Tales from the Brothers Grimm: Selected and Illustrated by Lisbeth Zwerger

by Brothers Grimm; Zwerger, Lisbeth

  The girl went on and on, a long, long way, all the way to the end of the world. Then she came to the Sun, but the Sun was hot and fierce and ate children. The girl hurried away and went to the Moon, but the Moon was cold and cruel and evil, and said, on seeing the child, “I smell human flesh.” Then she went away in a hurry, and came to the Stars, who were kind to her. They were all of them sitting on their own little chairs, but the Morning Star stood up, gave the girl a chicken bone and said, “Your brothers are in the glass mountain, and you will need this chicken bone to unlock it.”

  The girl took the little bone, wrapped it up well in a piece of cloth, and went on her way until she came to the glass mountain. The gate was locked, and she was going to take out the chicken bone, but when she undid the piece of cloth it was empty. She had lost her present from the kindly Stars. What was she to do now? She wanted to save her brothers, but she had no chicken bone to let her into the glass mountain. So the good little sister took a knife, cut off one of her little fingers, put it in the keyhole, and the gate opened easily.

  When she had gone through the gateway, a little dwarf came to meet her, saying, “What are you looking for, my child?”

  “I’m looking for my brothers the seven ravens,” she replied.

  “My masters the ravens are not at home,” said the dwarf, “but if you would like to wait for them, come in.”

  Then the dwarf brought in the meal he had prepared for the ravens, served it out on seven little plates, poured their drink into seven little goblets, and their sister ate a morsel from every plate and drank a sip from every goblet, but she dropped the ring she had brought from home into the last little goblet.

  Suddenly she heard a whirring and a rushing in the air, and the dwarf said, “Here come my masters the ravens flying home.” They came in, went to the table to eat and drink, and looked at their little plates and their little goblets. And they said, one after another, “Who’s been eating from my plate? Who’s been drinking from my goblet? Some human mouth has been here!”

  But when the seventh came to the bottom of his goblet, the ring rolled towards him, and he recognized it as a ring that had belonged to his father and mother. “If only our little sister were here, then God willing, the spell on us would be broken.”

  The girl was hiding behind the door and listening. On hearing that, she came forward, and all the ravens returned to human form. They and their sister hugged and kissed one another, and they went happily home.

  LITTLE RED CAP

  Once upon a time there was a dear little girl, and everyone who set eyes on her loved her, but her grandmother loved her most of all, and never tired of giving her presents. Once she gave her granddaughter a little red velvet cap, and because it suited the girl so well, and she wore it all the time, she was known as Little Red Cap.

  One day her mother said to her, “Now, Little Red Cap, here’s a piece of cake and a bottle of wine. Take them to your grandmother. She’s sick and weak and the cake and wine will do her good. You had better set out before the day is too hot, and when you are away from here follow the path like a good girl, or you might fall and break the glass bottle, and there would be none of the wine left for your grandmother. And when you reach her house, don’t forget to say good morning, and don’t go poking about in every corner!”

  “I’ll do everything just as you say,” Little Red Cap told her mother, giving her hand to show she meant it. Her grandmother, however, lived out in the forest, half an hour’s walk from the village, and when Little Red Cap entered the forest the wolf came to meet her. However, she didn’t know what a wicked animal he was, so she was not afraid of him.

  “Good day, Little Red Cap!” said the wolf.

  “Thank you, wolf, and good day to you!” she replied.

  “Where are you going so early in the morning, Little Red Cap?”

  “To see my grandmother.”

  “And what’s that you are carrying under your apron?”

  “Cake and wine. It was baking day yesterday, and I’m taking my poor sick grandmother something to do her good and give her new strength.”

  “So where does your grandmother live, Little Red Cap?”

  “Another quarter of an hour’s walk into the forest from here. Her house stands under the three big oak trees with hazel-nut hedges outside it, I’m sure you know the place,” said Little Red Cap.

