Juniper-Tree, The

Synopsis

The Juniper Tree is a German fairy tale containing themes of child abuse, murder and cannibalism and is one of the Brothers Grimm's darker and more mature fairy tales. In it, a boy is murdered and made into a stew by his evil stepmother, who buries his bones beneath a juniper tree outside their house. The boy is reincarnated as a bird who flies forth from the tree and enlists the townspeople to help him exact revenge. It is thought that the Grimm version of this tale was adapted from painter Philipp Otto Runge's The Almond Tree.