by Jacob Grimm
After the space of four years, at the time agreed upon, the four brothers met at the four cross-roads, and having welcomed each other, set off towards their father’s home, where they told him all that had happened to them, and how each had learned some trade. Then one day, as they were sitting before the house under a very high tree, the father said, ‘I should like to try what each of you can do in his trade.’ So he looked up, and said to the second son, ‘At the top of this tree there is a chaffinch’s nest; tell me how many eggs there are in it.’ The star-gazer took his glass, looked up, and said, ‘Five.’ ‘Now,’ said the father to the eldest son, ‘take away the eggs without the bird that is sitting upon them and hatching them, knowing any thing of what you are doing.’ So the cunning thief climbed up the tree, and brought away to his father the five eggs from under the bird, who never saw or felt what he was doing, but kept sitting on at her ease. Then the father took the eggs, and put one on each corner of the table and the fifth in the middle, and said to the huntsman, ‘Cut all the eggs in two pieces at one shot.’ The huntsman took up his bow, and at one shot struck all the five eggs as his father wished. ‘Now comes your turn,’ said he to the young tailor; ‘sew the eggs and the young birds in them together again, so neatly that the shot shall have done them no harm.’ Then the tailor took his needle and sewed the eggs as he was told; and when he had done, the thief was sent to take them back to the nest, and put them under the bird, without its knowing it. Then she went on sitting, and hatched them; and in a few days they crawled out, and had only a little red streak across their necks where the tailor had sewed them together.
‘Well done, sons!’ said the old man, ‘you have made good use of your time, and learnt something worth the knowing; but I am sure I do not know which ought to have the prize. Oh! that a time might soon come for you to turn your skill to some account!’
Not long after this there was a great bustle in the country; for the king’s daughter had been carried off by a mighty dragon, and the king mourned over his loss day and night, and made it known that whoever brought her back to him should have her for a wife. Then the four brothers said to each other, ‘Here is a chance for us; let us try what we can do.’ And they agreed to see whether they could not set the princess free. ‘I will soon find out where she is, however,’ said the star-gazer as he looked through his glass, and soon cried out, ‘I see her afar off, sitting upon a rock in the sea, and I can spy the dragon close by, guarding her.’ Then he went to the king, and asked for a ship for himself and his brothers, and went with them upon the sea till they came to the right place. There they found the princess sitting, as the star-gazer had said, on the rock, and the dragon was lying asleep with his head upon her lap. ‘I dare not shoot at him,’ said the huntsman, ‘for I should kill the beautiful young lady also.’ ‘Then I will try my skill,’ said the thief; and went and stole her away from under the dragon so quickly and gently that the beast did not know it, but went on snoring.
Then away they hastened with her full of joy in their boat towards the ship; but soon came the dragon roaring behind them through the air, for he awoke and missed the princess; but when he got over the boat, and wanted to pounce upon them and carry off the princess, the huntsman took up his bow and shot him straight at the heart, so that he fell down dead. They were still not safe; for he was such a great beast, that in his fall he overset the boat, and they had to swim in the open sea upon a few planks. So the tailor took his needle, and with a few large stitches put some of the planks together, and sat down upon them, and sailed about and gathered up all the pieces of the boat, and tacked them together so quickly that the boat was soon ready, and they then reached the ship and got home safe.
When they had brought home the princess to her father, there was great rejoicing; and he said to the four brothers, ‘One of you shall marry her, but you must settle amongst yourselves which it is to be.’ Then there arose a quarrel between them; and the stargazer said, ‘If I had not found the princess out, all your skill would have been of no use; therefore she ought to be mine.’ ‘Your seeing her would have been of no use,’ said the thief, ‘if I had not taken her away from the dragon; therefore she ought to be mine.’ ‘No, she is mine,’ said the huntsman; ‘for if I had not killed the dragon, he would after all have torn you and the princess into pieces.’ ‘And if I had not sewed the boat together again,’ said the tailor, ‘you would all have been drowned; therefore she is mine.’ Then the king put in a word, and said, ‘Each of you is right; and as all cannot have the young lady, the best way is for neither of you to have her; and to make up for the loss, I will give each, as a reward for his skill, half a kingdom.’ So the brothers agreed that would be much better than quarrelling; and the king then gave each half a kingdom, as he had said; and they lived very happily the rest of their days, and took good care of their father.
The Elfin-Grove
‘I hope,’ said a woodman one day to his wife, ‘that the children will not run into that fir-grove by the side of the river; who they are that have come to live there I cannot tell, but I am sure it looks more dark and gloomy than ever, and some queer-looking beings are to be seen lurking about it every night, as I am told.’ The woodman could not say that they brought any ill luck as yet, whatever they were; for all the village had thriven more than ever since they came; the fields looked gayer and greener, and even the sky was a deeper blue. Not knowing what to say of them, the farmer very wisely let his new friends alone, and in truth troubled his head very little about them.