  The wolf thought to himself: this tender young thing will make me a good meal; she’ll taste even better than the old lady. I must go about this cunningly if I’m to snap them both up. So he went along beside the little girl for a while, and then he said, “Look at those pretty flowers growing all around, Little Red Cap. Why don’t you look over there? I don’t think you even hear the little birds singing so sweetly. You just walk straight ahead as if you were on your way to school, yet it’s such fun out in the forest.”

  Little Red Cap opened her eyes wide, and when she saw the sunbeams dancing back and forth as they shone through the trees, and all the lovely flowers growing in the forest, she thought: if I take Grandmother a bunch of fresh flowers she’d like that, too. And it’s so early in the day that I shall still arrive in good time. So she left the path through the forest and went looking for flowers. Whenever she picked one, she thought she saw an even prettier one further away, and she went to pick it and so strayed further and further into the forest. But as for the wolf, he went straight to Grandmother’s house and knocked on the door.

  “Who’s that outside?” called the old lady.

  “It’s me, Little Red Cap, bringing you some cake and wine. Open the door!”

  “Just push the latch down,” Grandmother replied. “I’m too weak to get up.” The wolf pushed the latch down, the door opened, and without a word he went straight to Grandmother’s bed and swallowed her all up. Then he put on her clothes, set her cap on his head, lay down in her bed and drew the curtains round it.

  Meanwhile Little Red Cap had been running about picking flowers, and when she had so many that she could hardly carry them she remembered her grandmother, and set off for her house. She was surprised to find the door open, and when she went into Grandmother’s room it felt so strange that she said to herself: oh, my goodness, how frightened I feel today, and yet I usually love going to see Grandmother!

  “Good morning,” she called, but there was no answer. So she went up to the bed and pulled back the curtains. There lay Grandmother with her cap far down over her face, looking so strange.

  “Oh, Grandmother, what big ears you have!” “All the better to hear you with!”

  “Oh, Grandmother, what big eyes you have!” “All the better to see you with!”

  “Oh, Grandmother, what big hands you have!” “All the better to grab you with!”

  “But oh, Grandmother, what a terribly big muzzle you have!”

  “All the better to eat you with!” And as soon as the wolf had said those words he jumped out of bed and swallowed poor Little Red Cap all up.

  When the wolf had satisfied his appetite, he lay down in bed again, fell asleep and began snoring loudly. The huntsman happened to be passing the house, and he thought: how the old lady is snoring! I’d better go and see if there’s anything wrong with her. So he went into the room, and when he was standing beside the bed he saw the wolf in it. “Oho, you old sinner, is this where I find you?” said he. “I’ve been after you for a long time.”

  And he was about to aim his gun when it occurred to him that the wolf might have swallowed Grandmother whole, and she could still be saved. So he didn’t fire a shot, but took a pair of scissors and began slitting the sleeping wolf’s belly open. After he had made a few cuts he saw the little bright red cap, and after a few more the little girl jumped out, crying, “Oh, how scared I was! It was so dark inside the wolf.” Then out came her old grandmother as well, still alive but very breathless. Little Red Cap hurried off to fetch some large stones, and they filled the wolf’s body with the stones. When he woke up he tried to run away, but the stones
were so heavy that he sank under their weight and fell down dead.

  They were all three very happy. The huntsman skinned the wolf and took the wolf skin home with him; Grandmother ate the cake and drank the wine that Little Red Cap had brought and soon felt better; and as for Little Red Cap, she thought to herself: I’ll never in my life stray off the path and go into the forest when my mother has told me not to.

  And there is another story about Little Red Cap. It says that once, when she was taking some cakes to her old grandmother again, another wolf spoke to her and tried to tempt her to leave the path. But Little Red Cap was careful to do no such thing. She went on her way, and told her grandmother how she had met a wolf who wished her good day, but gave her such a nasty look that, she said, “If it hadn’t happened in the middle of the road I’m sure he’d have eaten me up.”

  “Come along,” said Grandmother. “We’ll close the door so that he can’t get in.”

