Selected Tales of the Brothers Grimm

by Jacob Grimm

  “No,” said the sun, “no white dove did I see, but here’s a little chest. Open it when you’re in great need.”

  She thanked the sun and she kept walking until evening when the moon appeared. Then she asked the moon, “You shine the whole night long, and over all the fields and forests of the world. Did you not see a white dove flying by?”

  “No,” said the moon, “no white dove did I see, but here’s an egg. Break it when you’re in great need.”

  She thanked the moon and kept on walking until the Night Wind came blowing by, and she said, “You blow over all the trees and under every leaf. Did you not see a white dove flying by?”

  “No,” said the Night Wind, “no white dove did I see, but I will ask the three other winds, perhaps they saw it.”

  The East Wind and the West Wind blew by, but they hadn’t seen it. But the South Wind said, “Yes, I did see the white dove. It flew to the Red Sea, and there it turned into a lion again, since the seven years were up, and the lion is doing battle with a dragon, which is an enchanted princess.”

  Then the Night Wind spoke to her: “I’ll give you a word of advice. Go to the Red Sea. On the right bank you’ll find stalks of cane growing. Count them and cut off the eleventh stalk, and with it strike the dragon, then the lion can subdue it, and both will get their human bodies back. After that look around, and you’ll find the griffin who sits on the Red Sea. Swing yourself with your beloved on his back, and he will fly you both home. Here, take this walnut, and when you’re midway across the water, let if fall, and a great big walnut tree will rise out of the deep, on which the griffin will rest, for if he could not rest he would not be strong enough to carry you across and if you forget to drop the nut he’ll shake you off into the Red Sea.”

  She walked on and found everything just as the Night Wind said she would. She counted the stalks of cane growing by the sea and cut the eleventh stalk off, and with it struck the dragon, and the lion subdued it. At that very instant the two regained their human forms. But as soon as the princess who had previously been a dragon was freed from her spell, she took the young man in her arms, climbed onto the griffin, and flew off with him. Now the poor girl who had traveled far and wide was abandoned again and she sat down and wept. But finally she pulled herself together and said, “I will walk as far as the wind blows and as long as I can still hear the rooster crow until I find him.”

  And she walked away, and kept walking a long, long way, until at last she came to the castle where the two of them, the dragon princess and her lion king, lived. She heard that there would soon be a festivity at which the two were to be wed. Whereupon she said, “God will still help me,” and took out the little chest that the sun had given her, and in it there was a dress as radiant as the sun itself.

  So she took it out and put it on and went into the castle, and everyone, including the bride, was struck by her appearance. The bride took such a fancy to it that she thought it would make a wonderful wedding gown, and asked if it might not be for sale.

  “Not for gold or goods,” the girl replied, “but for flesh and blood.”

  The bride asked her what she meant by that.

  The girl said, “Let me spend a night in the chamber where the bridegroom sleeps.”

  The bride was reluctant at first, but she so badly wanted the dress that she finally gave in, under the condition that the valet give the prince a sleeping potion.

  When night fell and the prince already lay asleep, the girl was led into the chamber. She sat on the edge of the bed and said, “I followed you for seven long years, went to the sun, the moon, and the four winds to ask after you, and I helped you subdue the dragon. Pray tell me, my prince, how then can you forget me?”

  But the prince slept so soundly that it only seemed to him as if what he heard were the wind wafting outside in the evergreens. At daybreak she was led out of the chamber and had to hand over her golden dress. Fathoming that it was all for naught, she was sad, went outside, sat on a lawn, and wept. But as she sat there she remembered that she still had the egg the moon had given her. She cracked it open and out came a golden clucking hen with twelve little golden chicks that ran around and peeped and crept back under their mother’s wings, and there was no lovelier sight in this world. Then she stood up and drove them along the lawn until the bride looked out her window and was so taken by the little golden chicks that she came running out and asked if they might not be for sale.

  “Not for gold and goods, but for flesh and blood. Let me spend another night in the bedchamber of the sleeping prince.”

  The bride agreed, intending to trick her as she had the previous night. But when the prince went to bed he asked his valet what all the muttering and murmuring was about last night. The valet told him everything, that he had been told to slip him a sleeping potion because a poor girl spent the night in secret in his chamber, and tonight he was told to do the same.

  The prince said, “Pour the potion out beside my bed.”

  That night the girl was let in again, and as soon as she started to tell how badly things had gone for her, he immediately recognized the voice of his beloved wife, leapt up, and cried, “Only now am I truly released from the spell. It was like in a dream, for the strange princess held me in her thrall and made me forget all about you, but God delivered me from my delusion in the nick of time.” Together they snuck out of the castle in the dark of night, for they feared the princess’s father, an evil sorcerer, and sat themselves on the griffin, who carried them across the Red Sea. And when they reached the middle of the sea, she let a walnut fall. And instantly a tall walnut tree grew out of the water, on which the griffin rested and then flew them home, where they found their child, who had since grown big and beautiful, and from then on they lived happily together until their dying day.

