The Traveling Musicians

The Bremen Town Musicians
Walter Crane

The Tale:

Four animals, an ass, a dog, a cat and a cock are all threatened with death by their masters on account of their age and uselessness (or in the cock's case plain annoyance). So the animals, not willing to give up their lives so easily, join together and decide to head off to the great city and

The Musicians of Bremen
Edward Wehnert

become musicians. When they stop for a night, they spot a robber's house and decide they'd much rather sleep under a roof than out in the open, as was the previous plan. They see the house and the food on the table, and decide “that would be a noble lodging for us”. Devising a plan based on their wonderful skills as musicians, the four climb on top of each other and break into the room, braying, barking, mewing and screaming all at once. Naturally, the sound is enough to terrify the robbers away and the animals enjoy their new found home. When the robbers get a hold of themselves and try to reclaim their house, the foursome scratch, bite, kick and crow the robbers into thinking a “horrid witch got into the house”. The robbers leave, never to return, and the animals give up their plans of going to the city and decide to stay in their new lodging “till this very day”. 

Discussion Points:

There isn't as much to discuss about this tale as there is with others. It's pretty straightforward. It's a story about people (ok, animals) who want to feel they're good at something. They can't work, hunt or chase mice, and in the cock's case, the hard work of crowing just isn't wanted. So they set off to prove to themselves that they are still useful and good for something. I think that deep inside, they knew they weren't actually going to make good musicians. After all, their plan to get the robbers house included scaring the robbers with their musical concert, not entertaining them. At the end of the day, they were content simply to have a nice place to stay and good company. They didn't have a need to continue on to the city. So let me rephrase my previous claim. It's a story about people who want to be appreciated and comfortable, and at first they think they need to prove themselves by being good at something in order to reach this goal. But later they realize that they can reach it using their natural skills and the help of friends. 

The Town Musicians of Bremen
Gerhard Marcks

There is an interesting progression from active to passive with the order of the animals. The ass decides to leave and become a musician on it's own. The dog ran away but didn't know what it was going to do after that until he met the ass. The cat wasn't even attempting to run. Instead it sits on a wall and laments its fate. The cock, after discovering that its mistress is fed up of the awful racket he made while stating it was a fine weather for washing day (is this a “don't speak if you have nothing useful to say” sort of lesson, or is the focus more on the fact that the cock was too enthusiastic in his work and was doing unwanted overtime?), doesn't even attempt to stop, instead he keeps on crowing and “screaming with all his might and main”.

The moral: could be a number of things, from “even when the situation is bad, don't give up home, work for a change, even if it's unlikely, and things will work out for the best” to teamwork and power in numbers.

What do you think?