THE ELVES
First Story
There was once a shoemaker who had become so poor (through no fault of his own) that he had hardly any leather left – only enough to make one pair of shoes, in fact. He cut them out in the evening, intending to start work on them in the morning, and then went to bed. He had a clear conscience, so he said his prayers and then slept peacefully.
Next morning he woke up, had a bite of dry bread, and sat down at his bench, only to find the shoes completed already. He was astonished. He picked them up and looked at them closely from all angles. Every stitch was neat and tight; nothing was out of place. He couldn’t have done better himself.
A customer soon came in, looking for shoes of just that size, and liked them so much he bought them at once for a good price.
That gave the shoemaker enough money to buy leather for two pairs of shoes. So he did that, and as before he cut them out in the evening, meaning to carry on in the morning in good heart. But he had no need to: when he got up, the shoes were already made, just as before, stitched as if by a master craftsman. He soon found customers for them, and that left him enough profit to buy leather for four pairs; and next morning they were finished, and he sold them, and so it went on. Each evening he cut the shoes out, next morning they were finished, so that pretty soon he was making a good income, and not much later he was a wealthy man.
One evening not long before Christmas, he cut out a number of shoes as usual, and then said to his wife just as they were going to bed: ‘Why don’t we stay up a bit tonight and see if we can find out who’s been helping us?’
His wife thought that was a good idea, and they lit the lamp and hid behind a rail of clothes hanging up in the corner of the workroom.
At midnight two little naked men squeezed in under the door and jumped up to the workbench, where they set to work at once, sewing together the cut-out shoes at a speed the shoemaker could hardly believe. They worked until they’d finished every one, and then they put the shoes on the bench and went out under the door.
In the morning the shoemaker’s wife said, ‘I think we should do something in return for those two little men. After all, they’ve made us rich, and there they are, running about in the cold with nothing on. I’m going to sew them some shirts and jackets, and some underwear and some trousers, and knit a pair of stockings for each of them as well. And you can make them each a little pair of shoes.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ said the shoemaker, and they set to work.
That evening they set the clothes out on the bench instead of the cut-out shoes, and hid again to see what the little men would do. At midnight they came in and leaped up to the bench as before, intending to start work, and then they stopped, looking at the clothes and scratching their heads in puzzlement. Then they realized what they were for, and jumped for joy, put them on at once, and preened themselves, singing:
‘We’re finer than we were before –
We shan’t be cobblers any more!’
They leaped about like a pair of kittens, on the chairs, the bench, the hearth, the windowsill, and finally they darted under the door and were gone.
They never came back, but the shoemaker prospered. All his work went well from then on, and he and his wife lived happy and wealthy till the end of their days.
Second Story
Once there was a poor servant girl who always worked hard and was diligent and neat in all she did. Every day she would sweep out the house and pile the rubbish outside the back door.
One morning, just as she was about to start work, she saw a letter in among the rubbish. Since she couldn’t read, she stood her broom in the corner and took the letter to her mistress. It turned out to be an invitation from the elves, inviting the girl to stand as godmother at the forthcoming baptism of an elf-child.
‘I don’t know what to do, ma’am!’ she said.
‘No, it’s difficult, Gretchen,’ said her mistress. ‘But I’ve heard that it’s not right to turn down an invitation from the elves. I think you should accept.’
‘Well, if you say so, ma’am,’ said Gretchen.
The mistress helped her write a letter accepting the invitation. She left it where she’d found the other one, and when her back was turned, it vanished; and shortly afterwards three elves turned up and led her to a hollow mountain. She had to bend her head a little to go in, but once she was inside she was amazed at the beauty of everything she saw, which was delicate and precious beyond description.
The new mother was lying on a bed of the blackest ebony inset with pearly shells. The counterpane was embroidered with gold thread, the cradle was of ivory, and the little bathtub of solid gold. The baby was no bigger than her little fingernail.
The girl stood in as godmother, and then she asked to go back home, because she was needed to work the next day; but the elves pleaded with her to stay with them, just for three days. They were so persuasive and so friendly that she gave in, and had a fine time; they did everything they could to make her happy.
When three days had gone by she told them that she really must return home. They filled her pockets with gold and led her outside. She set off homewards, and reached the house late in the morning, finding her broom still in the corner where she’d left it. She picked it up and started sweeping as usual, but was astonished when some strangers came out of the house and asked her what she was doing. It turned out that her old employer had died, and she hadn’t spent three days in the mountain, as she’d thought, but seven years.
Third Story
A mother had her baby stolen from his cradle by the elves, and in his place they laid a changeling, a little monster with a great thick head and staring eyes who did nothing but eat and drink.
In distress she went to a neighbour and asked her advice. The neighbour told her to take the changeling into the kitchen, lay him on the hearth, and make a fire. Then she should take two eggshells and boil some water in them. That would make the changeling laugh, and as soon as he laughed, it would be all up with him.
The woman did everything just as her neighbour said. And when she put the eggshells on the fire to boil, the blockhead sang out:
‘I’m as old
As the Westerwald,
But I’ve never seen anyone try to boil water in an eggshell!’
