Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm

by Philip Pullman

  As the hunter came closer to the castle he saw them more clearly, and thought, ‘I’ve been wandering about for quite a while now, and I’ve got plenty of money. Maybe I’ll stop at this castle for a day or two and have a rest.’

  Of course, the real reason was that the girl was very beautiful.

  He went into the castle, where they welcomed him and looked after him generously. Before long he was in love with the witch’s daughter, so much so that he could think of nothing else; he had eyes only for her, and whatever she wanted him to do, he did. In fact he was besotted.

  Seeing this, the old woman said to the girl, ‘This is the time to act. We’ve got to get that bird’s heart. He won’t even notice it’s gone.’

  She prepared a potion, and poured it into a cup for the girl to hand to the young man.

  ‘My dearest one,’ she said to him, ‘won’t you drink to my health?’

  He drank it all down in one, and almost immediately he was so sick that he vomited up the bird’s heart. The girl helped him to lie down, with many soft words of concern, and then went straight back, found the heart, rinsed it in clean water and swallowed it herself.

  From then on the hunter found no more gold coins under his pillow. He had no idea that they were appearing under the girl’s, and that the witch collected them every morning and hid them away. He was so infatuated that all he wanted to do was spend time with her daughter.

  The witch said, ‘We’ve got the heart, but that isn’t enough. We must have the wishing cloak too.’

  ‘Can’t we leave him that?’ said the daughter. ‘After all, the poor man’s lost his fortune.’

  ‘Don’t you be so soft!’ said the witch. ‘A cloak like that is worth millions. There aren’t many of them about, I can tell you. I must have it, and I will have it.’

  She told her daughter what to do and said that if she didn’t obey, she’d regret it. So the girl did as the witch said: she stood at the window gazing out as if she were very sad.

  The hunter said, ‘Why are you standing there looking so sad?’

  ‘Ah, my treasure,’ said the girl, ‘out there lies Mount Garnet, where the most precious jewels grow. When I think of them I want them so much that I can’t help feeling sad . . . But who can go there and gather them? Only the birds, who can fly. I’m sure a human being could never get there.’

  ‘If that’s all that’s troubling you,’ said the hunter, ‘leave it to me. I’ll soon cheer you up.’

  He took his cloak and swung it around his shoulders, and over her as well, so it enfolded both of them. Then he wished to be on Mount Garnet. The blink of an eye later, they were sitting near the top of it. Precious stones of every kind sparkled brilliantly all around them; they had never seen anything so lovely.

  However, the witch had cast a spell to make the hunter sleepy, and he said to the girl, ‘Let’s sit down and rest a while. I’m so tired my legs can’t keep me up.’

  They sat down, he laid his head in her lap, and a moment later his eyes began to close. As soon as he was fast asleep, she took the cloak from around his shoulders and wrapped it around herself, before gathering as many garnets and other jewels as she could carry and wishing herself back home.

  When the hunter awoke and found himself alone on the wild mountain, and that his cloak had gone too, he realized that his beloved had deceived him.

  ‘Oh,’ he sighed, ‘I didn’t know the world was so full of treachery!’

  He sat there too distressed to move. He couldn’t think what to do.

  Now the mountain happened to belong to some ferocious giants, great thundering brutes, and it wasn’t long before the hunter heard three of them coming. He lay down quickly and pretended to be fast asleep.

  The first giant prodded him with his toe and said, ‘What’s this earthworm doing here?’

  ‘Squash him,’ said the second. ‘I would.’

  But the third one said, ‘Don’t bother. There’s nothing here for him to live on, so he’ll be dead soon in any case. Besides, if he climbs to the top, the clouds will carry him away.’

  They left him alone and carried on talking as they walked off. The hunter had heard everything they’d said, and as soon as they were out of sight, he got to his feet and clambered up the mountain to the peak, which was surrounded by clouds.

  He sat down on the jewelled pinnacle, while clouds came and bumped into him, and finally one of them grabbed him and tossed him on board. It floated around the sky for some time, and very comfortable it was too, and the hunter saw many interesting things as he peered over the side; but eventually it began to sink towards the ground, and soon enough he was deposited in someone’s kitchen garden, which had high walls around it.

  The cloud floated up again and left him standing between the cabbages and the onions.

  ‘Pity there’s no fruit,’ he said to himself. ‘I wouldn’t mind a nice apple or a pear, and I’m so hungry. Still, I can always have a mouthful of cabbage. It doesn’t taste wonderful, but it’ll keep me going.’

  There were two kinds of cabbages growing in the garden, pointed ones and round ones, and to begin with the hunter pulled a few leaves off a pointed one and started to chew. It tasted good enough, but when he’d only had a few bites, he felt the strangest sensation: his skin tickled all over as long hairs sprouted out of it, his spine bent forward and his arms lengthened and turned into hairy legs with hooves on the ends of them, his neck thickened and grew longer, his face lengthened and two long ears shot up from the sides of his head, and before he knew what was happening, he was a donkey.

  Needless to say, that made the cabbage taste much better. He went on eating it with relish, and then moved on to a round cabbage. He’d only had a couple of bites when he found it all happening again, but in reverse, and in less time than it takes to tell it, he was a human being again.

