The Robber Bridegroom (fairy tale)
| The Robber Bridegroom | |
|---|---|
Illustration of "The Robber Bridegroom" from Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm, translated by Lucy Crane, illustrated by Walter Crane, first published by Macmillan and Company in 1886. | |
| Folk tale | |
| Name | The Robber Bridegroom |
| Aarne–Thompson grouping | ATU 955 (The Robber Bridegroom) |
| Region | Germany |
| Published in | Kinder- und Hausmärchen, by the Brothers Grimm |
| Related | Bluebeard How the Devil Married Three Sisters Fitcher's Bird |
"The Robber Bridegroom" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 40. Joseph Jacobs included a variant, Mr Fox, in English Fairy Tales, but the original provenance is much older; Shakespeare (circa 1599) alludes to the Mr. Fox variant in Much Ado About Nothing, Act 1, Scene 1:
- Like the old tale, my lord: "it is not so, nor `t was not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so."
It is Aarne–Thompson type 955, the robber bridegroom. This type is closely related to tales of type 312, such as Bluebeard, and type 311, such as How the Devil Married Three Sisters and Fitcher's Bird.