Grimm's Fairy Tales

Then she went thither, and found everything as the Night Wind had said. She counted the reeds by the sea, and cut off the eleventh, struck the Dragon with it, whereupon the Lion overcame it. Immediately both of them regained their human shapes. But when the Princess, who had been the Dragon, was delivered from enchantment, she took the youth by the arm, seated herself on the Griffin, and carried him off with her.

There stood the poor maiden, who had wandered so far and was again forsaken! She sat down and cried, but at last she took courage and said, “Still I will go as far as the Wind blows and as long as the cock crows, until I find him.”

She went forth by long, long roads, until at last she came to the castle, where both of them were living together. There she heard that a feast was to be held, in which they would celebrate their wedding, but she said, “God still helps me,” and opened the casket that the Sun had given her. A dress lay therein as brilliant as the sun itself.

So she took it out and put it on, and went up into the castle, and every one, even the Bride, looked at her with astonishment. The dress pleased the Bride so well that she thought it might do for her wedding-dress, and asked if it was for sale?

“Not for money or land,” answered she, “but for flesh and blood.”

The Bride asked her what she meant by that, then she said, “Let me sleep a night in the chamber where the Bridegroom sleeps.”

The Bride would not, yet wanted very much to have the dress. At last she consented, but the page was to give the Prince a sleeping-draught.

When it was night, and the youth was already asleep, she was led into the chamber. She seated herself on the bed and said, “I have followed you for seven years. I have been to the Sun and the Moon, and the Four Winds, and have inquired for you and have helped you against the Dragon. Will you, then, forget me?”

But the Prince slept so soundly that it only seemed to him as if the wind were whistling outside in the fir-trees. When therefore day broke, she was led out again, and had to give up the golden dress. And as that had been of no avail, she was sad, went out into a meadow, sat down there, and wept.

While she was sitting there, she thought of the egg which the Moon had given her. She opened it, and there came out a clucking hen with twelve chickens all of gold. They ran about chirping, and crept again under the old hen’s wings. Nothing more beautiful was ever seen in the world!

She arose, and drove them through the meadow. The Bride looked out of the window, and the little chickens pleased her so that she came down and asked if they were for sale.

“Not for money or land, but for flesh and blood. Let me sleep again in the chamber where the Bridegroom sleeps.”

The Bride said, “Yes,” intending to cheat her as on the former evening. But when the Prince went to bed he asked the page what the murmuring and rustling in the night had been. On this the page told all; that he had been forced to give him a sleeping-draught, because a poor girl had slept secretly in the chamber, and that he was to give him another that night.

The Prince said, “Pour out the draught by the bedside.”

At night, she was again led in, and when she began to relate how ill all had fared with her, he immediately recognized his beloved wife by her voice, sprang up and cried, “Now I really am released! I have been as it were in a dream, for the strange Princess has bewitched me so that I have been compelled to forget you! But God has delivered me from the spell at the right time.”

Then they both left the castle secretly in the night, for they feared the father of the Princess, who was a sorcerer. They seated themselves on the Griffin which bore them across the Red Sea. When they were in the midst of it, she let fall the nut. Immediately a tall nut-tree grew up, whereon the bird rested, and then carried them home, where they found their child, who had grown tall and beautiful.

And they lived thenceforth happily until their death.

DOCTOR KNOWALL

There was once on a time, a poor peasant called Crab, who drove two oxen with a load of wood to town, and sold it to a doctor for two dollars.

When the money was being counted out to him, it so happened that the doctor was sitting at table, and when the peasant saw how daintily he ate and drank, his heart desired what he saw, and he would willingly have been a doctor. So he remained standing a while, and at length inquired if he, too, could not be a doctor.

“Oh, yes,” said the doctor, “that is soon managed.”

“What must I do?” asked the peasant.

“In the first place, buy yourself an A B C book of the kind which has a cock on the frontispiece. In the second, turn your cart and your two oxen into money, and get yourself some clothes, and whatsoever else pertains to medicine. Thirdly, have a sign painted with the words, ‘I am Doctor Knowall,’ and have that nailed up above your house-door.”

