Iron John
"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 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 The New York Times Best Seller list.
Famous quotes containing the words iron and/or john:
“When I say artist I don’t mean in the narrow sense of the word—but the man who is building things—creating molding the earth—whether it be the plains of the west—or the iron ore of Penn. It’s all a big game of construction—some with a brush—some with a shovel—some choose a pen.”
—Jackson Pollock (1912–1956)
“Show me a man who feels bitterly toward John Brown, and let me hear what noble verse he can repeat. He’ll be as dumb as if his lips were stone.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)