“Oh, musician,” replied the little hare, “I will obey you as a scholar obeys his master.” They went a part of the way together until they came to an open space in the forest, where stood an aspen tree. The musician tied a long string round the little hare’s neck, the other end of which he fastened to the tree.
“Now briskly, little hare, run twenty times around the tree!” cried the musician, and the little hare obeyed, and when it had run around twenty times, it had twisted the string twenty times around the trunk of the tree, and the little hare was caught, and let it pull and tug as it liked, it only made the string cut into its tender neck. “Wait there till I come back, ” said the musician and went onwards.
~Brothers Grimm
Fuck the musician. This piece of shit is a total asshole who took advantage of the woodland creatures because of his laziness. Listen to this shit: “‘Why, a hare is coming,’ said the musician, ‘I do not want him.'” Three animals appeared and wanted help (wolf, fox, and finally, the hare) learning the fiddle. Something the musician wanted to teach, but him being a bigoted asshole, he only wanted to teach humans. Now, I know I am reading this shit from the perspective of our current time, but I can only imagine that the original moral here was: don’t play with wild creatures, you have no idea what they want (since wolves and foxes probably killed kids often). But reading it now, I have gotten a whole new moral analysis. [Click “Read More” for my modern take]
The good guys are clearly the animals. These are some placated creatures who want to learn and better themselves. So they go to a musician, albeit a different species, and ask him for some training. Him being a liar, he says yes. In the end, they trust him because he seems “legit” but then he traps all three of them. The wolf by rock, the fox crucified/pinned to a tree/bush, and the hare tied up by the neck. If I would put the musician in the power dynamic, he is clearly part of the species of animals who have power/control over all the other species. Thus, the moral of this story, is if you aren’t the reigning species, then be wary of what a member of that group says to you.
As for the villain, the musician, basically it says if you are at the top of the power pyramid you can do anything and get away with it. When they finally get free and come to perform a violent revolution on the musician’s face, he is saved by a member of the institution of humanity who has an axe and threatens to kill all the animals before they can take their revenge on the musician – law enforcement.
Basically, this is a story about the exploitation of the lower levels of society. And if those levels try to rise up, how force/threat of force can be used to keep them in place. Then again, maybe I’ve been reading the news too much.