Fitcher's Bird is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 46.[1]
It is Aarne-Thompson type 311, the heroine rescues herself and her sisters. Another tale of this type is How the Devil Married Three Sisters.[2] It is closely related to the tale Bluebeard.[3] The Brothers Grimm also noted its connection to the forbidden door of Mary's Child,[4] and its similarity to the Norwegian The Old Dame and Her Hen.[5]
Some European variants of the ballad Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight, Child ballad 4, closely resemble this tale.[6]
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A sorcerer took the form of a beggar and carried off young women. He carried off an oldest sister and assured her she would be happy with him. Then, he went off and forbade her to enter one room; he also gave her an egg and told her to carry it everywhere and be careful with it. She went into the forbidden room, found hacked-up bodies and a basin of blood, and dropped the egg into it. The sorcerer returned and demanded the egg. Then he said that since she had gone in against his will, she would go in against her own, and killed her there. He carried off the second sister, and it went with her as with the first.
Then he carried off the youngest. She put aside the egg before she searched the house. When she found her sisters' bodies, she put all the parts back together, and the sisters came to life again. The sorcerer returned and was ready to marry her, because the egg was unstained. She told him that first he had to carry her parents a basket of gold without resting on the way, and she put her sisters in the basket and covered it with gold. Whenever he tried to rest, one sister would shout that she could see him resting.
Meanwhile, the youngest prepared a wedding feast, dressed up a skull and put it in the window, and covered herself with honey and feathers, so she looked like a strange bird. Going home, she is addressed as "Fitcher's Bird" by guests and the sorcerer, and tells them the bride is preparing the house. The guests and sorcerer went into the house. But the three sisters' brothers and relatives barred the doors and burned down the house, so they all died.
In a note in the Jack Zipes translation of this tale, it says that "the word Fichter is taken from the Icelandic Fitfuglar, which is a kind of web-footed bird."[7]
Gregory Frost sets the tale among the doomsday religious cults of 19th century New York in his 2002 novel Fitcher's Brides.
In 2007, the theatre group BooTown adapted a short play based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, called Fitcher's a Bastard, but his bird's alright.
American artist Cindy Sherman adapted the story in a photographic spread for Vanity Fair.