  THE GIRL WITH NO HANDS

  A miller fell little by little into poverty and soon had nothing left but his mill and the big apple tree that stood behind it. One day he went walking in the forest to gather wood, and an old man he had never seen before approached him and said, “Why break your back cutting wood? I can make you rich, if only you promise to give me what’s standing behind the mill.” What else could it be than the apple tree? the miller thought, so he said yes and signed it over to the stranger. Whereupon the latter cackled and said, “In three years’ time I’ll be back to pick up what’s mine,” and walked away.

  When the miller got home, his wife came running to him and said, “Tell me, husband, where does all our wondrous wealth come from? All of a sudden our trunks and cabinets are full to bursting. Nobody brought it in, and I have no idea where it came from.”

  To which he replied, “It comes from the stranger I met in the forest who promised me great wealth in exchange for which I signed over possession to what’s standing behind the mill – the big apple tree is small recompense for such a windfall.”

  “Oh, husband,” replied his horrified wife, “that was the Devil – he didn’t mean the apple tree but our daughter, who happened to be standing behind the mill sweeping up the yard.”

  The miller’s daughter was a beautiful and God-fearing girl, who whiled away the three years in piety and without sin. When the time was up and the day came on which the Evil One wanted to fetch her, she washed herself clean from head to toe and drew a circle around herself with chalk. The Devil came acalling early, but he could not draw near her. In a fury he said to the miller, “Take all the water away from her so she can’t wash herself anymore, or else I can’t make her mine.”

  The miller was terrified and did what he was told. The next morning the Devil returned, but the girl had cried on her hands, washing them clean with her tears. Again he could not draw near. In a rage he said to the miller, “Hack off her hands, or else I can’t make her mine.”

  Appalled, the miller replied, “How can I hack off my own child’s hands!”

  But the Evil One threatened him in a menacing voice: “If you don’t do it, you’re done for, and I will com
e and fetch you myself.”

  Terror-struck, the father promised to obey. Then he went to his daughter and said, “My child, if I don’t hack off your hands the Devil will take me away, and in a fit of fear I promised I would. Help me in my need and forgive me for what I must do to you.”

  To which she replied, “Dear Father, do with me what you will, I’m your child.” Whereupon she stretched both her hands before her and let them be hacked off. Now the Devil came a third time, but she had wept so long and so much on her stumps that they were washed clean. So he had to relent and lost all claim to her.

  The miller said to her, “You have brought me such great gain. I will care for you and keep you in the lap of luxury your whole life.”

  But she replied, “I can’t stay here. I have to go away – kindhearted people will surely give me what I need.”

  Whereupon after having the stumps of her mutilated arms tied to her back, she set out at dawn and walked the whole day until nightfall. She found herself at the edge of a royal garden and saw in the moonlight that the trees were ripe with luscious fruit, but she could not enter, as the garden was ringed by a moat. And because she had walked the whole day without a bite to eat and hunger gnawed at her gut, she thought to herself, If only I could get into the garden to eat of the fruit, or else I will surely die. So she knelt down, called out, and prayed to God the Father. All at once an angel appeared and built a sluice in the moat so that the water drained off, the bed went dry, and she could walk across. Then she entered the garden and the angel went with her. She saw a fruit tree full with luscious-looking pears, but they all belonged to the king. She stepped forward and bit into one, only one, straight off the tree to still her hunger. The gardener was watching, but because the angel stood by her, he was afraid, and thinking the girl must be a ghost, he kept still and dared not address her. Once she’d eaten the pear and her hunger was stilled, she went and hid behind a bush.

  The following morning, the king to whom the garden belonged came to count the pears and noticed that one was missing. He asked the gardener what had become of it, since he could not see it lying under the tree. The gardener replied, “Last night, sire, a ghost with no hands bit one straight off the tree.”

  The king said, “How did the ghost get across the moat? And where did he go after eating the pear?”

  The gardener replied, “Someone in a snow-white gown came down from the sky and built a sluice to drain off the water so that the ghost could walk across. And since it must have been an angel, I took fright and didn’t dare object. As soon as the ghost ate the pear he went away again.”

  To which the king replied, “If what you say is true, I’ll stand guard with you tonight.”

  When darkness fell, the king came into the garden and brought a priest along to speak to the ghost. The three of them sat under the tree and waited. At midnight the girl crept out from behind the bush, approached the tree, and gnawed off another pear with her teeth. The angel in white was standing beside her.

  Now the priest stepped forward and said, “Are you God-sent or of this world? Are you ghost or mortal?”

  To which she replied, “I am no ghost, but a poor lost soul, forsaken by all but the Lord.”

  The king said, “If you are forsaken by all, I will not forsake you.” He took her along with him into his castle, and because she was so pretty and pious, he loved her with all his heart, had silver hands fashioned for her, and took her as his wife.

  A year passed and the king had affairs to attend to far afield. So he left the young queen in the care of his mother and said, “When she is ready to bear me a child, take good care of her and make quick to send me a dispatch.”

  It came to pass that she gave birth to a beautiful boy. Whereupon the king’s old mother made haste to send him the glad tidings. But along the way the messenger rested beside a stream, and because he was so tired, he promptly fell asleep.

