Line #53 Literature/TheTwoBrothers


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/two_brothers_kay_neilsen.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:The Younger Brother Slaying the Dragon]]
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4	"The Two Brothers" (''Die zwei Brüder'') is a FairyTale collected by Creator/TheBrothersGrimm.
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6	The version the Grimms included in ''Children's and Household Tales'' has two distinct sections, which may have originally been separate tales; they mention in an afterword having also collected stories that resemble the first section with a different ending or the second section with a different beginning. Other fairy tale collectors have had similar finds; for instance, Creator/AndrewLang's ''Violet Fairy Book'' includes a Lithuanian tale called "The Three Princes and Their Beasts" which resembles the second section.
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8	The first section tells of two brothers, one a rich and wicked goldsmith and the other a poor and humble broom-maker. The broom-maker discovers a rare golden bird, which the goldsmith buys off him. The bird is magical, and whoever cooks and eats its heart and liver will find a gold coin under his pillow each morning. The goldsmith sets his wife to cooking the bird, but due to a mishap, the bird's heart and liver are eaten by the two starving sons of the broom-maker. The broom-maker is astonished when his sons start finding gold under their pillows, and asks his brother for advice. The goldsmith vindictively claims they've fallen in with the devil, and must be driven out. After wandering for a while, the two boys are taken in by a huntsman, who raises them as his own sons.
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10	In the second section, the two boys (who incidentally are identical twins) are young men and set out to seek their fortunes. First they travel together, and acquire a matching set of faithful animal companions: in order they are hares, foxes, wolves, bears, and lions (all of which are also twins, or at least littermates). Then they go their separate ways, and the story follows the younger brother, who saves a princess from a dragon and wins her hand. They live happily for a while until the young man goes hunting in a mysterious forest, where a witch turns him to stone. The elder brother, having received a portent that his sibling is in trouble, comes to visit and is mistaken for his twin. He lets the mistake stand so he can borrow his brother's authority to find out what's going on, then goes out to the forest and rescues his younger brother from the witch. The brother who is married to the princess, though grateful to be rescued and glad to be reunited with his sibling, has an attack of jealousy when he learns that his elder brother has been living his life, but is reassured when he gets home and his wife asks him why he has been behaving strangely distant and sleeping separately from her for the last few days. The end.
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12	[[https://americanliterature.com/author/the-brothers-grimm/fairy-tale/the-two-brothers Read it here.]]
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14	The first part of the tale is classified, according to the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, as tale type ATU 567, "The Magic Bird-Heart", wherein a pair of siblings eat the liver and head of a magical bird that is prophesized to grant fortune to whoever eats it, and ATU 303, "The Twins or Blood Brothers".
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16	----
17	!!This story contains examples of:
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19	* TheAlcoholic: Funnily enough, the younger brother's lion is this. It often gets intoxicated and oddly, it is for this exact reason that the lion was sent to fetch some king's wine from the palace. To ensure it got the right wine for its master, the lion kept tasting some of the wine offered and ended up slightly inebriated on the way back!
20	* AlwaysIdenticalTwins: The broom-maker's sons, "who were twin brothers and as like each other as two drops of water."
21	* AndroclesLion: The brothers acquire their loyal and helpful animal companions by sparing the lives of the creatures' parents. Of note is that their sparing lives comes five times, and includes a literal lion.
22	* AppliedPhlebotinum: The magic root in the second section, used to [[DeathIsCheap cheapen death]].
23	* BackFromTheDead: Due to magic root / plants:
24	** After the younger brother defeats the dragon, he is decapitated in his sleep by the marshal, who steals the credit. His animal companions restore him to life using a rare plant the hare knows how to find. This happens to him again when the lion put his head on backwards the first time, which necessitated yet another round of decapitation-and-resurrection.
25	** This also happens to the older brother, who was decapitated by the younger brother out of a fit of jealous rage. It played out the exact same, with the older brother none the worse for wear afterwards.
26	* BearsAreBadNews: They certainly are for the poor guards of the old king! When the younger brother's bear tried to enter the palace, it swiped its paws on a couple of guards to break their ranks and gain entrance. Averted generally for the brothers, each of whom has a loyal bear companion.
27	* TheBeastmaster: The two brothers become hunters and collect a train of animal companions--a lion, a bear, a wolf, a fox, and a hare--each.
28	* TheBet: The younger brother had bets with his innkeeper that he could obtain foods and drinks that the King ate and drank. The innkeeper naturally disbelieved him, and so the younger brother sent each of his animal companions to fetch these items for him. It eventually escalated from betting money to the innkeeper's house and yard against the brother's thousand gold coins, the wager resting on whether the brother can marry the princess or not. Of course, the brother wins that bet too (although he allowed the innkeeper to keep his property as well as the gold coins).