The peasant did everything that he had been told to do. When he had doctored people a while, but not long, a rich and great lord had some money stolen. Then he was told about Doctor Knowall who lived in such and such a village, and must know what had become of the money. So the lord had the horses put in his carriage, drove out to the village, and asked Crab if he were Doctor Knowall?

Yes, he was, he said.

Then he was to go with him and bring back the stolen money.

“Oh, yes, but Grethe, my wife, must go too.”

The lord was willing, and let both of them have a seat in the carriage. They all drove away together. When they came to the nobleman’s castle, the table was spread, and Crab was told to sit down and eat.

“Yes, but my wife, Grethe, too,” said he, and he seated himself with her at the table.

And when the first servant came with a dish of delicate fare, the peasant nudged his wife, and said, “Grethe, that was the first,” meaning that was the servant who brought the first dish.

The servant, however, thought he intended by that to say, “That is the first thief,” and as he actually was so, he was terrified, and said to his comrade outside, “The doctor knows all! we shall fare badly; he said I was the first.”

The second did not want to go in at all, but was obliged to. So when he went in, the peasant nudged his wife, and said, “Grethe, that is the second.” This servant was so frightened, that he got out.

With the third, it did not fare any better, for the peasant said again, “Grethe, that is the third.”

The fourth had to carry in a covered dish. In it were crabs.

The lord told the doctor that he must show his skill by guessing what was under the cover. The doctor looked at the dish, had no idea what was in it, and cried out, “Alas! poor Crab!”

When the lord heard that, he cried, “There! he knows who has the money!”

At this, the servants were terribly anxious. They winked at the doctor to come out to them. When he went out, they all four confessed that they had stolen the money, and that they were willing to restore it. They led him to the spot where it was hidden.

Thus the lord got back his wealth, and Doctor Knowall received a large reward and became a famous man.

THE BLUE LIGHT

There was once on a time, a soldier who for many years had served the King faithfully. But when the war came to an end he could serve no longer because of the many wounds which he had received.

The King said to him, “You may return to your home, I need you no longer. You will not receive any more money, for only he receives wages who renders me service for them.”

Then the soldier did not know how to earn a living, went away greatly troubled, and walked the whole day, until in the evening he entered a forest. When darkness came on, he saw a light, which he went toward, and came to a house wherein lived a Witch.

“Do give me one night’s lodging, and a little to eat and drink,” said he to her, “or I shall starve.”

“Oho!” she answered, “who gives anything to a runaway soldier? Yet will I be compassionate, and take you in, if you will do what I wish.”

“What do you wish?” said the soldier.

“That you should dig all round my garden for me, to-morrow.”

The soldier consented, and next day labored with all his strength, but could not finish it by the evening.

“I see well enough,” said the Witch, “that you can do no more to-day. But I will keep you yet another night, in payment for which you must to-morrow chop me a load of wood, and make it small.”

The soldier spent the whole day in doing it, and in the evening the Witch proposed that he should stay one night more. “To-morrow, you shall do me a very trifling piece of work. Behind my house, there is an old, dry well, into which my light has fallen. It burns blue, and never goes out, and you shall bring it up again for me.”

Next day, the Old Woman took him to the well, and let him down in a basket. He found the Blue Light, and made her a signal to draw him up again. She did draw him up, but when he came near the edge, she stretched down her hand and wanted to take the Blue Light away from him.

“No,” said he, perceiving her evil intention, “I will not give you the light, until I am standing with both feet upon the ground.”

The Witch fell into a passion, let him down again into the well, and went away.

The poor soldier fell without injury on the moist ground, and the Blue Light went on burning. But of what use was that to him? He saw very well that he could not escape death. He sat for a while very sorrowfully, then suddenly he felt in his pocket and found his pipe, which was still half full of tobacco. “This shall be my last pleasure,” thought he, pulled it out, lit it at the Blue Light and began to smoke.

When the smoke had circled about the cavern, suddenly a little Black Man stood before him, and said, “Master, what are your commands?”

