by Jacob Grimm
Then she took it off and put it on her sister, who gave her a shabby gray gown in return. They continued on their way, and after a while the brother called out again:
“Cover yourself, my sister dear,
don’t let the rain get you too wet.
Don’t let the wind blow dust on you.
Take care, for you must look your very best
when you appear at your king’s request.”
The bride asked, “What’s my dear brother saying?”
“Ah,” replied the old woman. “He said you should take off your golden bonnet and give it to your sister.”
Then she took off the bonnet, put it on the black maiden, and sat with her hair uncovered. They continued on their way, and after a while her brother called out once more:
“Cover yourself, my sister dear,
don’t let the rain get you too wet.
Don’t let the wind blow dust on you.
Take care, for you must look your very best
when you appear at your king’s request.”
The bride asked, “What’s my brother saying?”
“Ah,” replied the old woman. “He said you should take a look out of the carriage.”
Just then they happened to be crossing a bridge over a deep river. When the bride stood up and leaned out the window of the carriage, the other two pushed her out, and she fell into the middle of the water. At the very instant that she sank out of sight, a snow white duck arose out of the smooth glittering water and swam down the river. Since the brother hadn’t noticed a thing, he kept driving until they reached the court. Then he brought the black maiden to the king as his sister and really thought it was her because his eyes were so clouded and he could only go by the glimmer of the golden clothes. When the king saw how abysmally ugly his intended bride was, he became furious and ordered the coachman to be thrown into a pit full of adders and snakes. Meanwhile, the old witch knew how to charm the king and deceive him through witchcraft so that he allowed her and her daughter to stay. Indeed, the daughter gradually appeared quite nice to him, and thus he actually married her.
One evening, while the black bride was sitting on the king’s lap, a white duck swam up the drain to the kitchen and said to the kitchen boy:
“Light a fire, little boy, make it quick,
I need some warmth and can’t get sick.”
The kitchen boy did as he was asked and lit a fire on the hearth. Then the duck came and sat down next to the fire, shook herself, and cleaned her feathers with her beak. While she sat there and made herself comfortable, she asked,
“What’s my brother Reginer doing?’
The kitchen boy answered:
“With snakes and adders in a pit,
that’s where he’s been forced to sit.”
Then she asked,
“What’s the black witch doing in the house?”
The kitchen boy answered:
“She’s nice and warm, so very warm,
for the king has got her in his arms.”
The duck said, “God have mercy!” and swam back down the drain.
The next evening she came again and asked the same questions, and on the third evening as well. The kitchen boy’s heart couldn’t bear this any longer. So he went to the king and revealed everything to him. Then the king went to the kitchen on the following evening, and when the duck stuck her head out through the drain, he took his sword and cut her head off by the neck. All at once she turned into a most beautiful maiden and looked exactly like the portrait that her brother had made of her. The king rejoiced, and since she was standing there soaking wet, he had fine clothes brought to her, which she put on. Then she told him how she had been thrown into the river. Her first request was to have her brother taken out of the snake pit, and this was done immediately. Then the king went into the room where the old witch sat and asked, “What kind of punishment does a woman deserve if she does something like the following?”
As he recalled all the past events, the black woman was so distracted that she didn’t realize what was going on and said, “She deserves to be stripped naked and put into a barrel studded with nails. Then a horse should be hitched to the barrel and sent running out into the world.”
This is what happened to her and her black daughter, while the king married the beautiful white bride and rewarded the faithful brother by making him a rich and respected man.
50
THE WILD MAN
Once upon a time there was a wild man who was under a spell, and he went into the gardens and wheat fields of the peasants and destroyed everything. The peasants complained to their lord and told him that they could no longer pay their rent. So the lord summoned all the huntsmen and announced that whoever caught the wild beast would receive a great reward. Then an old huntsman arrived and said he would catch the beast. He took a bottle of brandy, a bottle of wine, and a bottle of beer and set the bottles on the bank of a river, where the beast went every day. After doing that the huntsman hid behind a tree. Soon the beast came and drank up all the bottles. He licked his mouth and looked around to make sure everything was all right. Since he was drunk, he lay down and fell asleep. The huntsman went over to him and tied his hands and feet. Then he woke the wild man and said, “You, wild man, come with me, and you’ll get such things to drink every day.”
The huntsman took the wild man to the royal castle, and they put him into a cage. The lord then visited the other noblemen and invited them to see what kind of beast he had caught. Meanwhile, one of his sons was playing with a ball, and he let it fall into the cage.
“Wild man,” said the child, “throw the ball back out to me.”
“You’ve got to fetch the ball yourself,” said the wild man.
“All right,” said the child. “But I don’t have the key.”
“Then see to it that you fetch it from your mother’s pocket.”
The boy stole the key, opened the cage, and the wild man ran out.
“Oh, wild man!” the boy began to scream. “You’ve got to stay here, or else I’ll get a beating!”
The wild man picked up the boy and carried him on his back into the wilderness. So the wild man disappeared, and the child was lost.
