by Jacob Grimm
Together the three of them announced themselves to the princess and asked her to give them the riddle. They told her that the right people had finally come, for they all had such fine minds that one could thread a needle with each one of them. So the princess said, “I have two kinds of hair on my head. What are the colors?”
“If that’s all there’s to it,” said the first tailor, “one’s black, and the other’s white, just like the cloth they call pepper and salt.”
“Wrong,” said the princess. “Let the second try.”
“Well, if it’s not black and white,” said the second tailor, “then it’s got to be brown and red, like my father’s frock coat.”
“Wrong,” said the princess. “Let the third try. I can tell by his face that he thinks he knows the answer.”
The little tailor stepped forward boldly and said, “The princess has silver and golden hair on her head, and those are the two colors.”
When the princess heard that, she turned pale and nearly fainted from fright, for the little tailor had guessed right, and she had been firmly convinced that nobody in the world would ever solve the riddle. When her heart began to beat again, she said, “You haven’t won me yet, for you must do one more thing. Down in the stable there’s a bear, and you must spend the night with him. If you’re still alive when I get up in the morning, then I’ll marry you.”
She thought that she’d get rid of the tailor this way because the bear had never let anyone that he had got his paws on survive. But the little tailor was not about to let himself be frightened by this. Indeed, he was delighted and said, “I’ll manage to complete this task as well.”
When evening came, the little tailor was taken down to the bear, who immediately headed straight for the little fellow to give him a big welcome with his paws.
“Easy does it, easy does it,” said the little tailor. “I’ll calm you down soon enough.”
Then, as though he had nothing in the world to worry about, he casually took some walnuts out of his pocket and began cracking them open with his teeth and eating the kernels. When the bear saw this, he began craving some nuts too. So the little tailor reached into his pocket and gave him a handful. However, these were not nuts but small stones. The bear put them into his mouth and could not crack any of them open, no matter how much he tried.
“Good gracious,” thought the bear. “What a stupid oaf I am! I can’t even crack open nuts.” And he said to the little tailor, “Will you crack open some nuts for me?”
“What kind of a fellow are you anyway?” asked the little tailor. “You have such a big mouth, and yet you can’t even crack open little nuts.”
Then he took the stones and stealthily substituted a nut for them and cracked it in two in his mouth.
“I’ve got to try this thing once more,” said the bear. “When I see you do it, I can’t imagine why I can’t do it, too.”
Once again the little tailor gave him plain stones, and the bear worked at it and bit with all his might. God help the little tailor, if he had managed to bite it open!
After that was over, the little tailor took out a violin from under his coat and played a little tune. When the bear heard the music, he couldn’t help but dance, and after he had danced for a while, he was so delighted that he said to the little tailor, “Is it hard to learn how to play the fiddle?”
“It’s child’s play. Watch me. I place the fingers of my left hand down here and move the bow with my right. Then you can have a merry old time—whoop-de-doo and away we go!”
“I’d like to learn how to play the fiddle,” said the bear. “Then I could dance as much as I liked. What do you think about that? Will you give me lessons?”
“Gladly,” said the little tailor, “if you have talent for it. But show me your paws. They’re tremendously long. I’ll have to cut your nails a bit.”
So he went and fetched a vise, and the bear put his paws into it. Then the tailor tightened the vise and said, “Now wait until I return with the scissors,” and he let the bear growl as long as he liked, while the tailor lay down on a bundle of straw in the corner and fell asleep.
That night, when the princess heard the bear’s tremendous growling, she thought that he had made an end of the tailor and was growling out of joy. The next morning she got up feeling quite at ease and happy, but when she glanced out the window toward the stable, she saw the little tailor standing outside, looking as cheerful and fresh as a fish in water. After this she couldn’t break her agreement because she had given her promise in public. The king summoned a coach, and she had to drive to church with the little tailor to get married. When the couple climbed into the coach, the other two tailors, who were false-hearted and begrudged the little tailor his luck, went to the stable and set the bear free. Now, the bear ran after the coach in a great rage, and the princess heard him panting and growling. In her fright she cried out, “Ah, the bear’s after us and wants to get you!”
The little tailor, alert as ever, immediately stood on his head, stuck his feet out the window, and shouted, “You see the vise? If you don’t go away, then you’ll soon be back in it!”
When the bear saw that, he turned and ran away. Our little tailor drove calmly to the church and was married to the princess. Thereafter, he lived as happily as a lark with her, and whoever doesn’t believe me must give me a gold coin.
29
THE BRIGHT SUN WILL BRING IT TO LIGHT
A journeyman tailor was traveling around and practicing his trade. However, at one time he couldn’t find any work and became so poverty-stricken that he didn’t have a single cent left for food. Just at this point in his travels he met a Jew, who, he thought, probably had a lot of money with him. So he abandoned God, went straight toward the Jew, and said, “Give me your money, or I’ll kill you.”
“Spare my life!” said the Jew. “I don’t have much money, just eight pennies.”