  Now the Devil, who had long born a grudge against the pious queen, appeared and exchanged the letter for another that said that the queen had given birth to a changeling. No sooner did the king read the letter than he was horrified and fell into a deep depression, but he wrote back that the queen should be well cared for until his return. The messenger returned with the letter, rested at the same spot along the way, where he once again fell asleep. Whereupon the Devil dropped by again, took the letter from the messenger’s pouch, and replaced it with another that said the queen and the child should be killed. Upon reading it, the old mother was stunned and could not believe her eyes. She wrote back to the king again, but each time the Devil switched letters – and in the last one it said that the queen’s eyes and tongue were to be cut out and kept as proof of her execution.

  Horrified at the thought of shedding such innocent blood, the old mother had a doe hunted down that night and cut out her tongue and eyes to keep for the king. Then she said to the young queen, “I cannot have you killed, as the king commands, but you can’t stay here any longer. Go with your child out into the world and never return.” She bound the child onto his mother’s back and the poor woman went away weeping. She came to a big, wild woods. There she knelt down and prayed to God, and the Lord’s angel appeared and led her to a little house on which hung a little sign with the words: “All are free to enter.” Out the door came a snow-white maiden who said, “Welcome, Your Highness,” and led her in. She unbound the boy from off the poor woman’s back and put him to her breast, so that he might drink, and lay him in a soft white bed.

  Whereupon the woman said to the maiden, “How do you know that I am a queen?”

  To which the maiden replied, “I am an angel sent by God to care for you and your child.”

  And the woman remained seven years in the little house, where she was cared for and fed, and because of her piety, by the mercy of God her hacked-off hands grew back.

  The king finally returned to his castle, and his first wish was to see the queen and the child. Then his old mother started crying and said, “You evil man, did you not write, commanding me to take two innocent lives?” And she showed him the two letters the Evil One had falsified, and continued: “I did as you ordered,” and showed him as proof the tongue and eyes.

  Then the king cried such bitter tears over his poor wife and little son that his old mother took mercy on him and said, “It’s all right, she still lives! I had a doe slaughtered in her place and kept the tongue and eyes, but I bound the child on your wife’s back and sent them out into the world, and made her promise never to come back, on account of your wrath.”

  To which the king replied, “I will search far and wide, and not eat or drink until I find my beloved wife and little son, if they have not already died of hunger.”

  Whereupon the king set out, and for seven long years he searched for her in vain on every cliff and in every cave, and thought for sure she must have perished. He did not eat or drink during that whole time, but God looked after him. Finally he came to a big, wild wood in which he found a little house with a little sign that said: “All are free to enter.”

  Then the maiden in white emerged, took him by the hand, led him in, and said, “Welcome, Your Majesty!” And she asked him where he came from.

  “I have wandered a full seven years in search of my wife and child, but I cannot find them.”

  The angel bid him eat and drink, but he declined and only wished to rest for a while. Then he lay down to sleep and she covered his face with a cloth.

  Then the angel went into the room where sat the queen and her son, whom she called Son of Misery. And the angel said to her, “Go out with your child – your husband has come.”

  Then the woman went to where he lay, and the cloth fell from his face. And she said to the boy, “Son of Misery, pick up the cloth from the floor and put it back over your father’s face.”

  The child picked it up and put it back over the king’s face.

  The king heard all this in his half slumber and gladly let the cloth fall again.

  Then t
he little boy grew impatient and said, “Dear Mother, how can I cover my father’s face when I have no father in this world? I learned to pray ‘Our Father who art in heaven,’ and you told me my father was in heaven, and he was God Himself – so how am I to recognize this wild-eyed man?”

  As soon as the king heard these words, he sat up and asked who the woman was.

  “I am your wife,” she said, “and that is your boy, Son of Misery.”

  Then he saw her flesh-and-blood hands and said, “My wife has silver hands.”

  And she replied, “God in His mercy let me grow back the real ones.”

  And the angel went into the room next door and fetched the silver hands and showed them to him.

  Then the king knew for sure that it was his beloved wife and his dear child, and overjoyed, he kissed them and said, “A heavy stone has fallen from my heart.”

  Then the angel of God fed them again, and they went back home to the king’s old mother. And there was great joy in the kingdom, and the king and queen celebrated a second wedding, and they lived together in happiness to a ripe old age.

  RUMPELSTILZCHEN

  Once upon a time there was a poor miller who had a lovely daughter. Now it came to pass that he happened to speak to the king, and to give himself airs, he said, “I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold.”

  The king said to the miller, “That’s an art that strikes my fancy. If your daughter is indeed as skillful as you say, bring her to my castle, and I’ll put her to the test.” When the girl was brought to him he led her to a room filled to the rafters with straw, gave her a spinning wheel and a reel, and said, “Now get to work, and if by morning you haven’t spun this straw into gold, you will die.” Whereupon he shut her in and left her alone.

  So the poor miller’s daughter sat there and did not for the life of her know what to do. She had no idea how to spin straw into gold, and she was soon in such a tizzy that she started to cry. Then all at once the door flew open and in stepped a little man who said, “Good evening, Miss Miller, why are you crying your eyes out?”