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Die Regentrude
Theodor Die Regentrude / Bulemanns Haus. Zwei Märchen Lesefreundlicher Großdruck in 16-pt-Schrift Großformat, 210 x 297 mm Berliner Ausgabe, 2019 Durchgesehener Neusatz mit einer Biographie des Autors bearbeitet und eingerichtet von Theodor Borken Die Erstdruck Leipziger illustrierte Zeitung, 30.7.1864. Bulemanns Erstdruck Leipziger illustrierte Zeitung, 24.12.1864. Textgrundlage ist die Theodor Sämtliche Werke in vier Bänden. Herausgegeben von Peter Goldammer, 4. Auflage, Berlin und Aufbau, 1978. Umschlaggestaltung von Thomas Schultz-Overhage unter Verwendung des Sebastian Schiffer, Die Sommerfee, 2018. Gesetzt aus der Minion Pro, 16 pt. Henricus Edition Deutsche Klassik UG (haftungsbeschränkt) Über den 1817 in Husum als Sohn eines Advokaten geboren, tritt Theodor Storm nach dem Studium in Kiel und Berlin zunächst in die väterliche Kanzlei ein und schlägt später die Richterlaufbahn ein. Bereits mit 17 erscheint ein erstes Gedicht im Husumer Wochenblatt. Storm schreibt zeit seines Lebens neben seiner bürgerlichen Karriere. Nach seiner Pensionierung 1880 entstehen in seinem Alterswohnsitz in Hademarschen zahlreiche Novellen, darunter seine heute wohl bekannteste, Der Schimmelreiter, der im Mai 1888 erscheint bevor Theodor am 4. Juli an Magenkrebs stirbt. Seiner norddeutschen Heimat verpflichtet, die ihn thematisch und stilistisch prägt, ohne dass er in Heimatdichtung verfällt, ist Storm einer der bedeutendsten Vertreter des poetischen Realismus.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1863
16 people want to read
About the author
Theodor Storm
1,059 books75 followersHans Theodor Woldsen Storm (1817 – 1888) was a German poet and author.
He was born in Husum ("the grey town by the grey sea") on the west coast of Schleswig of well-to-do parents. While still a student of law, he published a first volume of verse together with the brothers Tycho and Theodor Mommsen.
He worked as a lawyer in Schleswig-Holstein, but emigrated to Thuringia in 1851, leaving his mother's household, and did not return until 1864 to become a writer leaving his homeland in Denmark.
He wrote a number of stories, poems and novellas. His two most well-known works are the novellas Immensee ("Bees' Lake", 1849) and Der Schimmelreiter ("The Rider on the White Horse"), first published in April 1888 in the Deutsche Rundschau. Other published works include a volume of his poems (1852), the novella Pole Poppenspäler (1874) and the novella Aquis submersus (1877).
He was born in Husum ("the grey town by the grey sea") on the west coast of Schleswig of well-to-do parents. While still a student of law, he published a first volume of verse together with the brothers Tycho and Theodor Mommsen.
He worked as a lawyer in Schleswig-Holstein, but emigrated to Thuringia in 1851, leaving his mother's household, and did not return until 1864 to become a writer leaving his homeland in Denmark.
He wrote a number of stories, poems and novellas. His two most well-known works are the novellas Immensee ("Bees' Lake", 1849) and Der Schimmelreiter ("The Rider on the White Horse"), first published in April 1888 in the Deutsche Rundschau. Other published works include a volume of his poems (1852), the novella Pole Poppenspäler (1874) and the novella Aquis submersus (1877).
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 15, 2017
Theodor Storm is probably best known for his novellas (like
The Rider of the White Horse
or
The Lake of the Bees
). I decided to read this literary fairy tale for two reasons. First of all we celebrate Storm’s two hundredth birthday today (Sep 14, 1817) and since I cannot congratulate him personally, I opted for the next best thing and that means reading something he has written. I’m happy to say that the Regentrude (Rain Trudy) was better and far more engaging than I expected it to be.
