Brother and Sister

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"Brother and Sister" is a Fairy Tale about a brother and a sister who escape from their Wicked Stepmother. When the stepmother learns that they have escaped, she enchants the streams in the forest in an attempt to turn them into animals. After drinking from one of the springs, the brother is transformed into a deer. They find a cottage in the woods and decide to live there for a while. Eventually, a king and his court come to the forest to hunt, and the brother eventually ends up leading the king to the cottage.

When the king sees the sister, he falls in love with her and asks her to marry him. She agrees to come to his castle, but only if the deer (her brother) can come along too. After a while, the sister has a child with the king, which is around the time when the stepmother discovers how happy the brother and the sister are, and she and her own daughter plot to ruin their happiness again.

See also "The Enchanted Stag".


Tropes used in Brother and Sister include:


  • Animorphism: The brother is turned into a deer.
  • Back from the Dead: After being murdered by her stepmother, the sister returns as a ghost to look after her brother and her child. When the king later catches her before she is about to leave the castle forever, she is brought back to life.
  • Rule of Three: It's from the third spring they encounter that the brother drinks from, and thus is turned into a deer. It's also during the third day the king and his court are out hunting that the king meets the sister.
  • Wicked Stepmother