“What commands have I to give you?” replied the soldier, quite astonished.

“I must do everything you bid me,” said the Little Man.

“Good,” said the soldier; “then in the first place help me out of this well.”

The Little Man took him by the hand, and led him through an underground passage, but the soldier did not forget to take the Blue Light with him. On the way the Little Man showed him treasures hidden there, and the soldier took as much gold as he could carry.

When he was above, he said to the Little Man, “Now go and bind the old Witch, and carry her before the judge.”

In a short time she, with frightful cries, came riding by, as swift as the wind, on a wild tom-cat, nor was it long after that before the Little Man reappeared. “It is all done,” said he, “and the Witch is already hanging on the gallows. What further commands has my lord?” inquired the Little Man.

“At this moment, none,” answered the soldier; “you may return home. Only be at hand immediately, if I summon you.”

“Nothing more is needed than that you should light your pipe at the Blue Light, and I will appear before you at once.” Thereupon he vanished from sight.

The soldier returned to the town from which he had come. He went to the best inn, ordered himself handsome clothes, and then bade the landlord furnish him a room as magnificent as possible.

When it was ready and the soldier had taken possession of it, he summoned the Little Black Man and said, “I have served the King faithfully, but he has dismissed me, and left me to hunger, and now I want to punish him.”

“What am I to do?” asked the Little Man.

“Late at night, when the King’s Daughter is in bed, bring her here in her sleep; she shall do servant’s work for me.”

The Little Man said, “That is an easy thing for me to do, but a very dangerous thing for you, for if it is discovered, you will fare ill.”

When twelve o’clock had struck, the door sprang open, and the Little Man carried in the Princess.

“Aha! are you there?” cried the soldier, “get to your work at once! Fetch the broom and sweep the chamber.”

When she had done this, he ordered her to come to his chair. Then he stretched out his feet and said, “Pull off my boots for me,” and made her pick them up again, and clean and brighten them.

She, however, did everything he bade her, without opposition, silently and with half-shut eyes. When the first cock crowed, the Little Man carried her back to the royal Palace, and laid her in her bed.

Next morning, when the Princess arose, she went to her father, and told him that she had had a very strange dream. “I was carried through the streets with the rapidity of lightning,” said she, “and taken into a soldier’s room, and I had to wait upon him like a servant, sweep his room, clean his boots, and do all kinds of menial work. It was only a dream, and yet I am just as tired as if I really had done everything.”

“The dream may have been true,” said the King. “I will give you a piece of advice. Fill your pocket full of peas, and make a small hole in it, and then if you are carried away again, they will fall out and leave a track in the streets.”

But unseen by the King, the Little Man was standing beside him when he said that, and heard all. At night, when the sleeping Princess was again carried through the streets, some peas certainly did fall out of her pocket, but they made no track, for the crafty Little Man had just before scattered peas in every other street. And again the Princess was compelled to do servant’s work until cock-crow.

Next morning, the King sent his people out to seek the track, but it was all in vain, for in every street poor children were sitting, picking up peas, and saying, “It must have rained peas, last night.”

“We must think of something else,” said the King; “keep your shoes on when you go to bed, and before you come back from the place where you are taken, hide one of them there. I will soon find it.”

The Little Black Man heard this plot, and at night when the soldier again ordered him to bring the Princess, revealed it to him, and told him that he knew of no way to overcome this stratagem, and that if the shoe were found in the soldier’s house it would go badly with him.

“Do what I bid you,” replied the soldier. And again this third night, the Princess was obliged to work like a servant, but before she went away, she hid her shoe under the bed.

Next morning, the King had the entire town searched for his daughter’s shoe. It was found at the soldier’s, and the soldier himself, who at the entreaty of the Little Man, had gone outside the city-gate, was soon brought back, and thrown into prison.

In his flight he had forgotten the most valuable things he had, the Blue Light and the gold, and had only one ducat in his pocket. And now loaded with chains, he was standing at the window of his dungeon, when he chanced to see one of his comrades passing by.

