A Grimm's Tale - The Flail from Heaven (Manheim trans.)

The Flail from Heaven

ONCE A PEASANT went out to plow with a yoke of oxen. When he got to his field, the horns of the oxen began to grow. They grew and they grew, and by the time he started for home, they were so big that he couldn’t drive through his barn door. Luckily a butcher came along just then and he was willing to buy the oxen. It was agreed that the peasant should bring the butcher a measure of turnip seeds, and that the butcher should pay him a Brabant taler for each seed. I call that a good price! The peasant went home and loaded a measure of turnip seeds into a sack, but on his way back one little seed fell out. The butcher counted out the money as agreed, but if the peasant hadn’t lost that one little seed he’d have had one more Brabant taler.

When the peasant started for home again, the seed had grown up into a tree that reached all the way to heaven. The peasant thought to himself: “Now that I’ve got the chance, I think I’ll go up and see what the angels are doing.” So he climbed up and when he got to heaven he saw that the angels were threshing oats. He stopped to watch them, and as he was watching, he noticed that the tree he was standing on was beginning to wobble, and when he looked down he saw that someone was chopping it down. “Wouldn’t it be an awful thing,” he thought, “if I were to fall from way up here!” He could think of no better way out of his difficulty than to plait a rope from the oat straw that was scattered all about. When he had finished, he picked up a mattock and a flail that someone had left lying on the floor of heaven, and let himself down by his rope. But it so happened that he landed in a deep, deep hole, and it was really lucky that he had the mattock, for he used it to cut out steps. So he climbed out of the hole, and took the flail with him to prove that his story was true, so that no one would ever doubt it.

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Meaning: the peasant comes into power of the Holy Spirit. Probably his plowing effort itself is part of the power he acquires. Horns of the oxen grow. Horns are symbolic of power. He sells the oxen for an unbelievably  favorable price. Everything is in his favor now. He is above the common laws at work. He even has ability to get up to heaven. And so he climbs. Once there the tree being cut beneath him is symbolic of his connection with the Kingdom of this World being severed. The rope he makes from the oat straw the angels were threshing symbolizes that his connection and safety now is with heaven, the Kingdom of God. Going down into the hole and using the heavenly tool to climb out just symbolizes his power over hell and death he now has. The flail of the angels symbolizes he has been sifted and found just. This is Romans 8:28 in a bright painting. Total victory.