That very evening little Mary and her playfellow Martin were playing at hide and seek in the valley. ‘Where can he be hid?’ said she; ‘he must have gone into the fir-grove,’ and down she ran to look. Just then she spied a little dog that jumped round her and wagged his tail, and led her on towards the wood. Then he ran into it, and she soon jumped up the bank to look after him, but was overjoyed to see, instead of a gloomy grove of firs, a delightful garden, where flowers and shrubs of every kind grew upon turf of the softest green; gay butterflies flew about her, the birds sang sweetly, and, what was strangest, the prettiest little children sported about on all sides, some twining the flowers, and others dancing in rings upon the shady spots beneath the trees. In the midst, instead of the hovels of which Mary had heard, there was a palace that dazzled her eyes with its brightness. For a while she gazed on the fairy scene around her, till at last one of the little dancers ran up to her, and said, ‘And you are come at last to see us? we have often seen you play about, and wished to have you with us.’ Then she plucked some of the fruit that grew near; and Mary at the first taste forgot her home, and wished only to see and know more of her fairy friends.
Then they led her about with them and showed her all their sports. One while they danced by moonlight on the primrose banks; at another time they skipped from bough to bough among the trees that hung over the cooling streams; for they moved as lightly and easily through the air as on the ground: and Mary went with them every where, for they bore her in their arms wherever they wished to go. Sometimes they would throw seeds on the turf, and directly little trees sprang up; and then they would set their feet upon the branches, while the trees grew under them, till they danced upon the boughs in the air, wherever the breezes carried them; and again the trees would sink down into the earth and land them safely at their bidding. At other times they would go and visit the palace of their queen; and there the richest food was spread before them, and the softest music was heard; and there all around grew flowers which were always changing their hues, from scarlet to purple and yellow and emerald. Sometimes they went to look at the heaps of treasure which were piled up in the royal stores; for little dwarfs were always employed in searching the earth for gold. Small as this fairy land looked from without, it seemed within to have no end; a mist hung around it to shield it from the eyes of men; and some of the little elves sat perched upon the outermost trees, to keep watch lest the step of man should break in and spoil the charm.
‘And who are you?’ said Mary one day. ‘We are what are called elves in your world,’ said one whose name was Gossamer, and who had become her dearest friend: ‘we are told you talk a great deal about us; some of our tribes like to work you mischief, but we who live here seek only to be happy: we meddle little with mankind; but when we do come among them, it is to do them good.’ ‘And where is your queen?’ said little Mary. ‘Hush! hush! you cannot see or know her: you must leave us before she comes back, which will be now very soon, for mortal step cannot come where she is. But you will know that she is here when you see the meadows gayer, the rivers more sparkling, and the sun brighter.’
Soon afterwards Gossamer told Mary the time was come to bid her farewell, and gave her a ring in token of their friendship, and led her to the edge of the grove. ‘Think of me,’ said she; ‘but beware how you tell what you have seen, or try to visit any of us again, for if you do, we shall quit this grove and come back no more.’ Turning back, Mary saw nothing but the gloomy fir-grove she had known before. ‘How frightened my father and mother will be!’ thought she as she looked at the sun, which had risen some time. ‘They will wonder where I have been all night, and yet I must not tell them what I have seen.’ She hastened homewards, wondering however, as she went, to see that the leaves, which were yesterday so fresh and green, were now falling dry and yellow around her. The cottage too seemed changed, and, when she went in, there sat her father looking some years older than when she saw him last; and her mother, whom she hardly knew, was by his side. Close by was a young man; ‘Father,’ said Mary, ‘who is this?’ ‘Who are you that call me father?’ said he; ‘are you – no you cannot be – our long-lost Mary?’ But they soon saw that it was their Mary; and the young man, who was her old friend and playfellow Martin, said, ‘No wonder you had forgotten me in seven years; do not you remember how we parted seven years ago while playing in the field? We thought you were quite lost; but we are glad to see that some one has taken care of you and brought you home at last.’ Mary said nothing, for she could not tell all; but she wondered at the strange tale, and felt gloomy at the change from fairy land to her father’s cottage.
Little by little she came to herself, thought of her story as a mere dream, and soon became Martin’s bride. Every thing seemed to thrive around them; and Mary called her first little girl Elfie, in memory of her friends. The little thing was loved by every one. It was pretty and very good-tempered; Mary thought that it was very like a little elf; and all, without knowing why, called it the fairy child.