The wild man dressed the boy in a coarse jacket and sent him to the gardener at the emperor’s court, where he was to ask whether they could use a gardener’s helper. The gardener said yes, but the boy was so grimy and crusty that the others wouldn’t sleep near him. The boy replied that he would sleep in the straw. Then early each morning he went into the garden, and the wild man came to him and said, “Now wash yourself, now comb your hair.”
And the wild man made the garden so beautiful that even the gardener himself couldn’t do any better. The princess saw the handsome boy every morning, and she told the gardener to have his little assistant bring her a bunch of flowers. When the boy came, she asked him about his home and family, and he replied that he didn’t know them. Then she gave him a roast chicken full of gold coins. When he got back to the gardener, he gave him the money and said, “What should I do with it? You can use it.”
Later he was ordered to bring the princess another bunch of flowers, and she gave him a duck full of gold coins, which he also gave to the gardener. On a third occasion she gave him a goose full of ducats, which the young man again passed on to the gardener. The princess thought that he had money, and yet he had nothing. They got married in secret, and her parents became angry and made her work in the brewery, and she also had to support herself by spinning. The young man would go into the kitchen and help the cook prepare the roast, and sometimes he stole a piece of meat and brought it to his wife.
Soon there was a mighty war in England, and the emperor and all the great armies had to travel there. The young man said he wanted to go there, too, and asked whether they had a horse in the stables for him. They told him that they had one that ran on three legs that would be good enough for him. So he mounted the horse, and the horse went off, clippety-clop. Then
the wild man approached him, and he opened a large mountain in which there was a regiment of a thousand soldiers and officers. The young man put on some fine clothes and was given a magnificent horse. Then he set out for the war in England with all his men. The emperor welcomed him in a friendly way and asked him to lend his support. The young man defeated everyone and won the battle, whereupon the emperor extended his thanks to him and asked him where his army came from.
“Don’t ask me that,” he replied. “I can’t tell you.”
Then he rode off with his army and left England. The wild man approached him again and took all the men back into the mountain. The young man mounted his three-legged horse and went back home.
“Here comes our hobbley-hop again with his three-legged horse!” the people cried out, and they asked, “Were you lying behind the hedge and sleeping?”
“Well,” he said, “if I hadn’t been in England, things wouldn’t have gone well for the emperor!”
“Boy,” they said, “be quiet, or else the gardener will really let you have it!” The second time, everything happened as it had before, and the third time, the young man won the whole battle, but he was wounded in the arm. The emperor took his kerchief, wrapped the wound, and tried to make the boy stay with him.
“No, I’m not going to stay with you. It’s of no concern to you who I am.”
Once again the wild man approached the young man and took all his men back into the mountain. The young man mounted his three-legged horse once more and went back home. The people began laughing and said, “Here comes our hobbley-hop again. Where were you lying asleep this time?”
“Truthfully, I wasn’t sleeping,” he said. “England is totally defeated, and there’s finally peace.”
Now, the emperor talked about the handsome knight who provided support, and the young man said to the emperor, “If I hadn’t been with you, it wouldn’t have turned out so well.”
The emperor wanted to give him a beating, but the young man said, “Stop! If you don’t believe me, let me show you my arm.”
When he revealed his arm and the emperor saw the wound, he was amazed and said, “Perhaps you are the Lord Himself or an angel whom God has sent to me,” and he asked his pardon for treating him so cruelly and gave him a whole kingdom.
Now, the wild man was released from the magic spell and stood there as a great king and told his entire story. The mountain turned into a royal castle, and the young man went there with his wife, and they lived in the castle happily until the end of their days.
51
THE THREE BLACK PRINCESSES
East India was besieged by an enemy that would not withdraw until it first received a ransom of six hundred gold coins. So it was announced in public that whoever could provide the money would become mayor. There was at that time a poor fisherman who was fishing at sea with his son. The enemy came, took the son prisoner, and gave the fisherman six hundred gold coins for him. The father then went and gave the money to the lords of the city. The enemy departed, and the fisherman became mayor. Thereafter it was proclaimed that whoever did not address him as “Lord Mayor” would be hanged on the gallows.
The son escaped from the enemy and made his way to a large forest on a high mountain. The mountain opened, and he went into a large enchanted castle, where all the chairs, tables, and benches were draped in black. Then three princesses appeared. They were clad entirely in black but had a little white on their faces. They told him not to be afraid, for they wouldn’t harm him, and he could rescue them. He replied that he would gladly do so if only he knew how. They told him he was not to speak to them for one whole year, nor was he to look at them. If he wanted anything, he just had to ask for it, and if they were permitted to answer his questions, they would do so.
After he had been there for a long time, he said that he would like to go and see his father. They told him that he could go, but he was to take a purse of money with him, put on certain clothes, and return in a week. Then he was lifted into the sky, and before he knew it, he was in East India. However, his father was no longer in the fishing hut, so the son asked some people where the poor fisherman was. They told him that he must not call him that or he would be taken to the gallows. Then he went to his father and said, “Fisherman, how did you get here?”
