The identity and/or traits of individual fairy-tale spaces can indirectly be established through references to the objects and materials that constitute them (building materials such as stone, wood, or gold) and/or are used within them (various material items, from furniture to clothing and foodstuff). This can be achieved by explicitly naming individual items such as doors or windows to signify the larger space to which they belong, but which is not explicitly identified, or identifying and/or describing various objects and materials (primarily food and clothing) to establish the traits of a particular space. In the former case, the objects are a physical part of the space; in the latter, they may be its physical part (e.g. building materials) or
contained within it. Since the synecdochal function of objects has already been discussed in the section on naming, the remainder of the present discussion will focus on the role of objects and materials contained within a particular space in establishing its traits.
On the most basic level, the presence of non-magical or magical objects can signal that the charactersʼ current environment is part of the respective domain. In addition to magic objects, various rare and precious items and materials such as jewels, pearls, silver, and especially gold, which Lüthi associates with the magical (1987[1975]: 15), are used to indicate that the space the characters are occupying belongs to the magical domain or is of magical origin (e.g. the castle in “The True Bride”). For example, the gold, silver, and diamonds covering the tree leaves in “The Worn-out Dancing Shoes”, or the jewels spread across the mountain top in “The Lettuce Donkey” all signal that these environments are part of the magical domain.
The qualities of individual spaces and the material conditions prevalent within them are often established through references to different types of food (or its absence) and clothes. Such objects assume the “value of a sign” for that space (Ronen 1986: 422), identifying it as a space of lack or abundance, poverty or wealth, safety or threat (abuse). Lack of food is often used to establish the initial domestic space as one of deprivation, as evidenced by, among other tales, “Hansel and Gretel”, which opens with a description of a household on the verge of famine: “The woodcutter did not have much food around the house, and when a great famine devastated the entire country, he could no longer provide enough for his familyʼs daily meals” (Grimm 2003[1857]: 53). With only “half a loaf of bread” left to feed the four family members, the parents try to alleviate the difficult situation by abandoning their children in the forest (ibid.: 55). Similarly, the father in “The Three Snake Leaves” is introduced as being unable to “provide enough food for his only son” (ibid.: 59), which prompts the protagonist to leave home in search of a better life. “The Virgin Mary’s Child”, a story which unfolds across a succession of spaces of lack and abundance, each of which is established through references to food and clothing, opens with a description of the material difficulties endured by the woodcutter’s family, which is “so poor they could not have daily meals anymore and did not know how they would provide food for their daughter” (ibid.: 7). The lack of daily meals – or daily bread (tägliche Brot), as stated in the German original – unequivocally establishes the parental home as a space of lack and deprivation, poverty, and hunger. It is precisely this lack that provides a stimulus for the plot, prompting the Virgin Mary to offer her assistance and take the girl up to heaven.
In addition to the more obvious connotations of lack and impoverishment, food deficiency can also be used to establish a given space as one of abuse. Thus, a number of malicious fairy-tale step-parents express disdain for their stepchildren by limiting their access to (high-quality) food. For example, the siblings in “Brother and Sister”
complain that their stepmother gives them “nothing but hard crusts of bread, just leftovers for food, and the dog under the table is better off. At least he gets a good chunk of meat to eat every now and then” (Grimm 2003[1857]: 38). Similarly, the heroine of “One-Eye, Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes” endures hunger and thirst, and is given only leftovers.
Following the principle of juxtaposition, which states that spatial transference typically unfolds between contrasting spaces (Bal 2017[1985]: 127), the famished protagonists commonly move from their impoverished home into a space of (over)abundance: Hansel and Gretel, for instance, go from a house without bread to one “made of bread”, which also has “cake for a roof and pure sugar for windows” (Grimm 2003[1857]: 56). Moreover, once they enter the house, they receive “a good meal of milk and pancakes with sugar and apples and nuts” (ibid.: 56–57). Similarly, the transportation of the titular protagonist from a poverty-ridden cottage to heaven in “The Virgin Maryʼs Child” brings about a positive change in the girlʼs fortunes; unsurprisingly, in heaven, “[e]verything went well for the girl […]: she ate cake and drank sweet milk. Her clothes were made of gold, and the little angels played with her” (ibid.: 7). Clearly, the girl wants for nothing in heaven since this space – in contrast to the earthly realm – is characterised by opulence and material security. Once deprived of daily bread, she now enjoys cake (Zuckerbrot – literally, sugar bread) and sweet milk (süße Milch). In both “The Virgin Maryʼs Child” and “Hansel and Gretel”, the initial deprivation is compensated for not only with the amount of food, but also its type, as the spaces of abundance provide rare delicacies such as cake and pancakes, suggesting that food is no longer merely a source of nourishment, but also pleasure.
