What is "marchen"

1871, "German fairy or folk tale," from German Märchen, "a story or tale," from Middle High German merechyn "short verse narrative," from Old High German mari "news, tale," from Proto-Germanic *mærjo- "renowned, famous, illustrious" (source of Old English mære; see more (adj.)) + diminutive suffix -chen.

Märchen is the seventh story CD, released by the fantasy symphonic rock band Sound Horizon on December 15, 2010 through King Records. The limited edition released few days before the normal edition. The normal edition debuted No.3 and peaked No.2 on the Oricon weekly album charts. While the Limited edition sold over 40.000 copies in the first two days, 24.816 copies on the first day, 15.833 copies on the next.

Märchen is the German diminutive of the obsolete German word Mär, meaning "news, tale" (see Märchen). It may refer to

• A fairy tale, a type of short story that typically features folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments
• A type of musical composition
  • The Russian composer Nikolai Medtner wrote many examples for solo piano (1880–1951), his original Russian title for the pieces Skazki is often replaced by Märchen
  • Märchenbilder (Schumann) for viola and piano, by Robert Schumann

There are also

• Märchenoper, a 19th-century opera genre often with supernatural or fairy-tale themes, an example of which is Hänsel und Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck
• MÄR, Märchen Awakens Romance, a manga series
• Märchen Maze, a 1988 arcade game
• Märchen (album), a 2010 story album by the Japanese musical group Sound Horizon
• Märchen der Völker, a German television series
• Märchen vom Glück

Marchen is a Unicode block containing characters from the Marchen alphabet, which has been used to write the extinct Zhang-Zhung language of the Zhang-zhung culture of Tibet. In modern Bon usage Marchen is also used to write Tibetan.