“You mustn’t call me that,” the father replied. “If the lords of the city hear you say that, you’ll be taken to the gallows.”
However, he wouldn’t stop saying it and was taken to the gallows. When he got there, he said, “My lords, grant me permission to go to the fishing hut.”
Once there, he put on his old fisherman garb, and then he returned to the lords and said, “Don’t you see now that I’m the poor fisherman’s son? This was the way I dressed when I earned a living for my mother and father.”
They recognized him then and apologized and took him home with them. The son told them everything that had happened, how he got to the forest on a high mountain, how the mountain had opened, and how he had entered an enchanted life where everything was black and where three young princesses had come to him, all in black except for a little white on their faces, and how the princesses had told him not to be afraid, and that he could save them. His mother warned him this might not be a good thing to do and told him to take a consecrated candle with him and to let some of its hot wax drop on their faces.
The son returned to the castle and was so fearful that he let the wax drop on their faces while they slept, and they all turned half white. The three princesses jumped up and cried, “You cursed dog, our blood shall cry out for vengeance! There is no man born now anywhere nor ever will be who can save us. But we still have three brothers bound by seven chains, and they will tear you to pieces.”
All at once there was a shrieking throughout the castle, and he jumped out a window and broke his leg. The castle sank back into the earth, the mountain closed, and nobody knows where the castle once stood.
52
KNOIST AND HIS THREE SONS
Between Werrel and Soist there lived a man named Knoist, and he had three sons. One was blind, the other was lame, and the third was stark naked. Once they were walking across a field and saw a hare. The blind one shot it. The lame one caught it, and the naked one stuck it into his pocket. Then they came to a tremendously large lake with three boats on it. One boat leaked, the other sank, and the third had no bottom to it. They went aboard the boat with no bottom. Then they came to a tremendously large forest, where they saw a tremendously large tree. In the tree was a tremendously large chapel, and in the chapel was a hornbeam sexton and a boxwood pastor, who dispensed holy water with cudgels.
Blessed is he who gets away when the holy water comes his way.
53
THE MAIDEN FROM BRAKEL
Once there was a maiden from Brakel who went to Saint Anne’s Chapel at the foot of the Hinnenberg. Since she wanted a husband and thought that nobody else was in the chapel, she sang:
“Holy Saint Anne,
please help me get my man.
Oh, you know him, I’m sure.
He lives down by the Suttmer Gate;
his hair is yellow and very pure.
Oh, you know him well. I’m very sure.”
The sexton was standing behind the altar and heard her. So he called out in a shrill voice, “You won’t get him, you won’t get him!”
The maiden thought that it was the child Mary standing beside Mother Anne who had spoken. Hence, the maiden became angry and replied, “Tra-la-la, you stupid brat! Hold your tongue and let your mother speak.”
54
THE DOMESTIC SERVANTS
“Where are you going?”
“To Woelpe.”
“I’m going to Woelpe, you’re going to Woelpe. So then, let’s go together.”
“Do you also have a husband? What’s his name?”
“Chain.”
“My husband’s named Chain, yours is Chain. I’m going to Woelpe, you’re going to Woelpe. So then, let’s go
together.”
“Do you also have a child? What’s he called?”
“Scab.”
“My child’s called Scab. Yours is Scab. My husband’s Chain. Yours is Chain. I’m going to Woelpe. You’re going to Woelpe. So then, let’s go together.”
“Do you also have a cradle? What’s your cradle called?”
“Hippodeige.”
“My cradle’s called Hippodeige. Yours is Hippodeige. My child’s Scab. Yours is Scab. My husband’s Chain. Yours is Chain. You’re going to Woelpe. I’m going to Woelpe. So then, let’s go together.”
“Do you also have a servant? What’s your servant called?”
“Do-It-Right.”
“My servant’s Do-It-Right. Your servant’s Do-It-Right. My cradle’s Hippodeige, yours is Hippodeige. My child’s Scab, yours is Scab. My husband’s Chain, your husband’s Chain. I’m going to Woelpe, you’re going to Woelpe. So then, let’s go together.”
55
LITTLE LAMB AND LITTLE FISH
Once upon a time there was a little brother and a little sister who loved each other with all their hearts. However, their real mother was dead, and they had a stepmother who wasn’t good to them and secretly did all she could to hurt them. It happened that one day the two of them were playing with other children in a meadow in front of the house, and in the meadow was a pond that bordered on one side of the house. The children ran around it, caught each other, and played a counting-out game:
“Eenie, meenie, let me live,
my little bird to you I’ll give.
The bird will pick up straw for me.
The straw I’ll give the cow to eat.
The cow will make me lots of milk.
I’ll give the baker all the milk,
who’ll bake my cat a cake so nice,
and then the cat will catch some mice.
The mice I’ll hang and let them smoke
before I take one big slice!”