"The Willful Child" is a German Fairy Tale collected by The Brothers Grimm.
There was once a child who always disobeyed the mother. When the child died due to illness and was buried, the child's hand always came out of the ground, no matter how many times they tried to push it back. But when the mother came to hit the hand with a rod, the hand returned underground, so the child finally rested.
Tropes:
- Ambiguous Gender: The child's gender remains unknown in the original German text.
- Divine Punishment: Later variants have God cursing the child with illness due to disobedience.
- Nameless Narrative: Everyone is left unnamed.
- Outliving One's Offspring: The child dies due to illness and the mother remains alive. But the child's hand comes out of the ground after being buried and refuses to be pushed back until the mother hits it with a rod.
- Rise from Your Grave: The dead child raises a hand out of the ground after being buried and no matter how much fresh earth they spread over it after pushing it back, the hand always comes back upward. Then the mother comes to hit it with a rod and the hand returns underground.
- Unnamed Parent: The child's mother has no name to be mentioned.