Blood Brothers: A Jungian Folk Tale

The Story of The Blood Brothers is an old italian folktale. It's a story about twin brothers. One day the “older brother became restless, and wanted to seek his fortune abroad”(). He gave his younger brother a bottle and told him that when it turns red it means that he is in need of help. He came into a town which needed help to slay a dragon. He slayed the dragon and won the princess’ hand in marriage. If you look at it in the lens of the Jungian theory you can find the archetype of the hero. The older brother is the hero because he shows an act of courage by slaying the dragon and, after defeating the dragon he wins the princess’ love. As the story goes on the older brother comes into contact with the shadow. The archetype of the the shadow in literature is a character who brings harms to the hero or any other characters, in short the villainous character.When he comes into contact with the witch she petrifies

Seeing this change he leaves to save his brother. He came to the castle and saw his brother’s wife, but his brother’s wife and the townspeople all thought he was the oldest brother. That night he slept with a sword in between himself and the princess. He left the next day and defeated the witch. The younger brother embodies the archetype of the caretaker. With the younger brother embodying the caretaker his core desire is to “ protect and care for others”().He spent years after his brother left looking at the bottle only thinking about his brother. This shows how much he cares. Then he goes on to protect him when he sees the color of the bottle change. When he set his older brother free he talked about the princess and how they slept together. In that moment the oldest brother killed him without hearing the rest of the story. The oldest brother came back to the castle and saw his wife. She asked him why he was acting weird the other