keep your nose clean.]
[ahem]
everything though was about to change… that’s because Napoleon got himself famously fucked by invading Russia: a disaster lasting from June 24th to December 14th of 1812
[I remember]
uh, I guess you do…
so here’s a seemingly off-topic question: why did he invade Russia…?
normally, I could give a flying fuck why… but the author of this fairytale had the definite intention of stimulating a Socratic sense of aporia…
[what’s that?]
well, it’s a philosophical concept Socrates defines in the Meno… I’ll leave a link…
[whatever]
basically, it means enticing those of us interested in reading between the lines to discover a wealth of things we know next to nothing about and simultaneously discover a pleasurable craving to know more about them…
[do we have any cheetos?]
[ahem]
***** 🤓
Socrates: Now do you imagine he would have attempted to inquire or learn what he thought he knew, when he did not know it, until he had been reduced to the perplexity of realizing that he did not know, and had felt a craving to know?
*****
my ridiculously limited experience of high school history had me believing that Napoleon just wanted to be a modern day Alexander the Great and conquer the world…
[of course]
turns out, his motivation for invading Russia was much more practical and way more interesting than that…
it can be summed up in 2 words:
[that’s amore?]
uh no…
Trade War
[huh?]
the trade war is an age-old method of waging a passive aggressive war that doesn’t involve capturing real estate but still forces your tax payers to suffer…
in the modern day version you don’t even have to send troops anywhere…
[Trade wars are good and easy to win. He tweeted that.]
uh yeah, someone did do that, but in Napoleon’s time, um, there was no twitter…
[dad joke groans]
back then you needed a powerful navy to enforce the embargoes and blockades that were the real muscle in a trade war… and that’s just what the Brits did… blockaded all French ports and searched all vessels trying to go in or out… and in the process confiscated all sorts of boats and cargo…
not only that, as forerunners of modern Chinese trade policy — and virtual inventors of the Dollar Store — they successfully flooded Europe with cheap British crap…
[what a load of crap]
um, exactly…
Napoleon didn’t have much of a navy, so to combat the British blockades he sent out an army of bureaucrats, er, I mean customs officials to cover the entire continent… this was called “le blocus continental” otherwise known as the Continental System…
and the best way to describe it is to call it Reverse Brexit… because that’s exactly what it was… Brexit of course, being the modern British, passive aggressive form of Trade War…
[far from being the monster now over 50% of Britons think Trump is doing the right thing]
[OMG]
Napoleon’s Continental System had France and most of Europe — including Russia — cutting themselves off from trade with Britain… although even with French Customs officers crawling up everyone’s rear end looking for British contraband, smuggling was rampant…
[pirate says, that’s lovely that is]
more to the point, the Russians completely fudged their part in the System and allowed a steady flow of forbidden British goods into their ports…
[shit happens]
this pissed off Napoleon so badly he decided to invade Russia and teach them a lesson…
[and not a single fuck was given that day]
I guess not since Napoleon got totally pantsed…
as I said, his Russian invasion lasted less than 6 months, from 24 June - 14 December 1812... and when he got back from that famous fiasco things went from bad to worse…
[sacré bleu!]
