Iron Hans

Iron John
The Fight in the Forest (Hans Burgkmair, ca. 1500/1503)
Folk tale
Name	Iron John
Data
Aarne-Thompson grouping	502 (The Wild Man as Helper)
Country	Germany
Published in	Grimms' Fairy Tales

"Iron John" (AKA "Iron Hans" or "Der Eisenhans") is a German fairy tale found in the collections of the Brothers Grimm, tale number 136, about a wild iron-skinned man and a prince (The original German title is Eisenhans, a compound of Eisen "iron" and Hans, like English John a common short form of the personal name Johannes). It represents Aarne–Thompson type 502, "The wild man as a helper".

Most people see the story as a parable about a boy maturing into adulthood. The story also became the basis for the book Iron John: A Book About Men by Robert Bly which spawned the Men's Movement in the early 1990s after spending 62 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list.

A King sends a huntsman into a forest nearby and the huntsman never returns. The King sends more men into the forest, each meeting with the same fate. The King sends all his remaining huntsmen out as a group, but again, none return. The king proclaims the woods as dangerous and off-limits to all.

Some years later, a wandering explorer accompanied by a dog hears of these dangerous woods and asks permission to hunt in the forest, claiming that he might be able to discover the fate of the other hunters. The man and his dog are allowed to enter. As they come to a lake in the middle of the forest, the dog is dragged under water by a giant arm. The hunter returns to the forest the next day with a group of men to empty the lake. They find a naked man with iron-like skin and long shaggy hair all over his body. They capture him and he is locked in a cage in the courtyard as a curiosity. No one is allowed to set the wild man free or they will face the penalty of death.

Years later, the young prince is playing with a ball in the courtyard. He accidentally rolls it into the cage where the wild iron-skinned man picks it up and will only return it if he is set free. He states further that the only key to the cage is hidden beneath the Queen's pillow.