  Soon the wolf came along, knocked on the door and called, “Open the door, Grandmother. Here I am, Little Red Cap, bringing you some cakes.”

  But they kept quiet and didn’t open the door. The grey wolf prowled round the house several times, and at last he jumped up on the roof, planning to wait until Little Red Cap went home in the evening. Then he was going to follow her and eat her under cover of darkness.

  However, Grandmother guessed what he had in mind. There was a big stone trough outside the house, and she said to the little girl, “Take the bucket, Little Red Cap. I boiled some sausages yesterday, so pour the water they were cooked in out into the trough!” Little Red Cap carried out sausage water until the big, big trough was full. The smell of sausages rose to the wolf’s nose. He sniffed, he peered down, and at last he craned his neck so far that he lost his footing and began sliding. So he slid right off the roof, straight into the big trough, and he drowned there. But Little Red Cap went happily home, and after that no one did anything to hurt her.

  THE BREMEN TOWN MUSICIANS

  Once upon a time a man owned a donkey who had carried sacks to the mill patiently for many long years. However, the donkey’s strength was failing now, and he could do less and less work, so his master was thinking of getting rid of him.

  Guessing what was in the air, the donkey ran away and set out for Bremen, where he thought he could join the town band as a musician.

  When he had been trotting along for a while he met a dog lying in the road, breathing heavily as if he had been running and was quite worn out. “Why are you panting like that, Grabber?” asked the donkey.

  “Oh,” said the dog, “it’s because I’m old, and getting weaker every day. I’m no use for hunting now, and my master was going to kill me. I ran away, but how am I going to earn my living?”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said the donkey, “I’m off to Bremen to be a town musician. Why don’t you come with me and join the band too? I’ll play the lute, and you can beat the drums.”

  The dog thought that sounded like a good idea, so they went along together.

  It wasn’t long before they saw a cat sitting by the roadside, looking as miserable as three days of rainy weather. “So what’s the matter with you, old Whiskers?” asked the donkey.

  “When people are after your life it’s no laughing matter,” said the cat. “I’m growing old, my teeth aren’t as sharp as they were, and I’d rather sit by the stove and purr than hunt mice, so my mistress tried to drown me. I ran away, but now I don’t know what to do. Where am I to go?”

  “Join us and come to Bremen,” said the donkey. “You’re used to singing serenades, so you can be a town musician when we get there.”

  The cat liked that idea, and he went along with them. On the road the three runaways passed a farm where a cockerel was sitting on the gate, crowing for all he was worth.

  “Your crowing is fit to wake the dead,” said the donkey.

  “Why is that?”

  “I was foretelling good weather,” said the cockerel, “but tomorrow is Sunday, and because some guests are coming to dinner the farmer’s cruel wife has told the cook to make chicken broth of me. I’m to have my head cut off this evening, and I’m crowing my heart out while I still can.”

  “I tell you what, Redcrest,” said the donkey, “why not come with us instead? We’re on our way to Bremen, and you’re bound to find something better than death there. You have a fine voice, and if we all make music together we’re sure to get by.”

  But the town of Bremen was too far off for them to reach it in a day, and when they came to a forest that evening they decided to spend the night there. The donkey and the dog settled down under a large tree, the cat and the cockerel climbed up into the branches, and the cockerel flew to the very top of the tree, the safest place for him. Before going to sleep he looked all around him again, and he thought he saw a tiny spark in the distance. He called down to tell his friends that there must be a house not far off, because he could see a light shining.

  “Then let’s go and find that house,” said the donkey. “It’s not very comfortable out here.” And the dog thought that if he could find a couple of bones with a little meat left on them it would do him good. So they set off for the place where the cockerel had seen the spark, and soon the light was shining more clearly. It grew brighter and brighter until they came to a robbers’ house, all lit up inside. The donkey, who was the largest of them, went up to the house and peered through the window.

  “What do you see, Greycoat?” asked the cockerel.