by now the Grimms were 26 and 27 years old, and the first volume of their first edition of fairytales came out just in time for Christmas of that year…
[oh, very nice]
and as I said, while all of this historical rigamarole had consequences for everyone in Europe — including the two brothers — none of it appears to have influenced that 1812 version of Hansel and his sister…
[I heard you the first time]
it did, however, set things in motion for some big changes in the Holzhacker parents… as the Grimms, playing fast and loose with the metaphors, turned both of them into politicians…
[republicans are upset yet democrats aren’t]
[oh my god]
well, we’ve just covered 56 years of history the Grimms managed to cram into their tree branch contraption, from 1756 to 1812…
In our next episode:
we just have to get from 1812 to 1819…
[easy peasy, japaneasy]
well, fortunately, we don’t have to travel all that far in time or in space… and it ain’t gonna take me 6 months to publish episode 40… it’s actually finished… it just needs a little polishing… and I can march it right out…
🎶 🥁 🥁 🥁 🎶
just remember episodes 39 through 42 are all connected by way of that silly tree branch contraption, and together they form a little parade of their own…
In the meantime, you know the drill… [visit us on the web at www…dot]
betweenthelines.xyz
That’s where you’ll find links, transcripts, and credits for all of the awesome and indispensable members of kristo’s peanut gallery…
And speaking of the peanut gallery, if you would like to be part of it, I’d love to have you… It could just be a single word or a really short sentence you speak into your phone and send me by email… I’m always combing through the awesome freesound.org for found sound, but sometimes I really need a specific comment to set the mood…
and I suppose AI makes that easier than ever, but I hate AI generated voices…
They may sound like fun, but they would suck the fun out of what we’re doing here…
So hit me up for details by using the email link in the transcripts for this and all future episodes…
[alright, if you say so]
alrighty then, ciao a tutti…
🎶 🥁 french marching music 🥁 🎶
got a question, or just want to say hi...?
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
*Chapter Titles, 1819 version, and Grimms’ Preface material read by Anna Jacobsen*
*Original German Fairytale Reading by Jürgen Lexow*
*English translation of manuscript read by Nicole Warner*
Music Credits:
*🎶*🎶* Bleeping Demo by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License
🎶 Anachronist 🎶 by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License
🎶 French Marching Music 🎶 courtesy of Kevin Luce and freesound.org
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License
kristo's awesome Peanut Gallery
(in order of appearance, and most, courtesy of freesound.org)
@00:00 Walter Winchell
@00:09 "...unclog your arteries" - AI Announcer
@00:13 "I don't know" courtesy of Duisterwho and freesound.org
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@00:23 "...it's better" courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@00:28 "it's good..." courtesy of clivew and freesound.org
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@00:37 "...immature audiences" courtesy of cognito perceptu and freesound.org
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@01:09 "but first..." - Mark Carman of CHGO Sports
@01:18 "...make a curse" courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@01:22 "okee dokee" courtesy of bectec and freesound.org
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@01:24 😇 🎶 heavenly choir 🎶 😇 courtesy of liezen3 and freesound.org
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@01:27 F-Bombs warning: (special) thanks to our good friend Ame Sanders of stateofinclusion.com
@01:38 "...what a terrible curse!" - Sir Joseph Whemple
****
🎶 🎹 organ / church bell 🔔 🎶 @01:44
🎶 🎹 dramatic organ 🎹 🎶 courtesy of Aeonemi and freesound.org
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🎶 🔔 deep church bell 🔔 🎶 courtesy of Aeonemi and freesound.org
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****
@02:04 "oh, you back again?" courtesy of pyro13djt and freesound.org
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@02:16 "ooohhh, yess..." courtesy of Duisterwho and freesound.org
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@02:20 "...like it's normal anymore" courtesy of Duisterwho and freesound.org
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@02:27 "alright already, get on with it!" courtesy of metrostock99 and freesound.org
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@02:55 "...unrealistic" courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@03:17 "why the fuck not?" courtesy of cheesepuff and freesound.org
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@03:54 "aw, why?" courtesy of kurtless
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@04:14 "it's all complicated” courtesy of Roses1401 and freesound.org
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@04:47 "I don't get it" courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@05:05 "...confusing for me" courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@06:05 "what’s that?" courtesy of ballOOnhead and freesound.org
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@06:19 "alright, if you insist" courtesy of bogenseeberg and freesound.org
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@06:43 “it’s really terrible” courtesy of clivew and freesound.org
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@07:06 "...good enough for me" courtesy of W1ZY and freesound.org
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@07:21 "whaat...??" courtesy of Alivvie and freesound.org
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@07:39 "oh yeah..." - Tom Hagen
@07:39 "yeah, yeah, why?" - Walter White
@08:18 "true, that..." - Omar Little
