Cape Grimm

by Carmel Bird

  Then she was comforted and happy until the next month was over, and then her son was born, and he was as red as blood and as white as snow, and when the woman heard him cry she smiled, and as she smiled, she lapsed and died, and grieving, her husband buried her beneath the juniper tree.

  The months passed and the husband took a new wife, and this wife had a little daughter whose name was Anne-Marie and whom she loved very much. When she looked at the little boy, this woman felt a bitterness in her heart, for she knew that the boy would always stand in her daughter’s way for her husband’s property. But the little girl loved her brother and they played together happily all year long. However, her mother frequently grew angry with the boy and he could find no peace in the house. The woman was secretly planning to rid herself of this impediment to her daughter’s fortune.

  So one day in the autumn, when the boy came in from school, the woman said to him, ‘You must be hungry. Would you like to have an apple from the chest?’

  The boy was surprised, but he was not suspicious, and when the woman opened the chest he leant over and picked a bright red apple from inside, and as he did so the woman let the great heavy lid of the chest fall down thud on his neck so that his head flew off and rolled among the apples in the chest. Then the woman was overcome with horror and fear at what she had done, and she fetched a large white handkerchief, and set the boy on a high stool, placed his head upon his shoulders and tied the handkerchief around the wound. Then she placed the apple in his hand.

  When Anne-Marie came into the kitchen she said to her mother, ‘My brother is sitting at the door, and he looks so very strange and white and has an apple in his hand. I asked him to give me the apple, but he did not answer me and I was very frightened.’

  ‘Then go back to him,’ said her mother, ‘and if he will not answer you, then you should box his ears.’

  So Anne-Marie went to him and said, ‘Brother, please will you give me the apple?’

  But he was silent, and so she boxed his ears, and immediately his head fell off. Anne-Marie screamed in horror and she ran to her mother and told her what had happened and she could not be comforted.

  ‘Anne-Marie,’ said the mother, ‘what have you done? Be quiet and do not tell anyone about it. It can not be helped now. We will cook him into stew.’ Then the mother took the little boy and chopped him into little pieces, put him in the pot and cooked him into rich and savoury stew. Anne-Marie stood by weeping bitterly, and all her tears fell into the pot.

  Then the father came home, and sat down at the table and said, ‘Where is my son?’ And the mother said that he had gone to visit his uncle in the next village, and then she served up a large, large dish of stew, and Anne-Marie cried and could not stop.

  ‘What is he doing there?’ said the father. ‘He did not even say goodbye to me.’

  ‘Oh, he wanted to go, and asked me if he could stay six weeks. He will be well taken care of. Do not fret.’

  Then the man said, ‘Wife, this food is delicious. Give me some more.’ And the more he ate the more he wanted, and he said, ‘Give me some more. You two shall have none of it. It seems to me as if it were all mine.’ And he ate and ate, throwing all the bones under the table, until he had finished.

  Anne-Marie gathered all the bones from beneath the table and tied them up in her silk scarf, then she carried them outside the door, crying tears of blood. She laid them down beneath the juniper tree, and after she had put them there she suddenly felt better and did not weep any more.

  And when the girl had stopped weeping the juniper tree began to sway. The branches shifted quietly apart, then moved together again, just as if someone were rejoicing and clapping their hands. At the same time a pearly mist rose from the tree, and in the centre of this mist was a burning fire, and from the heart of the flame flew out a beautiful bird that sang a sweet song. The bird flew high into the air, and when it was gone the juniper tree was just as it had been before, but the cloth with the bones had disappeared. And Anne-Marie was as happy and contented as if her brother were still alive, and she went into the house and ate her bread.

  Then the bird flew away and lit on a goldsmith’s house, and it began to sing:

  ‘My mother she killed me

  My father he ate me

  My little sister Anne-Marie

  She gathered up the bones of me

  Tied them in a silken cloth

  To lay beneath the juniper tree

  What a beautiful bird am I.’

  The goldsmith was sitting in his workshop making a golden chain, when he heard the bird sitting on his roof and singing. The song seemed very beautiful to him and he stood up, but as he crossed the threshold he lost one of his slippers. However, he went right up the middle of the street wearing only one slipper. He had his leather apron on, and in one hand he had a golden chain and in the other his tongs. He walked onward, then stood still and said to the bird, ‘Bird, bird, how beautifully you can sing. Please sing that piece again for me.’

  ‘No,’ said the bird, ‘I do not sing twice for nothing. Give me the golden chain and then I will sing again for you.’

  The goldsmith said, ‘Here is the golden chain for you. Now sing that song again for me.’

  Then the bird came and took the golden chain in his right claw, and sat in front of the goldsmith and sang. Then the bird flew away to a shoemaker, and lit on his roof and there it sang again. And the shoemaker came out of doors in his shirt-sleeves and begged the bird to sing again, but the bird said he must give him the pair of little red shoes from the window of his shop before it would sing again. So the shoemaker’s wife fetched the shoes, and the bird, all red and green and gold like fire, sang the song again, and all who heard it marvelled at the beauty of the music and wondered at the strange meaning of the words. The eyes of the bird shone like stars. And the bird took the little red shoes in its left claw and flew away.

