독일 그림형제 동화에 나타난 동물의 형상과 인식

Animal-like Figures and their Knowledge in the German Grimms’ Fairy Tales

Since old age, man has had close connections to animals and fairy tales. It is considered a basic human need to tell, and to listen to, fairy tales. Through the fulfilment of this basic need, people have left not only the personal, but also cultural phenomena of their society as traces in the fairy tale texts. In the fairy tale text, one can rediscover the relationship between man and animal- a relationship which is no longer understood by the people of the real world, and is even viewed as fairy tale like. In order to determine the relationship between man and animal, the present paper deals with Grimms‘ fairy tales and the fairy tales of the North American Indians. In Grimms‘ fairy tales, one encounters animal-like figures and their knowledge, the latter which is not intelligible to oneself: speaking animals, the belief in bones as sprout of life, soul animals, animals who helpf man in distress, transformation. These appearances were, among the North American Indians, who have lived in a hunter culture, reality, at least reality of belief. According to the North American Indians‘ beliefs, animals have an animal-like figure, but are not a being that is distinguished from man. Man and animal are not distinguished from another, but are merely two forms of expression of one soul. Hence, the North American Indians hold the belief that man and animal are equal, and that animals even have more power and capacity than man. The relationship between man and animal in Grimms‘ fairy tales, which can no longer be understood today, can be considered a vestige of the hunter culture. However (as is the case with the phenomenon of transformation), the relationship of man and animal in the hunter culture cannot be rediscovered completely in Grimms‘ fairy tales.