The choice of sugary treats is perhaps unsurprising considering that sugar was for a long time “a rare and expensive luxury”, found only on royal and aristocratic tables (Hagelberg 2003: 361). Another delicacy typically enjoyed within the magical domain is meat, a food also long reserved for those of higher social status owing to its high prices (Rozin 2003: 466).74 Roast meat and wine are served in the toad
cottage in “The Iron Stove”, while the titular “Mother Holle” provides her human helper with “roasted or boiled meat every day” (Grimm 2003[1857]: 89). Roasted, stewed or boiled meat is also a staple of magical objects that provide their owners with food, such as the magic table in “The Magic Table, the Golden Donkey, and the Club in the Sack” (KHM 36, ATU 563, 212), the tablecloth in “The Knapsack, the Hat, and the Horn”, or the cupboard in “The Golden Children”. Building on the link between gold (and other rare and precious metals) and the magical, a similar case
74 Unsurprisingly, the only non-magical space where meat is found is the royal court: in
“Brier Rose”, for instance, a roast is sizzling on the fire as the sleeping spell settles upon the castle.
can be made for sugar, meat, and other rare and “precious” delicacies, which are typically only available within the magical domain. This notion is further supported by the fact that non-magical spaces of abundance are identified as such primarily through reference to ample quantities of food, rather than their type. For example, the abundance of the royal castle, where the protagonist of “The Virgin Maryʼs Child” is transported after agreeing to marry the king, is indicated by the statement that it provides the new queen with “plenty of everything” (ibid.: 9), which seems somewhat vague when compared to the references to sweet bread and milk she received in heaven. After marrying a knight, the heroine of “One-Eye, Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes”, who initially survived on leftovers, has “food and drink to her heartʼs content” (ibid.: 429). Both narratives mention specific types of food in connection with the magical, while being vague about the nourishment provided in non-magical spaces.
Not only is the presence of plentiful food sources and rare delicacies a frequent sign of the magical domain, but magical intervention can also transform spaces of deprivation into spaces of abundance. This is often achieved by gifting magical food- producing objects such as tables, tablecloths, or pots to fairy-tale protagonists. For example, the household in “The Sweet Porridge” is initially established as one of extreme poverty and hunger, as the young protagonist and her mother have “nothing left to eat” (Grimm 2003[1857]: 345). However, the introduction of the magic pot (a gift from a mysterious old woman and brought into the house from the forest) that makes porridge instantly “put[s] an end to their poverty and hunger” (ibid.), turning the impoverished household into a space of (over)abundance.
In addition to food, sartorial items frequently serve to identify individual locations as spaces of wealth or poverty, security or threat. “Cinderella” offers perhaps the most famous example of this practice: as the heroineʼs home is transformed from a safe haven to a source of danger and abuse following the arrival of the stepmother and her daughters, the heroine loses “her beautiful clothes”, and is forced to wear “an old gray smock” and wooden shoes (Grimm 2003[1857]: 79). The similarly humiliated heroine of “One-Eye, Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes” must wear “shabby hand-me-down clothes”, which are replaced with “beautiful clothes” in the home of her new royal husband (ibid.: 429). In “The Virgin Maryʼs Child”, each instance of the heroineʼs spatial transference is accompanied by a change of clothing, which effectively points to the nature of the new space. The fact that the clothes she wears in heaven are golden points not only to the considerable improvement of her initial situation, but also to the magical origins of this new attire. Once the girl is banished from heaven and forced to live in the wilderness, her beautiful clothes gradually become torn, falling off in pieces until she is left completely naked, with nothing but her long hair to cover her body. Her ordeal comes to an end when a king takes her to his castle, where she is once again “dressed in
beautiful garments” (ibid.: 9). As with food, sartorial items originating in the magical domain are typically described in more detail: Cinderella receives “a gold and silver dress and silk slippers embroidered with silver” from a magic tree (ibid.: 81), while the heroine in “All Fur” wears dresses that shine as the sun, are “as silvery as the moon” (ibid.: 241) and “as bright as the stars” (ibid.: 242). In contrast, the sartorial items originating in the non-magical domain tend to be described in less specific terms, as “royal” (ibid.: 34) or “rich garments” (ibid.: 170), or beautiful clothes.
While the various items of clothing, foodstuffs or food-producing objects typically serve as plot devices, allowing characters to conceal their identity, gain access to previously out-of-bounds spaces or improve their initial situation, they also indirectly convey various spatial information, particularly regarding the qualities of a given space. While not making explicit references to it, the narrative can therefore establish a given space as safe or threatening, deprived or abundant, by referring to the materials or objects used within it, especially items of clothing or food stuffs. The degree to which a particular item of clothing or type of food is specified can also indicate whether the space in question is magical or non-magical, with objects and materials featured in magical spaces typically being of the more precious variety and described in more detail.