Grimm’s Fairy Tales: The Elves, Kindness & Power
The Elves is a collection of three short stories within the Brothers Grimm lexicon that aren’t connected beyond their use of the titular creature. The first tale is the longest of the three and by far the most thought-provoking.
The first of The Elves fairy tales begin with a cobbler who hasn’t had much luck selling his wares. One night, a pair of the most beautiful shoes appears in his workshop, which the Cobbler sells for a great amount.
He and his wife discover after repeated mornings finding gorgeous shoes that it is naked elves crafting these masterpieces. As a sign of thanks, the wife makes them a set of clothes which causes the elves to declare that they no longer need to make shoes.
Gratitude is the obvious lesson of this story; the couple was in a bad place and the elves lifted them out. The story shows how it is more important to be grateful when someone does something unprompted even when there’s no guarantee of a return.
However, the story also touches on something deeper: choosing kindness rather than maintaining power over someone.
Theoretically, the Cobbler could have kept the elves making shoes indefinitely. His wealth would have continued to amass, and the elves would have likely continued, but this would have been largely exploitative.
The elves’ nudity seems to suggest that they weren’t individuals of means and it could be interpreted that they were making shoes because they didn’t have anything else they could do. Disadvantaged and poor, they had little power to sway the Cobbler’s desires.
So, while it would have been easy for the Cobbler and his wife to use their position of power to benefit themselves, they chose to be kind and give something back to elevate the elves who had lifted them out of their bad situation. In the end, the clothes were all the elves desired and it broke them of this pseudo-social contract.
The deeper lesson in this Grimm’s fairy tale shows why it so important to be kind, especially to those who one may have advantages over. Kindness isn’t always rewarded, and it often involves giving up some bit of authority, but it’s a necessity for a good world.