The country suffers a bad drought. The climate is bothering the people. No cloud is in sight which could bring rain of relief. Plants are withering, animals croak, and the harvest seems to be lost. Only the Rain Trudy, a legendary woman, would be able to save the country and generate rain. But she is dwelling in a mystical realm, of which no one knows exactly where it is, let alone how to get there. And even if one were to find the Rain Trudy, she would have to be awakened from a deep sleep, and this can only happen if a virgin is speaking a certain short poem to her that no one seems to remember either. No exactly the best conditions to start fixing the problem. There is, however, a vicious little goblin, the so-called Fireman, who is responsible for the drought, and it turns out that he knows the way to Rain Trudy and is also able to recite the poem. A young couple, Maren and Andree, somehow outsmart the evil Fireman and obtain the necessary information (the other prerequisite of being a virgin, Maren fulfills anyway), and the two of them set out on their adventurous trip to the realm of the mysterious rainwoman…
Even though this fairy tale with its 30 pages is not particularly long, there are several different interpretations possible which makes this a very interesting reading. For us modern people, the climatic problems immediately stick out. Long before the climate change was in the news, Storm, almost prophetically, raised an admonitory finger here. Unfortunately we don’t have someone like Rain Trudy available, who could help us to solve the, in my mind, biggest problem of today. The fact that the Rain Trudy appears in one place as a mother figure, and we also speak of “Mother Earth”, made me think of the Gaia hypothesis, in which the Earth itself is considered a living being in some way. Storm, of course, could not know about Gaia either, but we find some quite fitting passages in his work. Regardless of climate change, rain, drought, and everything else, there are also some intriguing approaches with regard to the relationship of women and men. Rain Trudy, as a female figure, embodies the absolute positive, feminine goodness and creativity, while her male opponent, the Fireman, only makes destructive contributions. The young couple is not quite different. Although Andree is a positive character, he is also basically expendable. Maren is the driving force here and clearly steals her boyfriend’s thunder. And there is even another pairing, where it is the female part again, which is morally superior to the male.
Last but not least, and here I come to the second reason why I read the book, the Regentrude is also extensively discussed in Arno Schmidt’s magnus opus Zettel’s Traum ( Bottom’s Dream ). The protagonist there, Daniel Pagenstecher, is reading works like those of Storm (and especially E.A.Poe) on the basis of “Etyms”. Pagenstecher recognizes in almost everything an author writes, an additional, unconscious, level, in which almost everything is sexually connoted. Almost the entire tale is analyzed by Pagenstecher and there are many things reveled I’m sure that Storm had no idea about. See pp.370ff of Zettel’s Traum (pp.372ff in Bottom’s Dream). I just re-read the passage in ZT and can confirm that there is indeed a whole lot of sexual allusions in this story to be found — if one wants to find them, that is.
But even without this (easily ignorable) “layer of sex” I think, this is an extraordinary fairy tale, that I can heartily recommend.