And he roared with laughter. As soon as he did that, a crowd of little elves appeared, carrying the rightful child. They set him on the hearth and took the changeling away, and the woman never saw them again.
***
Tale type: First story: ATU 503, ‘The Gifts of the Little People’; second story: ATU 476, ‘Midwife in the Underworld’; third story: AT 504, ‘The Changeling’
Source: all three tales told to the Grimm brothers by Dortchen Wild
Similar stories: Katharine M. Briggs: ‘Food and Fire and Company’, ‘Goblin Combe’, ‘That’s Enough to Go On With’, ‘The Two Humphs’ (Folk Tales of Britain); Italo Calvino: ‘The Two Hunchbacks’ (Italian Folktales)
This is a group of the very few fairy tales in Grimm that actually feature fairies. Whatever we call this sort of supernatural being, elves, fairies or (the usual name for them in Britain) brownies, there are definite points of etiquette to bear in mind when dealing with them. Katharine M. Briggs, the great authority on British folk tales, says, ‘Any offer of reward for its services drove the brownie away; it seemed to be an absolute taboo’ (A Dictionary of Fairies, p. 46). However, that seems to be contradicted by her story ‘That’s Enough to Go On With’, in which the polite children are rewarded and the rude farmer punished. Perhaps you just have to be lucky as well as careful.
The second and third tales here are little more than anecdotes, as we have them, though of course they could be elaborated. The first is the most familiar: some readers might recognize a shadowy resemblance to Beatrix Potter’s The Tailor of Gloucester (1
902).
TWENTY-TWO
THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM
There was once a miller who had a beautiful daughter. When she came of age to be married, he thought he should look out for a suitable husband for her. ‘If anyone respectable comes along,’ he said to himself, ‘I’ll give her to him.’
Word got around, and before long a gentleman appeared to ask about this beautiful daughter. The miller interviewed him, found no fault with him, and promised that he could marry her.
However, the daughter didn’t take to him at all. There was something about him she didn’t trust, and what’s more, whenever she thought about him or heard his name mentioned, she felt her heart contract with horror.
One day the prospective bridegroom said to her, ‘You know, my dear, we’re engaged to be married, but you’ve never paid me a visit. Why not come to my house? After all, it will soon be your own home.’
‘I don’t know where your house is,’ the girl said.
‘It’s out in the forest,’ he told her. ‘A beautiful situation, you’ll see.’
‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to find my way there,’ she said.
‘No, no, you must come on Sunday. I’ve already invited some guests – they’re looking forward to meeting you. I’ll make a trail of ashes, so you can follow it through the trees.’
On Sunday the girl felt an awful foreboding; she’d rather do anything than set off through the woods to the bridegroom’s house. She filled her pockets with peas, to mark the trail in case anything happened. At the edge of the forest she found the trail of ashes, and after every step she threw a couple of peas to left and right. She walked almost the whole day till she came to a part of the forest where the trees grew so thick and high that it was dark underneath them, and there, right in the heart of the woods, she found the bridegroom’s house. It was dark and silent and seemed to be deserted; there was no one inside but a bird in a cage, and he was no comfort either, because all he could sing was:
‘Turn back! Get out! Go home! Take care!
This is a murderer’s house! Beware!’
She looked up at the bird and said, ‘Can’t you tell me any more than that, little bird?’
The bird sang again:
‘Turn back! Get out! Go home! Take care!
This is a murderer’s house! Beware!’
The bride wandered from one room to another, but she didn’t see anyone till she went down to the cellar. There she found a very old woman sitting by the light of a fire, shaking her head.
‘Please can you tell me if my bridegroom lives here?’ said the girl.
‘Oh, you poor child,’ replied the old woman, ‘why ever did you come to this house? It’s a den of murderers. You talk of a bridegroom – the only bridegroom you’ll be marrying is Death. See this big pot of water on the fire? They made me set it there to boil. When they turn up, they’re going to chop you in pieces and throw you in the pot, cook you till you’re tender, and eat you all up. They’re a pack of cannibals. Now I’ve taken pity on you, because you’re a poor innocent thing, and besides, you’ve got a pretty face. Come over here.’
The old woman led her behind a large barrel, where she was out of sight from the rest of the cellar.
‘Stay there and don’t make a sound,’ she said. ‘If they hear you, that’s the end of you. When they’re asleep later on, we’ll escape.’
No sooner had she said this than the band of murderers came home, dragging with them another girl whom they’d captured. She screamed and sobbed, but they were drunk and took no notice of her pleas for mercy. They forced her to drink a glass of red wine, then one of white, and then one of yellow, and the third one was too much for her; her heart burst apart.
Then they tore off her fine clothes and laid her on the table before chopping her in pieces and sprinkling her with salt. The poor bride-to-be behind the barrel trembled in every limb, seeing what fate the murderers had in mind for her.
Then one of them saw a gold ring on the dead girl’s finger. He took an axe and chopped the finger off, but it flew in the air and right over the barrel and into the bride’s lap. He couldn’t see where it had gone, so he took a light and looked for it.