29	* ChasteSeparatingSword: One twin slays a dragon, gets the StandardHeroReward, marries a princess and settles down with her. Then he gets in trouble with a witch who turns him to stone. Meanwhile, his identical twin brother comes to town and is mistaken for him. Refusing to BedTrick his brother's wife, he lays a sword between them at night so she won't try anything. After he rescues his brother, this [[ChekhovsGun sword proves rather important]] to establishing his continued chastity and his respect for his brother's marriage.
30	-->''In the evening he was taken to the royal bed, but he placed a double-edged sword between himself and the young queen. She did not know what to make of it, but she did not dare to ask.''
31	* ChekhovsGun: The seven dragon tongues that the younger brother cuts and keeps in the princess's handkerchief becomes a crucial plot point in proving he was the one who slew the dragon and not the marshal.
32	* CoolSword: The younger brother picks up a sword from a church, which can only be lifted by the WorldsStrongestMan.
33	* DamselInDistress: The younger brother saves a princess who was to be sacrificed to a dragon.
34	* DeathIsCheap: After establishing that the animals know a way to resurrect someone from the dead, the story includes a couple of incidents where one or other of the brothers is killed and then immediately revived.
35	* DecapitationPresentation: The marshal presents the dragon's heads. Alas for him, the actual killer had gotten their tongues.
36	* DragonsAreDemonic: It eats virgins and is slain by a sword that was found on church grounds.
37	* DragonsPreferPrincesses: The princess is about to be sacrificed to a dragon when the younger brother rescues her. It's mentioned that it's actually virgins the dragon prefers, but all the other virgins in the kingdom have been eaten already.
38	* DragonsVersusKnights: The dragon is noted to have killed many a knight before the younger brother came along.
39	* EvilUncle: The goldsmith to the two boys, although really he's evil to everyone and the fact that he has nephews is an incidental detail.
40	* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: A couple of instances.
41	** After the younger brother kills the dragon, the marshal cuts his head off while he sleeps. Fortunately, his {{Talking Animal}}s save him.
42	** Later on, the treacherous marshal is executed by having four bulls dismember his body.
43	* FetchQuest: The younger brother sends each of his animal companions to the palace to fetch him various foods or drinks that the King consumes, in order to win TheBet.
44	* FlowerFromTheMountaintop: The hare's journey to fetch the magic root from a distant mountain to save the huntsman.
45	* ForgottenPhlebotinum: In the second section, which may have originally been a separate story, there's no mention of gold coins magically appearing under pillows. Possibly subverted, however, in that it explains how the younger twin can easily come up with a thousand gold pieces to cover TheBet he makes with an innkeeper when he returns to marry the princess. (It's also completely averted with the healing herb the younger twin's hare brings to resurrect his master; once they've got it, they use it again [[DeathIsCheap every time they need someone resurrected]].)
46	* GreenEyedMonster: Upon hearing that his older brother had been sleeping in the same bed as his wife (although with a ChasteSeparatingSword), the younger brother quickly decapitated him out of a fit of jealous rage. To his credit, he immediately reversed course upon him realizing he had just killed his brother and savior. DeathIsCheap is invoked soon after and all is back to normal.
47	* HeadTurnedBackwards: The younger brother is beheaded in his sleep by a wicked marshal. When the hero's train of animal companions find him, they send the hare to fetch a magic root that can restore people back to life. It works, but the not-too-bright animals have put his head on the wrong way. The hero does not immediately realize this due to being lovesick, and only when he tries to eat lunch he notices there is something amiss. The animals fess up to their mistake, and the lion mends the damage by [[DeathIsCheap ripping the head off]], then putting it back on the right way with the magic root.
48	* HeroesPreferSwords: The younger brother finds and picks up a special sword to slay the dragon with.
49	* ImmuneToBullets: The elder brother tries to shoot the witch, but she's immune to bullets -- at least, to ''lead'' bullets.
50	* KillItWithFire: The dragon's preferred method of killing its enemies: [[BreathWeapon breathe fire]] to light the dry grass and suffocate them in heat and smoke. Much later on, this is also how the brothers killed the witch.
51	* LoyalAnimalCompanion: The brothers each have [[PantheraAwesome a lion]], [[BearyFriendly a bear]], [[NobleWolf a wolf]], [[CunningLikeAFox a fox]], and [[RascallyRabbit a hare]] for companions.
