The Grimm Reader

by Maria Tatar

  Before long a suitor turned up who seemed to be rich, and since the miller could find nothing wrong with him, he promised him his daughter. But the girl didn’t care for him in the way that a girl should care for her betrothed, and she did not trust him at all. Whenever she set eyes on him or when her thoughts turned to him, she was filled with dread.

  One day he said to her: “You’re engaged to me, and yet you’ve never once visited me.”

  The girl replied: “I don’t even know where you live.”

  The bridegroom told her: “My house lies deep in the forest.”

  The girl made all kinds of excuses and claimed that she would not be able to find the way there. But the bridegroom said: “Next Sunday you have to come over to my place. I’ve already invited the guests, and I’ll strew ashes on the path so that you can find your way through the woods.”

  When Sunday arrived and the girl was supposed to leave, she became dreadfully frightened, without knowing exactly why, and she filled both her pockets with peas and lentils to mark the way. She entered the woods, where she found the trail of ashes, and she followed it carefully, but every step of the way she threw some peas on the ground, first to the right, then to left. She walked almost all day long until she got to the middle of the forest, where it was really gloomy. There she saw a house standing all by itself, and she didn’t like the look of it because it seemed dark and spooky. She walked in. It was deadly silent. There was not a soul in sight. Suddenly, a voice cried out:

  “Turn back, turn back, my pretty young bride,

  In a house of murderers you’ve arrived.”

  The girl looked up and realized that the voice was coming from a birdcage hanging on the wall. Once again, she heard:

  “Turn back, turn back, my pretty young bride,

  In a house of murderers you’ve arrived.”

  The beautiful girl walked all around the house, going from one room to the next, but it was completely empty. No one was there. Finally, she went down to the cellar, where she found a woman, as old as the hills, her head bobbing up and down.

  “Can you tell me if my betrothed lives here?” the girl asked.

  “Oh, you poor child!” said the old woman. “How did you get here? This is a den of murderers. You think you’re a bride about to be married, but the only wedding you’ll celebrate is a wedding with death. Look over here! I had to heat up this big pot of water for them. When you get into their hands, they’ll show no mercy and will chop you into pieces, cook you, and eat you, for they’re cannibals. You’re lost unless I take pity on you and try to save you.”

  The old woman hid her behind a big barrel, where no one could see her. “Be still as a mouse,” she said. “Don’t you dare move, or that’ll be the end of you. At night, when the robbers are asleep, we’ll escape. I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment.”

  No sooner had she spoken those words than the wicked crew returned home, dragging another girl behind them. The men were drunk, and they felt no pity when they heard her screams and sobs. They forced her to drink some wine, three glasses full, one white, one red, one yellow, and before long her heart burst in two. The robbers tore off her fine clothes, put her on the table, chopped her beautiful body into pieces, and sprinkled them with salt.

  The poor girl was trembling with fear in her hiding place behind the barrel, for she now understood what the robbers had in store for her. One of them caught sight of a golden ring on the little finger of the murdered girl, and when he couldn’t pull it off right away, he took an ax and chopped the finger off. The finger went flying through the air up over the barrel and landed right in the girl’s lap. The robber took a candle and wanted to search for it, but he couldn’t find it. One of the other robbers asked: “Have you looked over there behind that big barrel?” Just then the old woman called out: “Come and eat! You can search again tomorrow. That finger isn’t going to run away.”

  “The old woman’s right,” the robbers said, and they stopped searching and sat down to eat. The old woman put a few drops of a sleeping potion into their wine. Before long, they had retired to the cellar and were snoring away in their sleep.

  When the bride heard the snoring noises, she came out from behind the barrel and crawled over the sleeping bodies arranged on the ground in rows. She was terrified that she might wake one of them up, but God guided her footsteps. The old woman went up the stairs with her, opened the door, and they ran as fast as they could from the den of murderers. The wind had scattered the ashes, but the peas and lentils had sprouted and showed the way in the moonlight. The two walked all night long. In the morning they reached the mill, and the girl told her father about everything that had happened.

  When the day of the wedding celebration arrived, the groom appeared, as did all the friends and relatives invited by the miller. At dinner, every one there was asked to tell a story. The bride sat quietly and didn’t utter a word. Finally the bridegroom said to his bride: “Don’t you have anything to say, my love? You have to tell us something.”

  “Very well,” she replied. “I will tell you about a dream I had. I was walking alone through the woods and came across a house. No one was living there, but on the wall there was a cage, and in it was a bird that sang:

  ‘Turn back, turn back, my pretty young bride,

  In a house of murderers you’ve arrived.’