  ‘Well,’ he said to himself, ‘how about that? Now I can get back what belongs to me.’

  So he picked a head of the pointed cabbage and a head of the round one, put them safely in his knapsack, and climbed the wall and got away. He soon discovered where he was, and set off back to the castle where the witch lived. After some days’ walking he found it again, and kept out of sight while he dyed his face so brown that even his own mother wouldn’t have recognized him.

  Then he knocked at the door. The witch herself opened it.

  ‘Can you give me shelter for the night?’ the young man said. ‘I’m worn out, and I can’t go any further.’

  ‘Who are you, my dear?’ said the witch. ‘What brings you out this way?’

  ‘I’m a royal messenger, and the king sent me specially to look for the most delicious cabbage in the world. I was lucky enough to find it, and it really is delicious, but the weather’s been so hot that it’s beginning to wilt. I don’t think I’ll get it back in time.’

  When the witch heard about this delicious cabbage, she couldn’t wait to try it herself.

  ‘Have you got a little bit my daughter and I could taste?’ she said.

  ‘I brought two heads of it. I don’t see why you shouldn’t have one of them, since you’re being kind enough to let me stay the night.’

  He opened his knapsack and gave her the donkey cabbage. She took it eagerly and hurried to the kitchen, her mouth already watering. She put some water on to boil and chopped the cabbage up daintily, and boiled it for just a few minutes with some salt and a little butter. It smelt so good that she couldn’t resist, and before she brought it to the table she nibbled at one of the leaves, and then another, and of course as soon as she swallowed them she started to change. In a matter of seconds she was an old donkey, and she ran out into the courtyard to kick up her heels.

  Next the serving girl came in, and smelling the buttery cabbage she couldn’t help having a bite herself. This was an old habit of hers, and sure enoug
h, the same thing happened to her. She couldn’t hold the bowl with her new hooves, so she dropped it where it was and ran outside.

  Meanwhile the witch’s daughter was sitting talking to the messenger.

  ‘I don’t know what’s keeping them,’ she said. ‘It does smell good.’

  The hunter thought that the magic must have happened by this time.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and get it.’

  When he got to the kitchen he saw the two donkeys running around the courtyard, and thought, ‘Good! Just as I planned it, and serve them right.’

  He scooped up the cabbage that had fallen to the floor, put it in the bowl and brought it to the girl. She had some at once, and she too became a donkey and ran outside.

  The hunter washed his face so that they could recognize him, and went out to the courtyard with a length of rope.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it was me. I’ve got you good and proper, and now you’re going to pay for your treachery.’

  He tied all three to the rope, and drove them ahead of him out of the castle and along the road till then came to a mill. He knocked on the door.

  ‘What d’you want?’ said the miller.

  ‘I’ve got three ugly bad-tempered beasts here, and as they’re no good to me I want to get rid of them. If you take them and treat them as I tell you, I’ll pay whatever you ask.’

  That wasn’t the sort of offer the miller got every day, so he agreed at once.

  ‘How d’you want me to treat them, then?’ he said.

  ‘Beat the old one three times a day, and feed her once’ (that was the witch). ‘The middle one can have three feeds a day and one beating’ (that was the servant), ‘and the young one’s not too bad. Feed her three times and don’t beat her at all.’ He couldn’t bring himself to have the girl beaten.

  He went back to the castle and put his feet up. After a couple of days the miller came to see him.

  ‘That old donkey,’ he said, ‘she wasn’t much good. She’s dead now. But the other two are looking really down in the mouth. I don’t know what to do with them.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said the hunter. ‘I think they’ve probably been punished enough.’

  He told the miller to drive the other two donkeys back to the castle, where he spread some of the round cabbage leaves on the ground and let them eat, so they became human beings again.

  The witch’s beautiful daughter fell on her knees and said, ‘Oh, my dearest, forgive me for all the evil I did you! My mother forced me to do it. I never wanted to betray you, because I love you with all my heart. The wishing cloak is in the hall cupboard, and as for the bird’s heart, I’ll drink something to make me bring it up again.’

  ‘No need for that,’ he said, because he’d found himself in love with her all over again. ‘You can keep it. It won’t make any difference who has it, because I want to marry you.’

  Their wedding was celebrated soon afterwards, and they lived together very happily until they died.

  ***

  Tale type: ATU 567, ‘The Magic Bird-Heart’, continuing as ATU 566, ‘The Three Magic Objects and the Wonderful Fruits’

  Source: a story from Bohemia, told to the Grimm brothers by an unknown informant

  Similar stories: Alexander Afanasyev: ‘Horns’ (Russian Fairy Tales); Katharine M. Briggs: ‘Fortunatus’ (Folk Tales of Britain); Italo Calvino: ‘The Crab with the Golden Eggs’ (Italian Folktales)

  As quite often in Grimm, we have two separate story types sewn together here. Once the hunter has the bird’s heart and the wishing cloak, he could in theory go on to any kind of adventure. The story of the cabbage (sometimes translated as ‘lettuce’) which turns whoever eats it into a donkey has no logical connection with the first part of the story, but they fit together very well.