Another murderer said, ‘Look behind the big barrel – I think it went over there.’
But the old woman called out, ‘Come and eat your supper. The finger won’t run away – you can find it in the morning.’
‘She’s right,’ said the others, and they pulled up chairs and sat down to eat. The old woman poured a sleeping-draught in their wine, so that before they’d even finished eating they all slumped to the floor and fell asleep.
When the bride heard them snoring, she crept out from behind the barrel. She had to step over the sleeping murderers where they all lay on the cellar floor. She was terribly afraid she’d step on one and wake him up.
‘Dear God, help me!’ she whispered, and she got to the cellar steps safely, where the old woman was waiting. They crept upstairs, opened the door, and hurried out as fast as they could.
It was as well that the girl had brought peas to throw on the ground, because the ashes that showed the path had all blown away. The peas had sprouted, though, and in the moonlight they could see them, and followed the trail all the way to the mill, where they arrived just as the sun was rising. The girl told her father everything that had happened, from beginning to end, and the old woman confirmed it.
When the wedding day arrived, the bridegroom appeared, smiling all round and being pleasant to everyone. The miller had invited all his relations and all his friends, and they were impressed by this handsome friendly man. As they sat down to eat, each guest was asked to tell a story. The bride said nothing at all as they listened to the stories going round the table, and finally the bridegroom said, ‘Come on, my darling, haven’t you got a story to tell? Just tell us something.’
So she said, ‘All right. I’ll tell you about a dream I had. I was walking in the forest, when I came to a dark house. There wasn’t a soul in sight – there was only a little bird in a cage that said, “Turn back! Get out! Go home! Take care! This is a murderer’s house! Beware!”
‘It said that twice, but my dear heart, it was only a dream. I went through all the rooms, and although there was no one there, something was uncanny about the place. Finally I went down to the cellar, where I found an old woman shaking her head. I said to her, “Does my bridegroom live in this house?”
‘She said, “Alas, poor child, you’re in the house of a murderer. Your bridegroom does live here, but he’s going to chop you into pieces and cook you and eat you.”’
‘That isn’t so!’ said the bridegroom.
‘Dear heart, don’t worry – it was only a dream. The old woman hid me behind a great big barrel, and as soon as I was there the robbers came back, dragging a poor girl with them screaming and pleading for mercy. They forced her to drink three glasses of wine, one red, one white and one yellow, and that made her heart burst apart so she died.’
‘That isn’t so, and it wasn’t so!’ cried the bridegroom.
‘Dear heart, sit still – it was only a dream. They took off her fine clothes, laid her on the table, and chopped her to pieces and sprinkled salt on them.’
‘That isn’t so, and it wasn’t so, and God forbid it should be so!’ shouted the bridegroom.
‘Dear heart, stay where you are – it was only a dream. Then one of the robbers saw a gold ring on the poor girl’s finger. He took an axe and chopped it off, and the finger flew through the air and landed in my lap. And here is that finger, with the ring.’
With those words she held up the finger and the ring so that everyone could see.
The bridegroom, who had become as white as chalk, leaped up and tried to escape, but the guests seized him and held him tight and then marched him to the court. Soldiers were
sent out to capture the rest of the band, and they were all put to death for their wicked deeds.
***
Tale type: ATU 955, ‘The Robber Bridegroom’
Source: a story told to the Grimm brothers by Marie Hassenpflug
Similar stories: Katharine M. Briggs: ‘The Cellar of Blood’, ‘Dr Forster’, ‘Mr Fox’ (Folk Tales of Britain); Italo Calvino: ‘The Marriage of a Queen and a Bandit’ (Italian Folktales)
There’s nothing in the least supernatural in this tale: it’s a good gory shocker, and firmly enough set in our own world for it not to be entirely surprising that in one of the variants, Katherine M. Briggs’s ‘The Cellar of Blood’, the brave girl’s parents phone Scotland Yard and ask them to send some detectives to the storytelling party.
Britain is particularly rich in variants of this story, for some reason. I borrowed the robber bridegroom’s interjections to the bride’s tale of her dream from another of them, ‘Mr Fox’. Shakespeare borrowed them too:
BENEDICK: Like the old tale, my lord: ‘it is not so, nor ’twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.’
(Much Ado About Nothing, Act I, Scene 1)
TWENTY-THREE
GODFATHER DEATH
A poor man had twelve children, and had to work day and night just to get them a little food to eat. So when his wife gave birth to a thirteenth, he didn’t know what to do, and he ran out into the road, thinking he might as well ask the first person he met to stand godfather.
The first person who came along was God himself. Since he knew everything, he didn’t have to ask what was in the man’s mind.
‘My poor man,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry for you. I’d be glad to hold your child at his baptism. I’ll look after him, don’t you worry about that.’
‘Who are you?’ said the man.
‘I am God.’
‘Well, be on your way. I don’t want you for a godfather. You give to the rich who don’t need it, and you let the poor starve.’
Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version Page 18