  Then it repeated those words. My dear, I must have been dreaming all this. I walked from one room to the next, and each one was completely empty. Everything was so spooky. Finally I went down to the cellar, and there I saw a woman as old as the hills, her head bobbing up and down. I asked her: ‘Does my betrothed live here?’ She replied: ‘Oh, you poor child, you’ve stumbled into a den of murderers. Your betrothed lives here, but he is planning to chop you up and kill you, and then he’ll cook you and eat you up.’ My dear, I must have been dreaming all this. The old woman hid me behind a big barrel, and no sooner was I out of sight than the robbers returned home, dragging a maiden behind them. They gave her three kinds of wine to drink, white, red, and yellow, and her heart burst in two. My dear, I must have been dreaming all this. Then they tore off her fine clothes, chopped her beautiful body into pieces, and sprinkled them with salt. My dear, I must have been dreaming all this. One of the robbers caught sight of a gold ring on her finger and since it was hard to pull off, he took an ax and chopped it off. The finger flew through the air up behind the big barrel and landed in my lap. And here is the finger with the ring still on it.”

  With these words, she pulled it out and showed it to everyone there.

  The robber turned white as a ghost while she was telling the story. He jumped up and tried to escape, but the guests seized him and turned him over to the law. He and his band were executed for their dreadful deeds.

  GODFATHER DEATH

  here once lived a poor man who had twelve children and who had to work day and night just to feed them. When a thirteenth was born, the man was so desperate that he didn’t know where to turn. Finally he ran out to the main road leading into town and decided to ask the first person he met to stand godfather. That first person turned out to be the good Lord, and he already knew what was on the man’s mind. “You poor soul,” he said, “I feel sorry for you. I’ll hold your child at the christening, and you can be sure that I’ll take care of it and make certain it finds happiness on earth.”

  The man asked: “Tell me who you are.”

  “I’m your dear Lord.”

  “Then I don’t want you as the godfather, for you give to the rich and let the poor go hungry.” The man said that because he did not know how wisely God distributes wealth and poverty. And so he turned away from the Lord and kept on going. Then the devil came up to him and said: “What are you looking for? If you make me your child’s godfather, I’ll give him a heap of gold and all the pleasures found in the world to go with it.”

&nbs
p; The man asked: “Tell me who you are.”

  “I’m the devil.”

  “Then I don’t want you as the godfather,” the man said. “You deceive people and lead them astray.” When they had parted ways, the bony-legged figure of Death came marching up to him and said: “Let me be the godfather.”

  The man asked him: “Tell me who you are.”

  “I’m Death, and I make sure that everyone is equal.”

  The man replied: “You’re the right man for me. For you there’s no difference between the rich and the poor. I’m going to ask you to be my child’s godfather.”

  “I’m going to make your child rich and famous, for the man who has me as his friend will never lack for anything.”

  The man said: “The christening is next Sunday. Make sure you’re there on time.”

  Death was there as he had promised, and he made a very proper appearance.

  The boy was nearly grown up when his godfather showed up one day and told him to accompany him on a walk. He took him out into the woods, showed him an herb that was growing there, and said: “It’s time for me to give you your christening present. I’m going to see to it that you become a famous physician. If you are called to the bedside of someone who is ill, I’m going to be right there. If I’m standing by the patient’s head, you can speak right up and declare that you are able to cure him. And if you give him some of this herb, he will recover. But if I’m standing by the feet of the person who is ill, then the patient belongs to me, and you will have to declare that all efforts are in vain and that there is no doctor in the world who can save him. Just be careful that you never use this herb against my will, or you might find yourself in deep trouble.”

  Before long, the young man had become the most famous physician in the world. People would say about him: “All he has to do is look at a patient and he knows just how things stand, whether the person will recover or get worse and die.” They would come from far and wide to seek his help with those who were ill. They gave him so much money that, before long, he was a rich man.

  One day it happened that the king of the land became ill. The physician was summoned and asked to determine whether the king had any chance of recovering. But when he arrived at the royal bedside, he saw that Death was already standing by the king’s feet and that no herb on earth could save him. “If I could just cheat Death this once,” the physician started thinking. “Of course he’ll be annoyed with me, but after all, I am his godson, and he might be willing to close one eye. I think I’ll take a chance.” He took hold of the patient and turned him around so that Death was standing by the king’s head. Then he administered some of the herb, and the king recovered. But Death strode over to the physician, gave him a dark and sinister look, shook his finger at him, and said: “You’ve put one over on me. Since you’re my godson, I’m going to let you get away with it this one time. But if you try it one more time, you’ll be risking your own neck. Believe me, I’ll take care of you myself.”

  Not much later, the king’s daughter fell gravely ill. She was an only child, and the king wept night and day until his eyes clouded over. He proclaimed throughout the land that if anyone could save her from death, that man would become her husband and inherit the crown. When the physician went to her bedside, he discovered that Death was sitting at her feet. He should have remembered his godfather’s warning, but he was so bedazzled by the great beauty of the princess and by the joyous prospect of becoming her husband that he threw all caution to the winds. He didn’t even notice that Death was casting angry glances in his direction and that he had raised his hand to threaten him with his bony fist. He just lifted the patient up and put her head where her feet had been. Then he gave her some of the herb, and before long her cheeks became flushed, and she started coming back to life.