“You’ve got more money than that! Out with it!” the tailor responded.
Then he used force and beat the Jew until he was nearly dead. Just as the Jew was on the point of death, he uttered his last words, “The bright sun will bring it to light!”
Upon saying this, he died.
The tailor searched the man’s pockets for money but couldn’t find anything more than the eight pennies that the Jew had told him about. So he picked him up, carried him behind a bush, and continued on his travels, practicing his craft along the way. After he had been traveling a long time, he came to a place where he began working for a master tailor who had a beautiful daughter. He fell in love with her, married her, and they had a good and happy marriage.
Some time later, after they already had two children, the father-in-law and the mother-in-law died, and the young couple had the house to themselves. One morning, as the man sat at the table in front of a window, his wife brought him some coffee. He poured it into the cup and was about to drink it when the sun shone upon coffee and cast a reflection on the wall so that little rings flickered here and there. The tailor looked up and said, “Ah, the sun wants very much to bring it to light, but it can’t.”
“Good gracious, my dear husband!” said his wife. “What’s that? What do you mean by that?”
“I can’t tell you,” he answered.
But she said, “If you really love me, you must tell me.” and she spoke very sweetly, swore she would never tell a soul about it, and gave him no peace.
So he told her how, many years ago, he had been traveling around in rags and without money, when he had met a Jew and had killed him. Then the Jew had said in his death throes, “The bright sun will bring it to light!” Now the sun wanted to bring it to light and had cast its reflection on the wall, where it made rings. But it was not able to bring it to light.
After telling her this, he implored her not to tell anybody; otherwise he would lose his life. She promised him not to, but after he sat down to work, she went to her neighbor, told her the story in confidence, making her promise not to tell a soul a
bout it. Yet after three days had passed, the whole city knew the story, and the tailor was brought before the court and convicted.
So, after all, the bright sun did manage to bring it to light.
30
THE BLUE LIGHT
Once upon a time there was a king who had a soldier as servant. When the soldier became very old, the king sent him away without giving him anything for his service. Now the soldier had no idea how he was to eke out an existence and went off sadly and walked until he reached a forest in the evening. After he went farther, he saw a light, and as he approached it, he came upon a small house that was owned by a witch. He asked for a night’s lodging and a little food and drink. At first she refused him, but finally she said: “All right, I’ll be merciful, but you must dig my garden tomorrow morning.”
The soldier promised to do it and was given a place to sleep. The next morning he hoed the witch’s garden and worked until evening, when the witch wanted to send him on his way, but he said, “I’m so tired. Let me stay another night.”
She didn’t want to let him, but finally she gave in. So the next day he was to chop up a cartload of wood into small pieces, and indeed, the soldier chopped the wood into logs, and by the end of the day he had worn himself out so much that once again he couldn’t depart and asked for lodging for a third night. In exchange for the lodging, the witch demanded that he fetch the blue light from her well the following day. So the next morning the witch led him to a well and tied a long rope around him and lowered him down the well. When he reached the bottom, he found the blue light and made a signal to the witch so that she would pull him up. Indeed, she pulled him up, but just as he reached the edge of the well, she reached down with her hand and wanted to take the blue light from him and then let him fall back down. However, he sensed her evil intentions and said: “No, you don’t. I won’t give you the light until both my feet are firmly on the ground.”
The witch became furious, and she shoved him with the light down the well and went away. The soldier was now quite sad down in the moist dark quagmire, for he thought his fate was sealed. He reached into his pocket for his pipe, which was half full, and thought: “I might as well smoke it to the end as my last pleasure.” So he lit it with the blue light and began to smoke. As the smoke floated around a bit, a little black man appeared and asked: “Master, what do you command? I must do anything you demand.”
“Then first help me out of this well.”
The little man took him by the hand and led him up above, and they took the blue light with them. When they were back above ground, the soldier said: “Now go and beat the old witch to death for me.”
After the little man did this, he showed the soldier the witch’s treasures and gold, and the soldier loaded them in a sack and took everything with him. Then the little man said, “If you need me, just light your pipe with the blue light.”
The soldier returned to the city and stopped at the best inn where he had fine clothes made for himself and had a room furnished in a splendid way. When it was ready, the soldier called the little man and said: “The king sent me away and let me starve because I could no longer serve him well. Now bring the king’s daughter to me here tonight. She will have to wait on me and do what I command.”
“That’s dangerous,” the little man said, but he did what the soldier demanded anyway. He went and fetched the sleeping princess from her bed and brought her to the soldier. Then she had to obey and do what he said. In the morning when the cock crowed, the little black man had to bring her back again. When she got up, she told her father: “I had a strange dream this past night, and it seemed to me that I had been taken away and had become a soldier’s maid and had to wait on him.”
“Fill your pockets full of peas,” replied the king, “and make a hole in it. The dream could be true. Then the peas will fall out and leave a trail on the street.”
