by Jacob Grimm
As it happened, soon after this the girls’ mother sent them both into town to buy thread, needles, laces and ribbons. Their way lay across moorland, where mighty rocks lay scattered here and there. They saw a large bird hovering in the sky, slowly circling above them and coming down lower and lower. Next moment they heard a piercing, pitiful scream. They ran up, and saw to their horror that an eagle had caught their old acquaintance the dwarf in its talons and was about to carry him away. The kind sisters held the dwarf firmly, and pulled against the eagle until it dropped its prey. When the dwarf had recovered from the first shock, he said, “Couldn’t you have been less rough with me? You’ve torn my thin little jacket, leaving it ragged and full of holes, clumsy, awkward creatures that you are!” Then he picked up a sack full of jewels, and slipped into his cave beneath the rocks again.
The girls were used to his ingratitude by now. They went on their way and did their mother’s errands in town. As they came to the moor again on their way home, they took the dwarf by surprise tipping the jewels out of his sack on a clear patch of ground, and never thinking that anyone would come along so late. The evening sun lit up the gleaming gemstones, and they shimmered and shone so beautifully in all colours of the rainbow that the girls stood still and gazed at them.
“Why are you standing there gaping like fools?” screamed the dwarf, and his grey face turned crimson with fury. He would have gone on shouting angrily at the girls, but a loud growling was heard, and a black bear came out of the nearby forest. The terrified dwarf jumped up, but he couldn’t reach his cave because the bear was already close. He cried out in mortal fear, “Good Master Bear, spare me, and I will give you all my treasures—look, see these beautiful jewels! Spare my life. What good would a skinny little thing like me be to you? I’d be no more than a mouthful for you. Look at those two wicked girls, fat as quails, the pair of them. You’d find them nice, tasty morsels. Eat them, in God’s name, not me.”
The bear took no notice of what he said, but struck the malicious creature a single blow with his paw, and the dwarf never moved again.
The girls were running away, but the bear called after them, “Snow-White, Rose-Red, don’t be afraid. Wait for me, and I’ll come with you.” Then they recognized his voice, and stopped, and when the bear caught up with them his bearskin suddenly fell away, and there he stood, a handsome man dressed all in gold. “I am a King’s son,” he said, “and the wicked dwarf stole all my treasures and cast a magic spell on me. I was to roam this forest in the shape of a wild bear until his death broke the spell. Now he has the punishment he well deserves.”
So Snow-White was married to him, and Rose-Red to his brother, and they shared the treasures that the dwarf had heaped up in his cave. The girls’ old mother lived happily for many years with her children. But she took the two rose bushes with her, and they stood outside her window, bearing the most beautiful red and white roses year after year.
Also available from Pushkin Press
THE NUTCRACKER
E T A Hoffmann
Translated by Anthea Bell
ISBN 978-1-901285-50-5
E T A Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King is familiar to many, having served as the inspiration for Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet. This edition of the complete German classic, in a new translation by the eminent translator Anthea Bell, displays the full range of the author’s quirky power of invention. It is published here alongside another lesserknown tale The Strange Child, in which a young brother and sister meet an unusual playmate in the woods and have to deal with a sinister new schoolmaster.
Deliciously dark, endlessly imaginative and funny, Hoffmann’s stories still enthrall children and adults alike to this day.
Copyright
English Translation © Anthea Bell 2011
This edition first published in 2011 by
Pushkin Press
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London NW1 4ND
ISBN 978 1 906548 96 4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Pushkin Press
Cover Illustration The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke Richard Dadd
© Tate London 2011
Frontispiece Brothers Grimm
Set in 10.5 on 13.5 Monotype Baskerville
by Tetragon
and printed in Great Britain on Munken Premium White 90 gsm
by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
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