  In Afanasyev’s Russian version of the story, the food (two kinds of apple, in this case) causes horns to grow on or to vanish from the eater’s head. Less inconvenient than turning into a donkey, no doubt, but still not easy to explain.

  What I especially like about this tale is the young hunter’s cheerful good nature. It’s remarkable how few details of behaviour we need to evoke a personality.

  FORTY-TWO

  ONE EYE, TWO EYES AND THREE EYES

  There was once a woman who had three daughters. She called the eldest One Eye, because she had one eye in the middle of her forehead. The second was called Two Eyes, because she had two eyes just like other people, and the youngest Three Eyes, because she had three eyes, the third one in the middle of her forehead like her eldest sister’s.

  Because Two Eyes looked no different from everyone else, however, her mother and her sisters couldn’t stop criticizing her.

  ‘You two-eyed monster,’ they said, ‘who d’you think you are? There’s nothing special about you, my girl. You don’t belong with us.’

  They gave her the shabbiest clothes to wear and nothing but leftover scraps from the table to eat. Between them, they made her life a misery.

  One day Two Eyes had to go out and look after the goat. She was hungry, as usual, because there had been nothing but the dirty saucepan they’d cooked the porridge in to lick out for breakfast, and it was burnt, what’s more. She sat down on the grassy slope and began to cry. When the first sobbing had died away, she was surprised to see a kindly-looking wise woman standing nearby.

  ‘Why are you crying, Two Eyes?’ she said.

  ‘Because I’ve got two eyes like other people,’ replied Two Eyes. ‘Like you, for instance. My mother and my sisters hate me, and they push me around and give me nothing but worn-out old clothes to wear and make me eat the scraps they leave on the table. Today I only had the porridge saucepan to lick out, and it was burnt, too.’

  ‘Well, Two Eyes, you can stop crying now,’ said the wise woman. ‘I’ll tell you a secret, and you won’t be hungry any more. Just say to the goat:

  “Little goat, bleat,

  Bring me good things to eat,”

  and a beautiful table with all sorts of good food will appear in front of you, and you can eat as much as you like. When you’ve had enough, just say:

  “Little goat, bleat,

  I’ve had all I can eat,”

  and it’ll disappear.’

  No sooner had she said that than the wise woman herself disappeared. Two Eyes thought she’d better try it straight away before she forgot it, and besides, she was too hungry to wait.

  So she said:

  ‘Little goat, bleat,

  Bring me good things to eat,’

  and as soon as she’d said the words, there in front of her stood a table covered in a snowy white cloth. There was a plate with a silver knife and fork and spoon, and a snowy linen napkin as well, and of course a chair to sit on; but the food! There were hot dishes and cold dishes, casseroles and roast meat, vegetables of all kinds, and a great big apple pie, all freshly cooked and steaming hot.

  Two Eyes could hardly wait. She said the shortest grace she knew: ‘Lord, be our guest now and for ever, Amen.’ Then she sat down and ate all she wanted. It was all so delicious that she had a little bit of everything, and when she was full up she said:

  ‘Little goat, bleat,

  I’ve had all I can eat,’

  and the table vanished in the blink of an eye.

  ‘Well, I like that sort of housekeeping,’ thought Two Eyes, and she was happier than she’d been for years.

  When she got home with the goat that evening, she found an old clay pot with a bit of cold greasy stew in the bottom that her sisters had left for her, but she didn’t touch it. And in the morning all there was for her were the crumbs from the toast they’d made, but she didn’t eat those either. The first couple of times that happened her sisters didn’t see, because they usually ignored whatever sh
e did, but when it happened the next day, and the next, they couldn’t help noticing.

  ‘What’s up with Two Eyes? She’s not eating.’

  ‘I bet she’s up to something.’

  ‘Probably got someone to bring her a picnic. Greedy cow.’

  ‘Typical!’

  They thought they’d better try and find out what was going on, so next time Two Eyes took the goat out to pasture, One Eye said to her, ‘I think I’ll come with you. I’m not sure you’re looking after the goat properly.’

  Two Eyes guessed what One Eye was up to. She took the goat out to the usual meadow, where there was plenty for it to eat, and then she said, ‘Come and sit down, One Eye. I’ll sing you a song.’

  One Eye was tired, because she’d had more exercise walking out to the meadow than she’d had for weeks, and besides, the warm sun was making her drowsy. So she slumped down in the shade and Two Eyes began to sing:

  ‘One Eye, are you awake?

  One Eye, are you asleep?’

  One Eye’s single eyelid drooped and sank lower and lower and finally she started snoring. Once Two Eyes was sure her sister was fast asleep, she said:

  ‘Little goat, bleat,

  Bring me good things to eat.’

  And at once the magic table appeared, and on it there was leek soup, roast chicken and strawberries and cream. Two Eyes ate as much as she wanted and then said:

  ‘Little goat, bleat,

  I’ve had all I can eat,’

  and the table vanished.

  Two Eyes woke One Eye and said, ‘Didn’t you say you wanted to help me look after the goat? You’ve been asleep all day! She could have run away and fallen in the river. Lucky I was here. Come on, let’s go home.’