The soldier tapped at the pane of glass, and when this man came up, said to him, “Be so kind as to fetch me the small bundle I have left lying in the inn, and I will give you a ducat for doing it.”

His comrade ran thither and brought him what he wanted. As soon as the soldier was alone again, he lighted his pipe and summoned the Little Black Man.

“Have no fear,” said the latter to his master. “Go wheresoever they take you, and let them do what they will, only take the Blue Light with you.”

Next day the soldier was tried, and though he had done nothing wicked, the judge condemned him to death. When he was led forth to die, he begged a last favor of the King.

“What is it?” asked the King.

“That I may smoke one more pipe on my way.”

“You may smoke three,” answered the King, “but do not imagine that I will spare your life.” Then the soldier pulled out his pipe and lighted it at the Blue Light. And as soon as a few wreaths of smoke had ascended the Little Man was there with a small cudgel in his hand, and said, “What does my lord command?”

“Strike down to earth that false judge there, and his constable, and spare not the King who has treated me so ill.”

Then the Little Man fell on them like lightning, darting this way and that, and whosoever was so much as touched by his cudgel fell to earth, and did not venture to stir again. The King was terrified; he threw himself on the soldier’s mercy, and begged merely to be allowed to live. He gave him his kingdom for his own, and the Princess to wife.

THE SPINDLE, THE SHUTTLE, AND THE NEEDLE

There was once a girl whose father and mother died while she was still a little child. All alone, in a small house at the end of the village, dwelt her godmother, who supported herself by spinning, weaving, and sewing. The old woman took the forlorn child to live with her, kept her to her work, and educated her in all that is good.

When the girl was fifteen, the old woman became ill, called the child to her bedside, and said, “Dear Daughter, I feel my end drawing near. I leave you the little house, which will protect you from wind and weather, and my spindle, shuttle, and needle, with which you can earn your bread.”

Then she laid her hands on the girl’s head, blessed her, and said, “Only preserve the love of God in your heart, and all will go well with you.”

Thereupon she closed her eyes, and when she was laid in the earth, the maiden followed the coffin, weeping bitterly, and paid her the last mark of respect.

And now the maiden lived quite alone in the little house, and was industrious, and span, wove, and sewed, and the blessing of the good old woman was on all that she did. It seemed as if the flax in the room increased of its own accord, and whenever she wove a piece of cloth or carpet, or had made a shirt, she at once found a buyer who paid her amply for it. So that she was in want of nothing, and even had something to share with others.

About this time, the Son of the King was traveling about the country looking for a Bride. He was not to choose a poor one, and did not want to have a rich one. So he said, “She shall be my wife who is the poorest, and at the same time the richest.”

When he came to the village where the maiden dwelt, he inquired, as he did wherever he went, who was the richest and also the poorest girl in the place? They first named the richest; the poorest, they said, was the girl who lived in the small house quite at the end of the village.

The rich girl was sitting in all her splendor before the door of her house, and when the Prince approached her, she got up, went to meet him, and made him a low curtsey. He looked at her, said nothing, and rode on.

When he came to the house of the poor girl, she was not standing at the door, but sitting in her little room. He stopped his horse, and saw, through the window on which the bright sun was shining, the girl sitting at her spinning-wheel, busily spinning. She looked up, and when she saw that the Prince was gazing in, blushed all over her face, let her eyes fall, and went on spinning. I do not know whether, just at that moment, the thread was quite even; but she went on spinning until the King’s Son had ridden away again.

Then she stepped to the window, opened it, and said, “It is so warm in this room!” but she still looked after him as long as she could see the white feathers in his hat. Then she sat down to work again in her own room and went on with her spinning. And a saying which the old woman had often repeated when she was sitting at her work, came into her mind, and she sang these words to herself:

“Spindle, my Spindle, haste, haste thee away,Here to my house bring the wooer, I pray.”

And what do you think happened? The spindle sprang out of her hand in an instant, and out of the door. And when, in her astonishment, she got up and looked after it, she saw that it was dancing out merrily into the open country, and drawing a shining golden thread after it. Before long, it had entirely vanished from her sight.

