The Unsettled Spirt

I see the bird in the Juniper Tree as something more akin to a ghost or a reincarnation than to the other transformations in the fairy tales we have read. For this reason I actually feel like the bird/brother is neither human nor animal, he is something entirely supernatural. I see him in many ways as something that has returned to haunt and disrupt the lives of those who destroyed his previous life, to seek revenge upon the mother/stepmother and to reward his sister who treated the dead with respect. This is sort of the way I justify the resurrection at the end of the story as something entirely supernatural, which makes sense if the bird is neither human nor animal. I think this helps explain the song, for I see it as an omen, the supernatural world's way of communicate. I think the transformation is very different because it takes place between life and death, while the other transformations, while the other take place during life. The brothers live as humans, then animals, and then humans again. While the transformation in the other stories is also supernatural, it does not transcend the break between life and death. The other animals, other than the frog prince do not speak. I think this difference makes the Juniper Tree unique in its animal transformation, because it is, like all others, supernatural, but one that crosses over the bounds of life and death and therefore becomes strange and different.