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Title: The Owl, the Raven, & the Dove: The Religious Meaning of the Grimms' Magic Fairy Tales by G. Ronald Murphy ISBN: 0195136071 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: June, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4

Rating: 5
Summary: A Link in a Long Chain of Grace.
Comment: It was while reading the story of Jorinda and Joringal, a tale not mentioned in this book, that I began to wonder about the spirituality of the Brothers Grimm. Jorinda, a beautiful maiden, is transformed into a nightinggale and taken captive in a castle by a witch. One day, her lover, a shepherd, finds a red flower with a drop of dew in the center of it. When he touches the witch with with the flower, it deprives her of her evil power, and Joringal's beloved is set free. I had to wonder: "Did the Grimms know they were talking about Jesus?" Murphy answered this question for me: they did, indeed.

If I were going to pick a word to describe the overall impression the author gives me, I think it would be "kindly." At first I sometimes got the feeling I was listening in on someone else's conversation: Murphy forgets his readers and his partners in academic dialogue are strangers, and need to be introduced. But once everyone is seated for discussion, Murphy is generous not only to the Grimms (he sometimes tells how good a writer Wilhelm is, when he should be showing), he treats other scholars with respect (not a universal habit in academia), and describes the ironic skepticism or sexual crudities of rival versions of these tales without downplaying those approaches, yet bringing out the special depth of the Grimm's mythical imagination and spiritual feeling.

The main subjects of this book are Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Cindarella, and Sleeping Beauty. (But don't overlook Appendix A, a closer look at Wilhelm Grimm's New Testament, or Appendix C, the story of the Cross and the Christmas tree. It was the star on top of the latter that furnished the fifth star for this rating.)

The story Murphy tells is one link in a chain of grace that goes back thousands of years. Early Christian thinkers saw classical philosophy and myth as a "tutor" to bring the Western world to Christ. Dante and Michaelangelo picked up on the same theme in the Middle Ages. G. K. Chesterton described how, as a child, he learned reason and morality, and intimations of spiritual truth, from fairy tales, naming some of the stories in this book, but without talking about Christianity in particular. Later he wrote a book, Everlasting Man, in which he described pagan mythology in similiar sympathetic terms. This is the book that helped C. S. Lewis, who would become the most influential Christian writer of the 20th Century, to conclude that the Gospel was the answer to the question, "Where have all the hints of Paganism been fulfilled?" Later Lewis brought the story full circle with his own redemptive fairy tales, the Chronicles of Narnia. So the story Murphy tells is of interest historically, as well as for the remarkable light it sheds on our favorite fairy tales. It is one link in a chain of grace that no man on earth can fully know.

For those interested in the bigger picture, let me recommend some good books: City of God (Augustine); Contra Celsus (Origin); Everlasting Man and Orthodoxy (Chesterton); Eternity in Their Hearts (Don Richardson); Jesus Through the Centuries (Jaroslav Pelikan); The Crown of Hinduism (J.N.Farquhar); and Discovery of Genesis. (with reservations - see my Amazon review.) Also, of course, my own books, Jesus and the Religions of Man, and True Son of Heaven: How Jesus Fulfills the Chinese Culture.

My four year old boy spied the cover of this book, with its picture of Snow White and the owl, raven, and dove, and asked for an explanation. "The prince came and kissed Snow White and she came back to life," I told him. "Is (the prince) God?" He asked. Murphy shows that the Brothers Grimm still have the power to solicit deep spiritual questions from people of all ages.

Rating: 5
Summary: Magnificent achievement
Comment: A groundbreaking analysis of Grimm's fairy tales. Ronald Murphy does a superb job of demonstrating how the Brother Grimm drew out the Christian meaning in the tales, often by adding symbolic or allegorical material. This is a tour-de-force of insightful scholarship and literary detective work.

I note that one of the other reviews of this book claims that Murphy says the tales are of Christian origin. But this is not the case; rather, he suggests that the tales contain elements of Greco-Roman, Egyptian, Germanic, and French folklore. The point is, as Murphy so masterfully demonstrates, that the Grimms took this material and exposed its latent Christian meaning.

This is one of the best books about Grimm's tales to come across in many year; highly recommended.

Rating: 1
Summary: not withstanding
Comment: All though the fairy tales certainly have the teeth marks of Christianity, I should point out that Grimm's fairy tales are undeniably of Heathen, NOT Christian origin. The author and the below reviewer below failed to recognise the fact tht Grimm was a scholar that deeply studied Teutonic Mythology, in fact he wrote a 4 volumn set dedicated to the study of anceint Germanic Heathenism. I HIGHLY doubt that Grimm felt that the fairy tales were of Christain origin. In fact, when little red riding hood was devoured by the wolf and then released by the hunter this is a direct reflection of the anceint germanic legend of Wotan being released from the belly of the Fenris wolf through his son Vidar the Silent. This is purely pagan expression of rebirth. Jack and the Beanstalk is blatently Heathen, and very few, if any Christain expression can be seriously extracted from this tale. Here is a boy named Jack that travels to Elfland via a "bean stalk"(one of the nine worlds of the World Tree), in which he makes a deal with one of the elves and then takes a journey to Giantland(another one of the nine worlds of the World Tree). In this story, Jack slays a giant and brings food back to his familily. While this could be construed as a good "Christian" deed, I should point out that providing for ones familily was of extreme importants to those whom practiced Heathen religion in anceint times. I do, however, feel that Grimms fairy tales are an inner expression of those whom have germanic roots and I feel that anyone whom has pride in their Northern heritedge, whether Christian or Asatru(Germanic Heathen), should Grimms fairy tales(which is NOT racist if one respects other cultures and ways of thinking).

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