Happy Birthday, Theodor Storm.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The country suffers a bad drought. The climate is bothering the people. No cloud is in sight which could bring rain of relief. Plants are withering, animals croak, and the harvest seems to be lost. Only the Rain Trudy, a legendary woman, would be able to save the country and generate rain. But she is dwelling in a mystical realm, of which no one knows exactly where it is, let alone how to get there. And even if one were to find the Rain Trudy, she would have to be awakened from a deep sleep, and this can only happen if a virgin is speaking a certain short poem to her that no one seems to remember either. No exactly the best conditions to start fixing the problem. There is, however, a vicious little goblin, the so-called Fireman, who is responsible for the drought, and it turns out that he knows the way to Rain Trudy and is also able to recite the poem. A young couple, Maren and Andree, somehow outsmart the evil Fireman and obtain the necessary information (the other prerequisite of being a virgin, Maren fulfills anyway), and the two of them set out on their adventurous trip to the realm of the mysterious rainwoman…
Even though this fairy tale with its 30 pages is not particularly long, there are several different interpretations possible which makes this a very interesting reading. For us modern people, the climatic problems immediately stick out. Long before the climate change was in the news, Storm, almost prophetically, raised an admonitory finger here. Unfortunately we don’t have someone like Rain Trudy available, who could help us to solve the, in my mind, biggest problem of today. The fact that the Rain Trudy appears in one place as a mother figure, and we also speak of “Mother Earth”, made me think of the Gaia hypothesis, in which the Earth itself is considered a living being in some way. Storm, of course, could not know about Gaia either, but we find some quite fitting passages in his work. Regardless of climate change, rain, drought, and everything else, there are also some intriguing approaches with regard to the relationship of women and men. Rain Trudy, as a female figure, embodies the absolute positive, feminine goodness and creativity, while her male opponent, the Fireman, only makes destructive contributions. The young couple is not quite different. Although Andree is a positive character, he is also basically expendable. Maren is the driving force here and clearly steals her boyfriend’s thunder. And there is even another pairing, where it is the female part again, which is morally superior to the male.
Last but not least, and here I come to the second reason why I read the book, the Regentrude is also extensively discussed in Arno Schmidt’s magnus opus Zettel’s Traum ( Bottom’s Dream ). The protagonist there, Daniel Pagenstecher, is reading works like those of Storm (and especially E.A.Poe) on the basis of “Etyms”. Pagenstecher recognizes in almost everything an author writes, an additional, unconscious, level, in which almost everything is sexually connoted. Almost the entire tale is analyzed by Pagenstecher and there are many things reveled I’m sure that Storm had no idea about. See pp.370ff of Zettel’s Traum (pp.372ff in Bottom’s Dream). I just re-read the passage in ZT and can confirm that there is indeed a whole lot of sexual allusions in this story to be found — if one wants to find them, that is.
But even without this (easily ignorable) “layer of sex” I think, this is an extraordinary fairy tale, that I can heartily recommend.
Happy Birthday, Theodor Storm.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
May 20, 2018
Another Kunstmärchen that I already knew as I've seen a movie adaption in the past. However, I wasn't aware of the fact that it was originally written by Storm.
'Regentrude' is the tale of a nature goddess that happens to fall asleep because people started to forget her. It's been over 100 years since any human visited her and hardly anyone remembers how to reach her. Unfortunately, when she's not awake there's no rain and every living being suffers.
To end this misery two young people collect the necessary hints to find her and start their journey.
This really is a short tale but it's a story that is dear to me. You don't have to guess too long to get the meaning of it. Reclaiming old beliefs as well as honoring the nature seem to two lessons that Storm wants to teach. I also love the fact that the story is set in the north of Germany as are other stories by the author.
All in all, a short but sweet story. Quite a typical representative of a Kunstmärchen .
'Regentrude' is the tale of a nature goddess that happens to fall asleep because people started to forget her. It's been over 100 years since any human visited her and hardly anyone remembers how to reach her. Unfortunately, when she's not awake there's no rain and every living being suffers.
To end this misery two young people collect the necessary hints to find her and start their journey.
This really is a short tale but it's a story that is dear to me. You don't have to guess too long to get the meaning of it. Reclaiming old beliefs as well as honoring the nature seem to two lessons that Storm wants to teach. I also love the fact that the story is set in the north of Germany as are other stories by the author.
All in all, a short but sweet story. Quite a typical representative of a Kunstmärchen .
February 24, 2023
This was the small book of German Poetic Realism. In general I have a hard time enjoying such things and other styles like Romanticism. But this time actually it was fine. Maybe because my German became better to understand what is going on. But probably I’m far away from adoring this classical literature as I don’t feel all the intricacies of the language and poetic flows.
January 23, 2019
I am really enjoying reading longer German Fairy Tales. I enjoyed this one as well. True Love wins!
June 8, 2023
idk cute i guess
also a little sapphic
also a little sapphic
June 24, 2025
Tolles Märchen, sehr schön gelesen.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews