The story "Godfather Death" - A question of origins

Hello folks, I am writing a paper. (I'm sure you get lots of me :) )

Anyways, I am trying to find out the approximate age of origin for the story "Godfather Death" so that can research the religious climate around its beginnings (Was it originated under the Catholics, pagans, etc) AND, if this is not too much to ask, can I also have a trustworthy source which I can cite the info from?

Well, although you may not be at the correct place to find your sources;however, you did get on the internet where you can do research on virtually anything.

Try googling "Godfather Death" or find out if your school as a scholastic search engine.

agreed, try searching for a site specializing in Grimm's Fairy Tales

Thanks, but I hunted for about 2 hours.

Didn't think the info would be THAT hard to find, and it may be sitting right under my nose somewhere. The academic links were the most useless.

Ha ha, that's cool... I love clever manipulations of language.


No wikipedia entry?

Oh, I see that there is one but it does not give you what you need.

Well... in your search, did you see this one? -

grimmstories.com/en/grimm_fairy-tales/godfather_death

Scroll down to the notes. It is tough reading, but look at one sentence at a time. Whenever you have difficult material to read, do one sentence at a time and stare at the period at the end of the sentence until the meaning sinks into your mind. :-)

The age of the story is proved by one of Hans Sachs's Meister Songs in the year 1553, which is to be found in a MS. collection of Meister songs in Berlin [. . .] in which first the Devil and then Death is rejected by the peasant. -----This is an excerpt from those notes. Follow that link. But it still is not clear!! It is weirdly written.

I get the sense that this is the kind of story that is retold over and over and dates back to some oral tradition... the Brothers Grim got it from a traditional story...

Tough assignment!! I am afraid there may not be any specific time period! But you can get through this tough assignment by writing about Ireland during the time period when those Grim Brothers compiled their stuff!! :-)

AHA, thanks alot, that link was, I think, exactly what I needed. :D