Short Story Review || The Juniper Tree (1812)
"A tale of sorrow, reincarnation, & a murder most foul."
: 🌕 : SPOILER ALERT : 🌕 :
It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the book's subject matters & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters that contain reflections on cannibalism, the murder of a child, the death of a loved one, grief, & others.
“Once again the wife stood under the juniper-tree, and it was so full of sweet scent that her heart leaped for joy, and she was so overcome with her happiness, that she fell on her knees.
The ability to be concise has often been named a feat of great value. One might regard the minute encounters, conversations, & reflections that have filled their days & wonder how differently things may have been had the orator, other or thy self, cut to the quick. Always there is an opportunity for growth.
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The prolific nature of the authors of this story gives hope to readers who might long for an unsavoury tale. Grimm tales of terror have long since been regarded as stories that induce great sentiments of horror within the reader, or so I have been told. There have, of course, been many liberties taken with the stories they have left behind for audiences of a wide range of constitutions to adore. Coming to the forefront of one of their original stories was a moment I had not foreseen.
In the stories that I have read, far & wide across the library that raised me, I have seldom found my mind wandering to the silly stories that pretend to be something they are not. What I expect to find in the behemoth of horror is in fact, terror; the very same feature that the Brothers Grimm have seemingly neglected to include in this story.
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In essence, this is a short story about a Juniper tree where members of a single-family flock to die & reincarnate. The tale begins with a weeping woman who wants to become a mother, more than anything else in the entire world. The Juniper tree may have magic properties as, one afternoon, cutting her finger, the woman is filled with a warm feeling that her wish for a very specific-looking child will be granted.
Initially, the story presents an interesting, if somewhat tired, premise. The woman does become pregnant. The family is ecstatic about this development. Nearly immediately after giving birth, she dies & her son is left to fend for himself as his father remarries. The second wife murders her stepson out of some strange need for her family to consist of only one child—heaven forbid, two children of a similar age exist in the same home. The story is a jumble of the boy becoming a bird & then murdering his stepmother.
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In all, there is some intrigue to what is being presented. Readers will note that the magical element of this story is the Juniper tree itself. Yet, the Brothers Grimm do not offer any insight as to what had given the tree supernatural abilities. Whereas the boy’s mother bleeds into the roots of the tree, one might conclude that part of her essence was implanted in the earth, but would this be enough to render the tree magically tied to her family?
What part of the tree gave the first wife comfort? How did she magically feel that she was pregnant while standing by the tree? What part of her fantasizing about becoming a mother led her to trust that the Juniper tree would deliver on her desires?
Perhaps there is a critical part of this story that is evading my comprehension. Perhaps the story is not meant to leave readers with frustrations regarding the lack of details it failed to include. In some ways, I do agree that the story appears to wish to present readers with some form of comfort. The reminder that respect for nature & the natural world, as one might like to put it, is important & remains of great value for humanity.
Yet, the characters do not necessarily value nature. When the boy turns into a bird, his songs are that of a boy & therefore the people of the town marvel at his musically personified abilities. Strange, it might seem, that not a single person who heard the boy sing realized that he was singing about the death of a child. I suppose, all things considered, no one would give a lick, people die every day & what is most interesting is the bird who can speak lyrics.
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Try as I might, I could not help but feel tricked by this story. I laughed as the authors noted that the first wife died as a consequence of her happiness. Why would that have happened? If one removes all connection to the logical world, what indeed took place for her to die? Is happiness a fatal error in human emotions? Would joy lead one astray?
After her death & burial under the Juniper tree, I was hopeful that the brothers Grimm would conclude their silly little story, but they did not. They wrote on & on about the boy who was decapitated by his stepmother & whose younger sister was meant to feel that it was her fault that he had died a most gruesome death. Only then did the story begin to wrap up. The boy needed to become a bird & he needed to return to the Juniper tree & he needed to murder his assassin. Finally, the tale is over. Why was it so long?
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What is lacking here is talent. Odd as it may be to find oneself faced with what is alleged to be great literary prowess & note a profound lack thereof, here I find myself. The story has no potential to be more than a quick clip of fantasy. Perhaps in a time wherein so many people fell victim to medical mysteries (i.e., things for which the scientific world had yet to make clear), the story of a bird who was a boy who never died would feel encouraging. It might even be heartwarming to consider his mother as the new version of the Juniper tree.
However, none of what takes place here is of any value to the reader. The mother is a wishy-washy character who longs for something & never has to work at achieving it. Of course, this is said tongue-in-cheek as I am aware of how babies are conceived.
Her longing for a child kills her because she is too happy to have succeeded. Her son is brutally murdered & he is also buried under the Juniper tree. Have the two characters moulded into one? Were their bones combined to form the bird that reincarnated the boy? What is happening to make this story so hollow?
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My overarching feeling toward this story is disappointment. This is not because I went in hoping for anything extraordinary but rather because the authors gave readers nothing of substance. Superb as it might seem to write about the death of a child as the twist of the narrative, the plot itself has garnered no need for the reader’s emotional investment. Therefore, as everything transpires & the bird boy sings his song for the sixth time, I am left wondering how many villagers it would take to rid the air of his follies.
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Ultimately, readers who have a particular penchant or dedication to the Brothers Grimm might find this tale the perfect mixture of sour & sullen horror. Yet, nothing is particularly devious in the devil who overtakes the stepmother’s one-track mind as a marker of the cruellest particular of the narrative & she features so little as to nearly become inconsequential.
Where for art the father, I wonder, who cares naught for the well-being of his son as he gnaws on his bones like bread to the tune of Jack’s tormentor in the sky.
If you would like to read this story, please visit this link — « The Juniper Tree » by Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm
C. 💌