  “Oh, my word!” said the donkey. “I see a table laid with delicious things to eat and drink, and robbers sitting there feasting and making merry.”

  “We could do with some of that feast ourselves,” said the cockerel.

  “Hee-haw, oh yes, how I wish we were in there!” said the donkey.

  Then the animals tried to think of a way to chase the robbers out of the house, and in the end they thought of a plan. The donkey propped his front legs on the windowsill, the dog jumped on the donkey’s back, the cat climbed up on the dog, and finally the cockerel flew up in the air and perched on the cat’s head. When they were ready, a signal was given and everyone began making music:

  The donkey brayed, the dog barked, the cat meowed, and the cockerel crowed. Then they jumped into the room through the window, and the glass broke as it crashed to the floor. The robbers leaped up when they heard that terrible loud noise, thinking it was a ghost coming in, and they ran away into the forest, scared out of their wits.

  So the four friends sat down at the table, helped themselves to all that was left of the feast, and ate as if they might go hungry for the next four weeks.

  When the four musicians had finished they put out the light and went to find places to sleep, each looking for somewhere comfortable that suited him. The donkey lay down on the rubbish heap, the dog lay behind the door, the cat settled on the stove among the warm ashes, and the cockerel perched on the top rafter of the roof. As they were very tired after their long journey, they soon fell asleep.

  After midnight, when the robbers out in the forest saw that there was no light in the house any more, and all seemed quiet, the robber captain said, “We were fools to run away in such a fright.” So he told one of his men to go back and search the house. The man he had sent found nothing stirring, and went into the kitchen for a light. He thought that the cat’s fiery eyes, glowing in the dark, were live coals, and he held a match to them to set them burning.

  But the cat didn’t care for that and leaped at his face, spitting and scratching. Terrified, the robber tried to escape through the back door, but the dog lying there jumped up and bit his leg. As he was crossing the yard and running past the rubbish heap, the donkey gave him a powerful kick with his back leg, and as for the cockerel, roused by all this noise and wide awake, he called down from the rafter, “Cock-a-doodle-do!”

  The robber ran back to his captain as fast as he could go, shouting, “There’s a horrible witch in the house who hissed at me and scratched my f
ace with her long fingernails. And a man with a knife at the door stabbed me in the leg, and a big black monster lying in the yard hit me with a wooden cudgel, and up on the roof sits the judge shouting,

  ‘Bring the villain into court!’ So I ran for it and made my getaway.”

  After that the robbers dared not go back to their house.

  As for the four Bremen town musicians, they liked it so much that they never left again.

  And the last man to tell this tale isn’t dead yet.

  BRIAR ROSE

  Long ago there lived a king and a queen who said to each other every day, “Oh, if only we had a child!” But still they had no children. Then it so happened that one day, when the queen was bathing, a frog crawled up on land out of the water and told her, “Your wish will be granted. Before a year is up you will bring a daughter into the world.”

  What the frog had said came true, and the queen had a little girl who was so beautiful that the king could hardly contain his delight, and he arranged a great banquet. He invited not only his relations, friends and acquaintances but also the wise women of the country, so that they would look kindly on the baby. There were thirteen wise women in his kingdom, but he had only twelve gold plates for them to eat from, so one of them would have to stay at home.

  The feast was celebrated with great magnificence, and when it was over the wise women presented the child with their wonderful gifts: one gave her virtue, the second beauty, the third wealth, and so on, giving her everything that anyone can hope for in this world. When eleven of them had made their wishes for her, the thirteenth suddenly came in. She wanted to get her revenge for not being invited, and without a civil greeting or even a glance for anyone, she cried in a loud voice: “In her fifteenth year the king’s daughter will prick her finger on a spindle and fall down dead.” And without another word, she turned and left the hall.

  All the guests were shocked. Then the twelfth wise woman, who had not yet made her wish, stepped forward, and since she could not break the wicked spell but only make it milder she said, “The king’s daughter will fall down not dead, but into a deep sleep lasting a hundred years.”