In the era and region in which it was collected, many men were drafted by kings for soldiers, to be sent as mercenaries. This tale, like The Twelve Brothers, The Six Swans, and Brother and Sister, features a woman rescuing her brothers. The youngest brother finds the ring, and hopes it is their sister, in which case they are saved. They turn back into human form and ask who has been at their food. She takes some of their food and drink and leaves, in the last cup, a ring from home. She goes into the mountain, where a dwarf tells her that her brothers will return.

In the Greek version, she opens it with the bat's foot, in the German, she has lost the bone, and chops off a finger to use as a key, (or she opens it with chicken bone). The star helps her by giving her a chicken bone (in the German) or a bat's foot (in the Greek) and tells her she will need it to save her brothers. She attempts to get help first from the sun, which is too hot, then the moon, which craves human flesh, and then the morning star. When the sister is grown, she sets out in search of her brothers. When they do not return, their father thinks that they have gone off to play and curses them and so they turn into ravens. In their haste, they drop the jug in the well. The father sends his sons to fetch water for her, in the German version to be baptized, in the Greek version to take water from a healing spring. Finally a daughter is born, but is sickly. Synopsis Ī peasant has seven sons and no daughter. Their source was the Hassenpflug family, and others. In the second edition, in 1819, the name was retitled Die sieben Raben and substantially rewritten.

The tale was published by the Brothers Grimm in the first edition of the Kinder- und Hausmärchen in 1812, under the name 'Die drei Raben' (The Three Ravens).

Īn animated feature film based on the story was released in 1937 (see The Seven Ravens). Other variants of the Aarne–Thompson type include The Six Swans, The Twelve Wild Ducks, Udea and her Seven Brothers, The Wild Swans, and The Twelve Brothers. Georgios A Megas collected another, Greek variant in Folktales of Greece. It is of Aarne–Thompson type 451 ('The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers'), commonly found throughout Europe. ' The Seven Ravens' (German: Die sieben Raben) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm (KHM 25).

Grimm Fairy Tales by Raven Gregory