Seguimiento de la implementación de las recomendaciones formuladas en la Segunda Ronda

Regardless of their non-magical or magical nature, fairy-tale characters must meet certain requirements in order to come into contact with the opposite domain. The conditions differ depending on the side from which the transference unfolds; thus, non-magical characters must pass a test set by the magical gatekeeper, earn magical assistance because of their vulnerable position, or be lured into the magical. On the other hand, magical characters can either forcefully enter the magical domain with malicious intentions or be summoned into it by non-magical characters. These requirements are of special importance for the fairy tale, which stands out as the only genre in our corpus in which special conditions exist for both sides of the boundary. While it is not explicitly predicated on special conditions – probably because religious figures such as God or the Virgin Mary are all-powerful and therefore do not need permission to infiltrate the human domain – manifestations of the sacred within the secular in religious tales are often intended to provide assistance and/or guidance to human characters who are facing adversities or have strayed off the straight and narrow path. This is reminiscent of the vulnerability of fairy-tale human characters, whose misfortune may grant them admittance into the magical. Thus, negative or positive behaviour displayed by human characters may trigger the appearance of the sacred within the human domain, which then proceeds to warn, punish, counsel, or comfort the protagonist. For example, the anthropomorphic bird in “The Three Green Twigs” tells the hermit why he has fallen out of grace, while the spirits of the deceased appear to the old widow who blames God for the death of her family members (“The Little Old Lady”) to comfort and explain to her that God had “taken [her sons] to himself as innocent children” so they would not grow up to be criminals, thus showing “her more kindness than she had been able to understand” (Grimm 2003[1857]: 593).

In contrast to the free accessibility of the secular domain to religious characters, the sacred domain is both physically and cognitively inaccessible to human characters, who can enter it only after they die, leaving their material, bodily, earthly existence behind. Furthermore, it is not automatically accessible to all who pass away, but only to those who have followed religious teachings, and led a just and pious life. As such, the adherence to religious teachings and demonstration of positive character traits such as generosity, modesty, and patience can be seen as a

type of test of merit, which aims to determine who will be admitted into the sacred domain. Unlike their fairy-tale counterparts, who must perform the occasional act of kindness to prove they are worthy of magical assistance, for human characters in religious tales their entire earthly existence is an extended test of merit, one which can be failed at any moment (e.g. the hermit in “The Three Green Twigs” who passes judgement on a sinner being led to the gallows). The transference of human characters into the sacred therefore hinges on several conditions: their exemplary behaviour and adherence to church teachings during their lifetime, as well as their demise and subsequent transference from a material into a spiritual existence.

The conditions for admittance to the religious domain are another common point of subversion by religious Schwank tales and legends. While these narratives often feature a literal gatekeeper in the form of St Peter, he is typically portrayed as less than competent and is easily coaxed (“The Tailor in Heaven”) or tricked (“Brother Lustig”) into admitting undeserving characters into the celestial domain. Rather than the exclusive abode of the righteous, heaven thus becomes the home for the thieving tailor who proceeds to pass judgement on others who commit the same crime (“The Tailor in Heaven”), the dishonest soldier who tricks his way into the celestial domain (“Brother Lustig”), and a compulsive gambler who leads a host of hunchbacked devils in an attack on heaven (“Gambling Hans”). Since they subvert the notion of heaven as an idyllic spiritual realm, religious Schwank tales and legends often dismiss the notion that human characters can be admitted there only after they die. Thus, Brother Lustig decides it is time for him to enter the kingdom of heaven simply because he has grown tired of wandering the earth, while the (living) farmer in “The Fleshing Flail From Heaven” pays a short visit to heaven because a giant plant has sprung in front of his house.

As previously noted, the KHM legends are predominantly focused on the appearance of the supernatural within the human world and rarely depict the movement of human characters into the supernatural domain. When this movement does occur, it is – as with fairy tales – usually dependent on a pre-existing connection with the target domain and the meeting of certain requirements for entry. For instance, the familiar relationship between the human protagonist and the supernatural character may be interpreted as some sort of invitation or permission for the former to enter the house of the latter. In the second of “The Elves” tales, a servant girl receives an explicit invitation from the supernatural to stand as godmother at an elven christening. As in fairy tales, the supernatural seeks contact with the human world because it requires its assistance. The invitation is followed by the appearance of three elves, who lead the girl into the supernatural domain, located within a hollow mountain. The supernatural – in this case, Faerie – domain is close to the human world, but clearly separated and concealed from it, with various landscape items in the human world such as cave entrances serving as passages into

the (underground) Faerie realm. In the most notable departure from the fairy-tale model, time within the supernatural domain often passes at a different pace from in the human domain – especially in legends about the various types of fairy folk (Briggs 1978: 11–26). Thus, upon her return home, the servant girl learns that during the three days she spent with the elves, seven years have passed in the human domain. In contrast, time and its passage in the fairy tale have seemingly no effect on the characters. Vast expanses of time are frequently mentioned, but do not seem to alter the characters, who apparently do not age. The hundred-year period in “Brier Rose” passes by in an instant, leaving those affected by the curse utterly unchanged (in fact, they all go back to their errands, as if nothing at all had happened; cf. Lüthi 1970[1962]: 37–38). Crossing the interdomain boundary without such a pre-existing connection often ends badly for the human character (the girl in “Mother Trudy” is turned into a log and thrown on the fire).