  In the right claw was the chain and in the left claw were the shoes. The bird flew far away to a mill, and the millwheel went clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack. In the mill sat twenty apprentices cutting a stone and chiselling chip-chop, chip-chop, chip-chop to make a fine new millstone. And the bird, all red and green and gold, sat on the linden tree and sang its song.

  ‘My mother, she killed me…’

  Then one of them stopped working.

  ‘My father, he ate me…’

  Then two more stopped working.

  ‘My little sister Anne-Marie…’

  Then four more stopped working.

  ‘Gathered up the bones of me

  ‘And tied them in a silken scarf…’

  Now only eight were chiselling.

  ‘And laid them underneath…’

  Now only five.

  ‘The juniper tree…’

  Now only one.

  ‘What a beautiful bird am I.’

  Then the last one stopped also and heard the last words.

  ‘Bird,’ he said, ‘how beautifully you sing. Please sing again for us.’

  But the bird said no, and then explained that if they gave it the millstone it would sing again for them. So they gave the bird the millstone, and again it sang the song, and then, with the chain in one claw and the shoes in the other and the stone around its neck, the bird flew off into the sky. It flew until it reached the house where little Anne-Marie was sitting at the kitchen table with her mother and father.

  ‘I feel very uneasy,’ the mother said, ‘as if a storm were brewing.’

  Then the bird flew up, and as it seated itself on the roof, the father said, ‘Oh, I feel so truly happy, and the sun is shining so beautifully outside. I feel as if I were about to see a dear old friend again.’

  But the woman’s teeth were chattering, and she felt she was suffering from a fever, and there was a fire in her veins, and she tore at her bodice until it was torn to shreds. Then the bird alighted on the juniper tree and sang:

  ‘My mother, she killed me,’ and the mother stopped her ears
and shut her eyes, not wanting to see or hear, but there was a roaring in her ears like the fiercest storm, and before her eyes the world burned and flashed like lightning.

  The father said, ‘The bird is singing so sweetly, and the sun is shining so warmly, and the whole world smells like rich dark cinnamon.’

  And the man went outside and looked up at the bird, and the bird dropped the golden chain so that it fell about the father’s neck. And the woman was amazed and terrified and she fell down on the floor, her cap rolling off her head. But Anne-Marie ran out into the garden to look at the bird, and the bird threw down the little red shoes which she put on her feet and they fitted her perfectly. Then the woman jumped to her feet and she went out the door, her hair standing on end like flames of fire. And as she came to the juniper tree the bird dropped the millstone on top of her and she was crushed to death in an instant.

  Smoke, flames and fire rose from the juniper tree, and when the smoke had cleared, the little brother was standing there, handsome and smiling. He took his father and Anne-Marie by the hand, and all three were very happy, and they went into the house, sat down at the table and ate their supper.

  K

  KRAKEN

  This is a legendary giant underwater monster with many tentacles, capable of sinking large ships. Its counterpart in the real world is the giant squid, which is known to be capable of wrestling a sperm whale. In recent years the bodies of giant squid have been discovered on beaches in increasing numbers.

  M

  MONOTREMES

  The duck-billed platypus and two species of echidna (see entry for Echidna) are the only living monotremes, being mammals possessing a single opening for urinary, genital and excretory functions. Their habitat is Australia and New Guinea. They are primitive mammals because, like reptiles and birds, they lay eggs instead of giving live birth. Modern adult monotremes have no teeth. Like other mammals, however, they produce milk, have hair, a single lower jaw bone, three bones in the inner ear, and high metabolic rates. A good source of information on monotremes is the website of the University of Tasmania: www.healthsci.utas.edu.au/medicine/research/mono/References.html.

  MOONBIRD

  This is one of the names for the muttonbird or shearwater, a petrel that constantly wanders the earth, as if seeking a home, laying eggs in remote parts of Australia, such as the islands of Bass Strait, and flying north to the Arctic Circle. Its nest is a burrow for one solitary chick, and the noise and musty smell of the breeding ground is distinctive. The moonbird is sometimes called the flying sheep of the Pacific, but its more romantic title of ‘moonbird’ relates to the legend of the origin of the Pacific Ocean. The story is that the moon was formed when a great round chunk of the earth flew out, leaving the void of the Pacific. The moonbird follows the path, in a figure eight, of the whole Pacific Ocean, from north to south and back again. The birds feed on fish and shellfish during daylight, and sleep in groups on the surface of the sea.

  MÜNZER, THOMAS (C. 1489–1525)

  A German Protestant pastor who taught that the inner transformation of the spirit, coupled with the external transformation of society into a theocratic state, would result in obedience to the divine will. He established such a community in Mühlhausen, and was beheaded during a massacre of the faithful at Frankenhausen in 1525.

  P

  PAXTON, JOSEPH (1803–1865)

  He was a gardener’s boy who became the head gardener to the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, where he cultivated the Victoria Regia or Giant Water Lily. A photograph was taken of his daughter standing on one of the giant leaves, and it was the principal of the lily-leaf’s construction that inspired Paxton’s design for a glasshouse. This design he later used in his blueprint for the Crystal Palace. He sketched the building on a piece of blotting paper and completed the design in ten days. His later career included the designs for many public parks and the grounds of country houses.

