How Some Children Played at Slaughtering
literary work
"How Some Children Played at Slaughtering" (German: Wie Kinder Schlachtens miteinander gespielt haben, also translated as "How children played slaughtering together") is a set of two anecdotes from Grimm's Fairy Tales. It was removed from the book in the second edition, and is missing from most modern editions as well.
Synopsis
Part One
In a city named Franecker, located in West Friesland, a group of young children (around 5 or 6 years of age) play at being a butcher, a cook, a cook's assistant, etc., and kill a child who pretends to be a pig. The child who played as "the butcher" is arrested and charged for murder, but the town council is unsure if such a young child should be punished. An old, wise councilor finally comes up with a special method to decide if the child is guilty or not. He brings a ripe apple and an expensive gold coin, held one in each hand, and let the child choose between them. If the "butcher" chose the apple (proving that the child still had a completely naive mind), then he would be innocent, and would be free to go; if he chose the gold coin (proving that a more abstract understanding of values had already developed in the child), the child would be guilty and hanged for murder. "The butcher" chooses the apple without any hesitation. Therefore, he is released and all charges are dropped.
Part Two
One day, two brothers see their father killing a pig.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “How Some Children Played at Slaughtering” as literary work. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as literary work. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 14, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q833612. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “How Some Children Played at Slaughtering” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.