"The cold heart" - A fairytale as inspiration

Hey Steemians,

for this post we do something we never did before: we share some information about an upcoming song. While our last record WELTENBRAND mainly focused on topics related to war, our next album will be a concept piece about German fairytales and sagas.

A fairytale by Wilhelm Hauff from 1827 begins with the words “he who travels through Swabia, shouldn’t forget to stop by the Black Forest as well. Not only because of the woods, but also because of the people living there…” (Roughly translated!). Since we are located at the verge of the black forest, we can only support this invitation. “Das kalte Herz” (“the cold heart”) is one of the most famous fairytales in the region around the black forest.

What is the story about?

A young charburner named Peter Munk wishes for a better life, since his job is hard – but hardly appreciated by the folks. He craves for more fame and wealth and searches for an ancient ghost living in the woods (called the “Glassmännlein”, roughly translates to “little man made of glass”) who grants three wishes, if you’re born on a Sunday and can summon him with a special rhyme).

Imagesource: Carl Offterdinger, 1869, "Mährchen für Söhne und Töchter gebildeter Stände, Stuttgart Rieger'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung 1869 S. 285"

Peter finds the ghost and gets his wishes – at least two of them. Since those were short-sighted and foolish (such as “I want to be a dancer as good as the best dancer in town” and “I always want to have the same amount of money in my pockets as the local rich guy”), the ghost refuses to grant the third wish for the moment.
After some time, the tables start to turn. Peter stops working and frequently visits the local inn instead of taking care of his new business, which he was not qualified for anyway. After winning several rounds of gambling against the local rich guy, the wish comes true – literally. Since the rich guy lost all his money, he has none in his pockets. And neither does Peter. Now he’s in great debt and also is in suspicion of witchcraft.

In his despair, he turns to another ghost living in the woods – the “Holländermichel”, who is said to grant wealth but also is evil. He receives a lot of money but has to give away his heart. The “Holländermichel” puts in a stone instead of the heart (thus the title). From now on, Peter doesn’t have any feelings anymore, neither good nor bad. On the upside, Peter really is wealthy and respected. But also feared and never shows mercy anymore.
At some point, he kills his newly wedded wife out of anger and only then starts to realize the turn of events. He regrets and fears the afterlife. With that in mind he turns back to the “Glassmännlein” with his final wish – getting his heart back. The good ghost cannot grant this wish directly – but tells him how to trick the bad ghost to give him back his heart. This works out, everything is back to normal and they live happily ever after.

->this is the really rough and simple version, the actual tale is a more complex and has some more interesting story details. For the sake of this post, we should keep it as simple as possible ;)

As mentioned before, the fairytale is commonly known, especially in the southern regions of Germany. An opera and several film versions were done. With our next album, there will also be another song about this tale. In contrary to our previous song-based posts, we will not provide the lyrics to this yet, because the song is still work-in-progress.

But let’s play a game of guess – what do you think will be the outcome of our version? From which characters perspective is the song written? What will be the focus story line?

We hope this little abstract about the tale has entertained you a little. Make sure to follow us, we’ll be back with more background information, lyrics and meanings soon.