"The Maid of Brakel" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimms' Fairy Tales, tale number 115.[1]

The Maid of Brakel
Folk tale
NameThe Maid of Brakel
Aarne–Thompson grouping1476A
CountryGermany
Published inGrimms' Fairy Tales

It is Aarne-Thompson type 1476A, Praying to the Statue's Mother.[2]

The story is set in Brakel, Germany.

Synopsis

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A chapel held a statue of Saint Anne and the Virgin Mary as a child. An unmarried woman prayed to Saint Anne that she might wed a man. A clerk, who heard her, said she would not have him. The woman took it to be the child Mary and scolded her, because she was talking to her mother.

Notes

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Saint Anne was the patron saint of unmarried women, particularly because of the legend that she had been married three times.

References

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