So she did this, but the little man had overheard what the king had advised her to do. When evening came and the soldier said that the little man should bring the king’s daughter to him again, the little man spread peas all over the city so that the few peas that fell out of her pocket could leave no trace. The next morning the people of the city had to pick up and sort all the peas. Once again, the king’s daughter told her father what had happened to her, and he answered: “Keep one shoe on, and hide the other secretly wherever you are.”
The little black man heard the plan, and that night, when the soldier demanded that he bring him the king’s daughter, the little man said: “I can no longer help you. You’re going to have some bad luck if you’re exposed.”
However, the soldier insisted on having his will done
“Well then, after I’ve returned her to the king, make sure you get yourself out of here right away and through the city gate.”
So the king’s daughter kept one of her shoes on and hid the other in the soldier’s bed. The next morning, when she was once again with her father, he had the entire city searched and the shoe was found in the soldier’s room. To be sure, the soldier had already rushed out of the city, but he was soon overtaken and thrown into a sturdy prison. Now he was chained and tied up with rope, and due to the frantic flight, his most valuable things, the blue light and the pipe, had remained behind, and the only thing he had with him was a gold coin. As he was now standing sadly at the window of his prison, he saw one of his comrades passing by. So he called out to him and said: “If you get me the little bundle that I left in my room at the inn. I’ll give you a gold coin.”
So his comrade went there and brought back the blue light and the pipe in exchange for the gold coin. The prisoner lit his pipe right away and summoned the little black man who said to him: “Have no fear. Go wherever they take you, and let them do what they want. Just remember to take the blue light with you.”
The next day the soldier was interrogated and sentenced to hang on the gallows. As he was being led out to be executed, he asked the king to grant him one last favor.
“What kind of a favor?” asked the king.
“I’d like to smoke my pipe along the way.”
“You can smoke three pipes if you like,” answered the king.
Then the soldier took out his pipe and lit it with the blue light. All at once the little black man was there.
“Beat everyone here to death,” the soldier said, “and tear the king into three pieces.”
Well the little man began and beat all the people around him to death. The king kneeled and pleaded for mercy, and to save his life he gave the soldier the kingdom and his daughter for his wife.
31
THE STUBBORN CHILD
Once upon a time there was a stubborn child who never did what his mother told him to do. Therefore, the dear Lord did not look kindly upon him, and he became sick. No doctor could cure him, and in a short time he lay on his deathbed. When he was being lowered into his grave and was covered over with dirt, one of his little arms suddenly emerged and reached up into the air. They pushed it back down and covered the dirt with fresh dirt, but that didn’t help. The little arm kept popping out. So the child’s mother had to go to the grave herself and smack the little arm with a switch. After she did that, the arm withdrew, and then, for the first time, the child had peace beneath the earth.
32
THE THREE ARMY SURGEONS
Three army surgeons who were traveling around the world thought that they had learned all there was to know about their profession. One day they came to an inn, where they wanted to spend the night, and the innkeeper asked them where they were coming from and where they were heading.
“We’re traveling about the world and practicing our profession.”
“Well, show me what you can do,” said the innkeeper.
Then the first surgeon said he would cut off his own hand and put it back on again in the morning. The second said he would tear out his heart and put it back in place in the morning. The third said he would poke out his eyes and put them back in their socke
ts in the morning. Indeed, they had a salve that immediately healed any wound when they rubbed it on, and they carried the salve in a little flask that they kept with them all the time. So each one cut a different organ from his body: the hand, the heart, and the eyes. Then they put them on a plate and gave them to the innkeeper, who handed the plate to the maid, who was to put it in the cupboard for safekeeping.
Unknown to everyone, however, the maid had a sweetheart, who was a soldier, and when the innkeeper, the three surgeons, and everyone in the house were asleep, the soldier came and wanted something to eat. The maid opened the cupboard and brought him some food, but she was so enraptured that she forgot to shut the cupboard door. She sat down at the table next to her sweetheart and began chatting away. In her bliss she couldn’t imagine anything going wrong, but the cat came creeping inside, found the cupboard open, and carried off the hand, heart, and eyes of the three surgeons. After the soldier had eaten and the maid was about to clear away the dishes and shut the cupboard, she noticed that the plate given to her by the innkeeper was empty. Filled with dread, she said to her sweetheart, “Oh, poor me! What am I to do! The hand’s gone. The heart and eyes are also gone. They’ll make me pay for this tomorrow!”
“Calm down,” he said. “I’ll help you out of this mess. Just give me a sharp knife. There’s a thief hanging on the gallows outside. I’ll go and cut off his hand. Which hand was it?”
“The right one.”
The maid gave him a sharp knife, and he went to the gallows, cut off the right hand from the poor sinner, and brought it to the maid. Then he grabbed a cat and poked its eyes out. Now only the heart was missing.
“Haven’t you just slaughtered a pig? Isn’t the meat in the cellar?”
“Yes,” said the maid.
“Well, that’s perfect,” said the soldier, who went and brought back the pig’s heart.