52	* MagicWand: The witch's wand, unique in that it works not by waving it and verbalizing a spell, but by tapping it on other people (and animals!) to [[TakenForGranite turn them to stone.]]
53	* TheMarvelousDeer: Following one is how the younger brother gets into trouble when he goes hunting in the woods.
54	* MightyRoar: The lion gains entrance to the palace simply by roaring at the guards, who promptly scurried away.
55	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: The younger brother once he realized that he had beheaded his brother and savior in a [[GreenEyedMonster green-eyed moment of monstrosity]]. Fortunately for him, DeathIsCheap!
56	* NamelessNarrative: Nobody in the story has a name.
57	* NumberOfObjectsTitle: ''The '''Two''' Brothers''. Also a DoubleMeaningTitle: Either it refers to the brothers of the first section, the goldsmith and the broom-maker, or ones of the second section, the broom-maker's abandoned twin sons, who were taken in by a huntsman.
58	* OffWithHisHead: The younger brother (twice, thanks to a case of HeadTurnedBackwards) and the older brother. Both of them get better.
59	** The dragon also gets beheaded multiple times, though it's because there were seven heads. Later on these seven heads are brought to the king's palace on his daughter's wedding day as trophies, which also helps the younger brother fire ChekhovsGun.
60	* OurDragonsAreDifferent: This one has--''[[OffWithHisHead had]]''--seven heads.
61	* PetTheDog: Although he won TheBet, the younger brother allowed the innkeeper to keep his property and even the thousand gold coins that was wagered against it. Presumably this was because the brother was moving up to royalty anyway, but it's still a show of generosity, or as the story puts it, "it [was] done according to mercy."
62	** In a BlinkAndYouMissIt example during the same scene, the younger brother had both his father and his foster-father (the huntsman) at his wedding and loaded them both with treasures.
63	* RagsToRoyalty: The younger son of a poor broom-maker marries a princess and becomes viceroy of a kingdom.
64	* RescueRomance: The princess falls in love with the younger brother as soon as he rescues her from the dragon.
65	* RuleOfThree: Several times.
66	** In the first section, the poor broom-maker brings gold from the golden bird three times to his brother. (The third time was the bird itself.)
67	** A bumblebee lands three times on the hare's nose before it awoke.
68	** Speaking of the hare, it scratches on the princess's leg three times before she pays attention to it.
69	** The lion meanwhile tasted three wines on its FetchQuest, the third being the one it was sent for.
70	** The magic root is used to reverse a beheading and bring someone back to life three times. Although unlike the other uses of this trope in the story, they were not three recurring attempts in one scene.
71	* SilverBullet: After discovering that the witch is ImmuneToBullets, the elder brother fashions silver bullets out of his coat buttons, which are much more effective.
72	* SpotTheImposter: After the brothers are reunited at the end, they decide just for fun to challenge the court to tell which is the princess's husband. Even the princess can't tell the men apart, but she identifies her husband after taking a close look at the ''animals''. (Her husband's animals are wearing neck decorations she gave them after they helped kill the dragon.)
73	* SuperSpeed: The hare says that the magic root lies two hundred hours away from where the story takes place. The lion tells it to retrieve the root in twenty-four hours and ''actually gets it done!''
74	* StandardHeroReward: The king has promised that the man who saves his daughter will get her hand in marriage and inherit the kingdom.
75	* StealingTheCredit: While the hunter and his animals are resting after killing the dragon, the marshal kills him and takes credit for the dragon's death. (The princess knows the truth, but he extorts a promise of silence which she's too frightened of him to break until the hunter turns up again.)
76	* SweetTooth: The younger brother's bear turns out to be this, because it likes licking sweet things. It is for this exact reason it was sent to fetch some of the king's confectionery.
77	* TakenForGranite: The witch's victims.
78	* TongueTrauma: The younger brother removes a tongue from each of the slain dragon's seven heads as proof of his victory. It later acts as a ChekhovsGun.
79	** In the same scene, he also says (in response to the marshal's lie about dragons not having tongues) that "liars ought to have none."
80	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The younger brother's aforementioned CoolSword. There was a whole thing about emptying cups just for him to be able to wield it. Wield it he does and the dragon is slain, and then... no further mention of it.
81	* WickedWitch: She lives in the forest and turns everyone she meets into stone.
82	* WorldsStrongestMan: A surprisingly irrelevant plot point, but the inscription at the church where the younger brother finds the CoolSword says "Whosoever empties the cups will become the strongest man on earth, and will be able to wield the sword which is buried before the threshold of the door."

Context Literature / TheTwoBrothers