The Willful Child
The Willful Child
The Willful Child (Das eigensinnige Kind) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, listed as tale 117. It belongs to the Aarne–Thompson type 779, stories about divine rewards and punishments, and is related to The Star Money and Frau Trude.
Story: A child who would not do what the mother asked grows stubborn. God is displeased, and the child becomes ill. No doctor can help, and the child lies on a deathbed. After burial, the arm keeps sticking out of the grave. The mother must strike the arm with a rod, and then the arm is drawn back in and the child rests underground. Everything returns to normal. In earlier editions, the tale only had the child become ill; later editions say God allows the illness. The German word for child, das Kind, does not fix the gender of the child.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 07:29 (CET).