  PEOPLE’S TEMPLE

  The name of Jim Jones’s cult, whose members committed mass suicide with cyanide in 1978 at the settlement of Jonestown in the jungle of Guyana.

  R

  RAMPION

  Rapunzel, Campanula rapunculus, a congener of the common harebell. It has a long white spindle-shaped root, which is eaten raw like a radish and has a pleasant sweet flavour. Its roots, leaves and young shoots are also used in salads.

  RAPUNZEL

  Story number 12 from the Nursery and Household Tales of the Brothers Grimm.

  There was once a man and a woman who had long wished for a child. You may imagine that these were the same people who had the son they called Hans-My-Hedgehog, but although the beginnings of the stories are similar, this is a different couple. However, in these and other tales, when the desire for a child is thwarted, the lengths to which the parents will go, the risks they will take and the strange effects their actions sometimes have, are quite remarkable. Children—lost, found, stolen, borrowed—are powerful and desirable commodities in these narratives. Consider the scene in The Blue Bird, where the character of Light reveals the thirty thousand halls where all the unborn children live. ‘When fathers and mothers want children, the great doors are opened and the little ones go down. There are enough children to last to the end of the world.’

  But to continue with ‘Rapunzel’: At length the woman had reason to hope that God was about to grant her desire. Now the couple had a little window at the back of their house, and from this window they were able to see into the neighbour’s garden, a garden filled with the most beautiful flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no-one dared to go into it, because it belonged to an enchantress who had great power and was dreaded by all the people for many miles around. One day the woman was standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion. It looked so fresh and green that she longed for it, and had the greatest desire to eat some. This desire increased every day, and as she knew that she could not get any of it, she began to pine away.

  ‘If I can not get some of this rampion, I know I shall surely die,’ she told her husband.

  So that evening, at twilight, the husband climbed up and over the wall and into the garden of the enchantress. He snatched up a handful of rampion, climbed back over the wall, and took the green herb to his wife on a clean white platter. But the wife ate it with such relish that the next day she longed for twice as much rampion, and so the husband at twilight scaled the wall, picked the herb and returned to his wife. But the wife ate it with such gusto that she then required three times as much, and so on the third night the husband climbed the wall again.

  But this time the enchantress was waiting for him, and she was very angry and he was very afraid.

  ‘Thief,’ she said, ‘why do you steal my rampion?’

  ‘Ah, forgive me,’ said the man, ‘but my wife saw your rampion from our window, and she had such a longing for it in her heart that she knew she would die for lack of it. Please, good madam, let mercy take the place of justice, for my wife is to bring our child into the world before many months have passed.’

  At this the enchantress was delighted and she smiled a sly smile and she said, ‘Then you may take as much rampion as you wish,’ and the man bent down and, as he thanked her with some surprise, he took a great handful of the herb. But the enchantress continued, ‘I make one condition. When the child is born you must deliver it to me. I will care for it like a mother.’

  The man in his terror consented without thinking, and returned home. For three more months the woman was happy because she could eat as much of the witch’s rampion as she wished. Then the day came when the child was born. As the wife was holding her newborn daughter in her arms, the enchantress appeared at once, took the child, and swept out of the room and was gone. The mother cried out in shock and despair, and the father shook with shame and sorrow, and they were bereft.

  It is worth noticing that the parents drop right out of the narrative a
t this point, never to return.

  Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child beneath the sun. Her skin was like snow and her hair was long and flowing red-gold like a river in the sunlight. When she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which stood in a forest, and the tower had neither stairs nor door, but high up at the top was a little window looking out onto the sky. When the enchantress wanted to enter the tower and visit Rapunzel, she stood on the earth beneath this window and cried, ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.’

  So Rapunzel would wind her braided tresses around one of the bars of her window, and would then let them flow down the tower wall until they reached the ground.

  After a year or two, it came to pass that the king’s son rode through the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a song that was so sweet and seductive that he stood still and listened. It was Rapunzel. In her solitude she would play her lute and sing sad songs of her own invention. The prince listened as the music drifted down from the tower and across the forest. As he was listening, he heard another sound: ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.’ Then he saw to his astonishment the long tresses of red-gold hair that swiftly fell from the tower window, and then he saw the witch as she climbed up with a small basket of fresh fruit and vegetables. Intrigued by the sight and seduced by the song, and marvelling at the beauty of the silken rope of hair that he had seen, he waited until dark and then the prince stood at the foot of the tower and called out: ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.’

  Almost at once, hair fell down in the moonlight, and the king’s son, pleased and a little anxious at what he might discover, climbed up.

  At first Rapunzel was bewildered and afraid, for she had never seen a man before. But the prince reassured her, explaining how much he admired her song, and she looked at him and saw that he was very young and handsome. Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and at once he asked her if she would take him for her husband, and she looked into his eyes and she said yes, and laid her hand in his. But how were they to escape from the tower?