The telling of wondrous stories is an age-old tradition that has lost none of its fascination to this day. This magic was recognised by the Brothers Grimm, who collected a large number of fairy tales and put them down on paper. The German Mint is dedicating a series of 20 euro silver coins to the most famous of their tales. The fairy tale coin available in January 2020 features a scene from ‘The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats’.
The moment of horror can be seen on the 20 euro silver coin. The artist responsible, Adelheid Fuss, chose a template for the motif from historical illustrations. This illustration dates back to 1893 and shows the scene in which the wolf crashes into the house and all the little goats jump around in horror.
To this day, children listen with excitement to the famous stories from Grimm’s fairy tales. The mixture of horror, enthusiasm for the main characters and the joy that the story always ends well have ensured unbroken success for centuries. These key facts also make up the fairy tale of the wolf and the seven little kids. So the wolf, despite the mother's warning, outwits the seven kids and causes great terror. In no time he devoured the kids and left. Not all the kids, because the smallest one hid in the grandfather clock and escaped the big bad wolf. This is the cornerstone for the twist in the fairy tale. Together with its mother, it locates the full, sleeping wolf. The wolf is quickly cut open and the six kids disappear from the monster's stomach. As a replacement, this is filled with thick stones. “What’s rumbling and pumping around in my stomach? I thought there would be six little goats, so they're a lot of rock,"" the wolf asks himself and falls into the well with this burden while drinking. “The wolf is dead. The wolf is dead,” the kids rejoice at the end of the fairy tale. The tension dissolves into the pleasant feeling that good will win again.