  When Death realized that he had been cheated out of his claim a second time, he strode up to the physician and said: “Now you’ve had it, and it’s your turn to die.” And he gripped him so firmly with his ice-cold hand that resistance was impossible. Death took him into an underground cavern, where there were thousands and thousands of lights burning in endless rows. Some were large, others medium-sized, and still others quite small. At any moment some went out, and others flared up, so that the little flames were always changing as they popped up and down.

  “Here you can see the candles that are the lights of human lives. The large ones belong to children, the medium-sized ones to couples in their prime, the little ones to the aged. But sometimes even children and young people only have small candles.”

  “Show me my candle,” the physician said, and he was certain that his candle would be quite large. Death pointed to a tiny wick that was just about to go out.

  “My dearest godfather, light a new one for me. Please do that so that I can have some pleasure in life by becoming king and marrying the beautiful princess.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t,” Death said to him. “I would have to put one out before a new candle is lit.”

  “Then put the old one on top of a new one that will begin burning as soon as the old one goes out.” Death pretended to do what he had asked and reached for a big new candle. But while he was getting the new one, he deliberately had an accident because he wanted his revenge. The tiny wick collapsed and went out. Just then, the physician fell down to the ground, and then, at last, he was in the hands of Death.

  FITCHER’S BIRD

  nce upon a time there was a wizard who used to disguise himself as a poor man and go begging from door to door in order to capture pretty girls. No one had any idea what he did with them, for they would disappear without a trace.

  One day the wizard appeared at the door of a man with three beautiful daughters. He looked like a poor, weak beggar and had a basket strapped to his back, as if he were collecting alms. When he asked for something to eat, the eldest girl came to the door to give him a crust of bread, and all he did was touch her, and she had to jump right into his basket. Then he made long legs and hurried away to bring her back to his house, which was in the middle of a dark forest.

  Everything in the house was splendid. The wizard gave the girl everything she wanted and told her: “Dearest, I’m sure you’ll be happy here with me, for you’ll have whatever your heart desires.” After a few days had gone by, he said: “I have to go on a trip and will leave you alone for a short while. Here are the keys for the house. You can go anywhere you want and look around at anything you want, but don’t go into the room that this little key opens. I forbid it under the punishment of death.”

  He also gave her an egg and said: “Carry it with you wherever you go, because if it gets lost, something terrible will happen.” She took the keys and the egg and promised to do exactly as he had told her. After he left, she went over the house from top to bottom, taking a good look at everything in it. The rooms were filled with glittering silver and gold, and she thought that she had never seen anything so magnificent. When she finally got to the forbidden door, she was about to walk right past it when curiosity got the better of her. She inspected the key and found that it looked just like the others. Putting it into the lock, she turned it just a little bit and the door shot open.

  Imagine what she saw when she entered! In the middle of the room there was a big basin full of blood, and in it there were chopped-up pieces of dead bodies. Next to the basin was a block of wood with a gleaming ax on it. She was so horrified that she dropped the egg she was holding into the basin. Even though she took it right out and wiped off the blood, it didn’t help. The stain came right back. She wiped and scraped, but it just wouldn’t come off.

  It wasn’t long before the man returned from his journey, and the first things he asked for were the key and the egg. She gave them to him, but she was trembling, and when he saw the red stain, he knew that she had been in the bloody chamber. “You went into the chamber against my wishes,” he said. “Now you
will go back in against yours. Your life has reached its end.”

  He threw her down, dragged her into the chamber by her hair, chopped her head off on the block, and hacked her into pieces so that her blood ran down all over the floor. Then he tossed her into the basin with the others.

  “Now I’ll go and get the second one,” said the wizard, and he went back to the house dressed as a poor man begging for charity. When the second daughter brought him a crust of bread, he caught her as he had the first just by touching her. He carried her off, and she fared no better than her sister. Her curiosity got the better of her: she opened the door to the bloody chamber, looked inside, and when the wizard came back she had to pay with her life.

  The man went to go get the third daughter, but she was clever and sly. After handing over the keys and the egg, he went away, and she put the egg in a safe place. She explored the house and entered the forbidden chamber. And what did she see! There in the basin were both her sisters, foully murdered and chopped into pieces. But she set to work gathering all the body parts and put them back where they belonged: heads, torsos, arms, and legs. When everything was in place, the pieces began to move and to knit back together. Both girls opened their eyes and came back to life. Overjoyed, they kissed and hugged.

  On his return home, the man asked right away about the keys and egg. When he was unable to find a trace of blood on the egg, he declared: “You have passed the test, and you shall be my bride.” He no longer had any power over her and had to do her bidding. “Very well,” she replied. “But first you must take a basketful of gold to my father and mother, and you must carry it on your back. In the meantime, I’ll make the plans for the wedding.”

  She ran to her sisters, whom she had hidden in a little room, and said: “Now is the time when I can save you. That brute will be the one who carries you home. But as soon as you get back there, send help for me.”