As she had now no spindle, the girl took the weaver’s shuttle in her hand, sat down to her loom, and began to weave.

The spindle, however, danced continually onward, and just as the thread came to an end, reached the Prince.

“What do I see?” he cried; “the spindle certainly wants to show me the way!” He turned his horse about, and rode back with the golden thread. The girl was, however, sitting at her work singing:

“Shuttle, my Shuttle, weave well this day,And guide the wooer to me, I pray.”

Immediately the shuttle sprang out of her hand and out by the door. Before the threshold, however, it began to weave a carpet which was more beautiful than the eyes of man had ever yet beheld. Lilies and roses blossomed on both sides of it. And on a golden ground in the centre green branches ascended, under which bounded hares and rabbits. Stags and deer stretched their heads in between them. Brightly-colored birds were sitting in the branches above. They lacked nothing but the gift of song. The shuttle leapt hither and thither, and everything seemed to grow of its own accord.

As the shuttle had run away, the girl sat down to sew. She held the needle in her hand and sang:

“Needle, my Needle, sharp-pointed and fine,Prepare for a wooer this house of mine.”

Then the needle leapt out of her fingers, and flew everywhere about the room as quick as lightning. It was just as if invisible spirits were working. They covered tables and benches with green cloth in an instant, and the chairs with velvet, and hung the windows with silken curtains.

Hardly had the needle put in the last stitch, than the maiden saw through the window the white feathers of the Prince, whom the spindle had brought thither by the golden thread. He alighted, stepped over the carpet into the house, and when he entered the room, there stood the maiden in her poor garments, but she shone out from them like a rose surrounded by leaves.

“You are the poorest and also the richest,” said he to her. “Come with me, you shall be my Bride.”

She did not speak, but she gave him her hand. Then he kissed her, and led her forth, lifted her on to his horse, and took her to the royal castle, where the wedding was solemnized with great rejoicings.

The spindle, shuttle, and needle were preserved in the treasure-chamber, and held in great honor.

THE THREE LUCK-CHILDREN

A father once called his three sons before him. He gave to the first a cock, to the second a scythe, and to the third a cat.

“I am old,” said he, “my death is nigh, and I have wished to take thought for you before my end. Money I have not, and what I now give you seems of little worth. But all depends on your making a sensible use of it. Only seek out a country where such things are still unknown, and your fortune is made.”

After the father’s death, the eldest went away with his cock. But wherever he came the cock was already known. In the towns, he saw him from a long distance, sitting upon the steeples and turning round with the wind; and in the villages he heard more than one crowing. No one would show any wonder at the creature, so that it did not look as if he would make his fortune by it.

At last, however, it happened that he came to an island where the people knew nothing about cocks, and did not even understand how to tell time. They certainly knew when it was morning or evening. But at night, if they did not sleep through it, not one of them knew how to find out the time.

“Look!” said he, “what a proud creature! It has a ruby-red crown upon its head, and wears spurs like a knight. It calls you three times during the night, at fixed hours; and when it calls for the last time, the sun soon after rises. But if it crows by broad daylight, then take notice, for there will certainly be a change of weather.”

The people were well pleased. For a whole night they did not sleep, and listened with great delight as the cock at two, four, and six o’clock, loudly and clearly proclaimed the time. They asked if the creature were for sale, and how much he wanted for it.

“About as much gold as an ass can carry,” answered he.

“A ridiculously small price for such a precious creature!” they cried all together, and willingly gave him what he had asked.

When he came home with his wealth, his brothers were astonished, and the second said, “Well, I will go forth and see whether I cannot get rid of my scythe as profitably.” But it did not look as if he would, for laborers met him everywhere, and they had scythes upon their shoulders as well as he.

At last, however, he chanced upon an island where the people knew nothing of scythes. When the corn was ripe, they took cannon out to the fields and shot it down. Now this was rather an uncertain affair. Many shot right over it, others hit the ears instead of the stems and shot them away, whereby much was lost; and besides all this it made a terrible noise.