Jorinda and Joringel

Summary

Jorinda and Joringel is a Grimm’s tale set on the planet of Krypton. They were both quite goods friends with Jor-el, Superman’s father. They all grew up together and often played on the krypton fields wearing their celebration clothes, which looked an awfully lot like German-Earth clothes…not really, but it’s plausible right?

Once upon a time there was an old castle in the middle of the woods. There lived a witch who turned herself into a cat or a screech-owl during the daytime. At night she was her human form and would draw animals to her only to kill them and roast them. There was an enchanted circle around the castle. Any man who entered it would be stuck to his place until the witch said he could go. Any woman who entered it would be turned into a bird and kept in a cage in the witch’s castle. She currently had around seven-thousand cages of birds, it was a big castle.

Jorinda and Joringel loved each other so much because they were outcasts in their society for having such weird names, not really, I made that up, but they did really love each other. They wanted to get married. They wandered in the forest and Joringel told Jorinda to take care and not get too close to the witch’s castle. They were careful at first, that’s what everyone says, but they soon became lost and didn’t know the way home. They got really depressed.  They stepped inside the witch’s enchanted circle. Joringel could not move and Jorinda was turned into a nightingale, which the witch put in a cage. The nightingale could only sing, “Jug, jug jug,” but Jorinda had actually been singing, “My little bird, with the necklace red, Sings sorrow, sorrow, sorrow, He sings that the dove must soon be dead, Sings sorrow, sor—–jug, jug, jug,” as she was being turned into a bird.

The witch soon came to Joringel and said, “Greet you, Zachiel. If the moon shines on the cage, Zachiel, let him loose at once.” I have no idea what that means, but Joringel was freed. He begged the witch to turn Jorinda back into a woman, but she wouldn’t do it. She told him it was best if he forgot his beloved Jorinda.

Joringel went away quite sad. He came to a strange village where he kept sheep for a long time. He had a dream one night that he found a flower as red as blood with a pearl in the middle of it. Whatsoever he touched with this flower it was disenchanted. Joringel looked for the flower day after day, until it was nine days. He found it.

As soon as he had the flower he journeyed day and night to the witch’s castle. He used the flower to get through the enchanted ring around the castle. He used the flower to get through the castle door. He disenchanted things along the way. Finally, he saw the witch. She tried to get him, but the flower kept him out of harm’s reach. She grabbed one specific nightingale cage and ran. Joringel followed, knowing the nightingale in that cage was his beloved Jorinda. He used the flower on both the witch and Jorinda. Jorinda was turned back into a woman and the witch had no more powers. All the other birds got turned back into women and Jorinda and Joringel went home to Krypton.

The End

Observations

These are some weirdly named people. Maybe, in Germany, back in the day, these names weren’t so weird, but, to me, in the modern age, they’re weird names. They also sound like they would be elf names. Maybe Jorinda and Joringel wandered far to the north after this and became some of Santa’s elves. I want to say that because of their similarities these two names probably mean the same thing just with female and male endings.  “Jor” means something then “inda” means the female version of that thing. “Ingel” would be the male version of that thing. Jorinda is the female version of “jor” and Joringel is the male version of “jor,” whatever “jor” happens to be. I could be totally wrong though, but looking at it from a linguistic point of view, that’s what I’m thinking.

Seven thousand cages of birds is a lot of birds. Good lord, this woman must have been out a ton of money every month for bird food. The castle probably smelled terrible. She probably had all kinds of avian borne diseases. You know what…she’s a hoarder. She’s an animal hoarder. Seriously, that’s what she is. Nobody said people didn’t go around hoarding junk back in the day. There were hoarders then too. I would definitely call seven thousand birds a bit of a hoarding problem. That’s why she had to live all alone in the woods. Nobody wanted to be around her because she always smelled like bird poop.

I did some research for you guys. I didn’t know what all that hooplah about “zachiel” meant. Zachiel is either a last name or the name of an archangel in Kabbalistic something or other. Zachiel spells his name several different ways. He can be seen as a comforter or someone associated with wealth and charity. So, I guess this witch was kind of spiritual.

Themes

Something is as red as blood, again. Blood, if it’s exposed to oxygen, and fresh, is very bright red, all of you know that from childhood bicycle accidents. If you get over the gross factor, it’s quite a pretty color. Red like that really couldn’t be reproduced for quite a while. People could get duller reds from various plant dyes, but not that bright red color later recreated with cochineal. People wanted these beautiful bright colors, but they were hard to create. It’s a little morbid that so many people are going around desiring all manner of things to be the color of fresh blood, but you have to think about the times. People weren’t as squeamish about things then and it seems they had good taste in colors. When they saw a pretty color, they didn’t care where that pretty color came from, they just knew that it was pretty.

A blood-red flower would be possible. I actually had some blood-red gladioli in my flower bed this summer. They were quite pretty. I don’t think they’re that common though. I don’t know a lot about the flora in Germany and the Black Forest region. Maybe they have blood-red flowers growing there or maybe they don’t. If they do not, it makes sense that Joringel had to search for nine days to find this specific flower.

Pearls can symbolize purity so it makes sense that a pearl would be used to disenchant enchanted items. Items that are enchanted are not in their natural states after all. The fact that pearls symbolize purity doesn’t make a lot of sense in some respects because a pearl is essentially oyster snot. I don’t consider snot very pure.

Overall

I’ve got to fly back to Krypton now.



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Grimm’s Fairy Tales
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