@08:52 "a Hansel and Gretel code?" - AI 44
@09:10 "hmm..." courtesy of agent vivid
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@09:32 "ooh..." courtesy of DrFortyseven and freesound.org
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@10:02 "ahem" courtesy of Alivvie and freesound.org
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@10:17 "oh, wow man" courtesy of bowlingballout and freesound.org
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@10:52 “I'm outta here!” courtesy of deleted_user_1390811 and freesound.org
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@11:04 "alright, but you go first" courtesy of IPaddeh and freesound.org
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@11:11 "ew!" courtesy of isabellaquintero97 and freesound.org
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PART ONE / Teil eins @11:16
@11:34 "I haven't noticed anything" courtesy of ballOOnhead and freesound.org
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@12:08 "unquestionably" courtesy of bectec and freesound.org
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@12:26 "...interesting" courtesy of Reitanna Seishin and freesound.org
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@13:15 "group-shocked - ooh!" courtesy of thanvannispen and freesound.org
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@13:27 "I did not..." - 42
@13:33 “OOH!” - Johnny Vincente
@14:03 "I don't think..." courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@14:20 "OMG, OMG" courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@14:24 "that is fine..." courtesy of Duisterwho and freesound.org
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@14:44 "Who cares?" courtesy of ballOOnhead and freesound.org
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@14:58 "that's correct" courtesy of bogenseeberg and freesound.org
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@15:12 "this is repetitive" courtesy of honest_cactus and freesound.org
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@15:44 "I don't think you know" courtesy of jhyland and freesound.org
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@16:13 "...alarming" courtesy of pyro13djt and freesound.org
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@16:38 "I remember" - the head of Nostradamus
@17:15 "No Sir!" courtesy of theuncertainman and freesound.org
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@17:30 “How?” courtesy of simons7er and freesound.org
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@17:40 "are you kidding me!?" courtesy of LittleRainySeasons and freesound.org
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@17:49 "uuhh, I don't know" courtesy of Duisterwho and freesound.org
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PART TWO / Teil zwei @17:58
@18:58 "awww" courtesy of vahdena and freesound.org
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@19:23 "...doesn't make sense" courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@20:04 "who's this?" courtesy of PacificSea and freesound.org
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@20:48 "wow" courtesy of Legnalegna55 and freesound.org
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@21:04 "...ridiculous" courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@21:29 "What?" courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@21:43 "huh...?" courtesy of deleted_user_2104797 and freesound.org
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@21:54 "can you believe...?" courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@22:46 "...cost too much" courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@23:10 "OMG" courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@23:33 "OMG" courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@24:05 "confusing..." courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@24:21 "I know." - Carl Jung
@24:41 “how many times...?” courtesy of deleted_user_1390811 and freesound.org
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@25:48 "alright already!" courtesy of metrostock99 and freesound.org
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@26:18 "what are you talking about?" courtesy of laelizondo and freesound.org
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@26:41 “OOH!” - Johnny Vincente
@26:42 "OMG" courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@26:43 "WTF!" courtesy of Magic-Cap and freesound.org
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@27:51 "so what's your point?" - George Costanza
@28:12 "don’t say that...!" courtesy of Reitanna Seishin and freesound.org
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@28:42 "really...?" courtesy of juror2 and freesound.org
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@29:26 "what?" courtesy of Roses1401 and freesound.org
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@29:35 "so what!" courtesy of deleted_user_1390811 and freesound.org
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@29:52 "oh, really?" courtesy of xyahka and freesound.org
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@30:22 "such a prank..." courtesy of Krystal Flores and freesound.org
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@30:40 "zuviel Würst..." courtesy of antwerpsounddesign and freesound.org
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@33:45 "you make me smile!” courtesy of Roses1401 and freesound.org
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@30:52 "okee dokee" courtesy of bectec and freesound.org
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PART THREE / Teil drei @30:55
as of April 19th, 2025, I'm only halfway through the credits... so, I'll be adding the rest of them in the coming days... just thought I'd get this out there ASAP...
E.038 - All You Need Is Love, Right? | E.040 Hans and Franz meet King Fritzi-Willi...!