Zipes

To understand the uniqueness and impact of fairy tales on our lives, we need first to discuss the origins of language and its evolution, for once a plethora of stories began to circulate in societies throughout the world, they contained the seeds of fairy tales, ironically tales at first without fairies formed by metaphor and metamorphosis and by a human disposition to communicate relevant experiences.

This sentence is helpful for understanding Death’s Messengers.  Death was very prevalent in Germany when this story, which is really old, was created.  It helps the listener understand the context and historical significance of a seemingly innocent fairytale.  Once you understand that 40% of babies died in infancy and people were only expected to live to be around 35, which is a stat much lower than other European countries at the time, you have a greater appreciation of the motif of death used in this story.  These gory, death-filled stories are highly concentrated in Germany, but they relate to any place that struggles with battling death.  Now, knowing the uniqueness of the region, the listener can understand that this story was created to relate to other people with the same disposition.  Understanding a story goes much deeper than just listening to what the teller is saying.  You must know about history and the time period in order to best understand any story, even a short fairytale.