One day, while Mary was dressing her little Elfie, she found a piece of gold hanging round her neck by a silken thread, and knew it to be of the same sort as she had seen in the hands of the fairy dwarfs. Elfie seemed sorry at its being seen, and said that she had found it in the garden. But Mary watched her, and soon found that she went every afternoon to sit by herself in a shady place behind the house: so one day she hid herself to see what the child did there; and to her great wonder Gossamer was sitting by her side. ‘Dear Elfie,’ she was saying, ‘your mother and I used to sit thus when she was young and lived among us. Oh! if you could come and do so too! but since our queen came to us it cannot be; yet I will come and see you and talk to you, whilst you are a child; when you grow up we must part for ever.’ Then she plucked one of the roses that grew around them and breathed gently upon it, and said, ‘Take this for my sake. It will keep its freshness a whole year.’
Then Mary loved her little Elfie more than ever; and when she found that she spent some hours of almost every day with the elf, she used to hide herself and watch them without being seen, till one day when Gossamer was bearing her little friend through the air from tree to tree, her mother was so frightened lest her child should fall that she could not help screaming out, and Gossamer set her gently on the ground and seemed angry, and flew away. But still she used sometimes to come and play with her little friend, and would soon have done so perhaps the same as before, had not Mary one day told her husband the whole story, for she could not bear to hear him always wondering and laughing at their little child’s odd ways, and saying he was sure there was something in the fir-grove that brought them no good. So to show him that all she said was true, she took him to see Elfie and the fairy; but no sooner did Gossamer know that he was there (which she did in an instant), than she changed herself into a raven and flew off into the fir-grove.
Mary burst into tears, and so did Elfie, for she knew she should see her dear friend no more: but Martin was restless and bent upon following up his search after the fairies; so when night came he stole away towards the grove. When he came to it nothing was to be seen but the gloomy firs and the old hovels; and the thunder rolled, and the wind groaned and whistled through the trees. It seemed that all about him was angry; so he turned homewards frightened at what he had done.
In the morning all the neighbours flocked around, asking one another what the noise and bustle of the last night could mean; and when they looked about them, their trees looked blighted, and the meadows parched, the streams were dried up, and every thing seemed troubled and sorrowful; but they all thought that some how or other the fir-grove had not near so forbidding a look as it used to have. Strange stories were told, how one had heard flutterings in the air, another had seen the fir-grove as it were alive with little beings that flew away from it. Each neighbour told his tale, and all wondered what could have happened; but Mary and her husband knew what was the matter, and bewailed their folly; for they foresaw that their kind neighbours, to whom they owed all their luck, were gone for ever. Among the bystanders none told a wilder story than the old ferryman who plied across the river at the foot of the grove; he told how at midnight his boat was carried away, and how hundreds of little beings seemed to load it with treasures; how a strange piece of gold was left for him in the boat, as his fare; how the air seemed full of fairy forms fluttering around; and how at last a great train passed over that seemed to be guarding their leader to the meadows on the other side; and how he heard soft music floating around as they flew; and how sweet voices sang as they hovered over his head,
‘Fairy Queen!
Fairy Queen!
Mortal steps are on the green;
Come away!
Haste away!
Fairies, guard your Queen!
Hither, hither, fairy Queen!
Lest thy silvery wing be seen;
O’er the sky
Fly, fly, fly!
Fairies, guard your lady Queen!
O’er the sky
Fly, fly, fly!
Fairies, guard your Queen!
‘Fairy Queen!
Fairy Queen!
Thou hast pass’d the treach’rous scene;
Now we may
Down and play
O’er the daisied green.
Lightly, lightly, fairy Queen!
Trip it gently o’er the green:
Fairies gay,
Trip away
Round about your lady Queen!
Fairies gay,
Trip away
Round about your Queen!’
Poor Elfie mourned their loss the most, and would spend whole hours in looking upon the rose that her playfellow had given her, and singing over it the pretty airs she had taught her; till at length when the year’s charm had passed away and it began to fade, she planted the stalk in her garden, and there it grew and grew till she could sit under the shade of it and think of her friend Gossamer.
The Salad
As a merry young huntsman was once going briskly along through a wood, there came up a little old woman, and said to him, ‘Good day, good day; you seem merry enough, but I am hungry and thirsty; do pray give me something to eat.’ The huntsman took pity on her, and put his hand in his pocket and gave her what he had. Then he wanted to go his way; but she took hold of him, and said, ‘Listen, my friend, to what I am going to tell you;
I will reward you for your kindness; go your way, and after a little time you will come to a tree where you will see nine birds sitting on a cloak. Shoot into the midst of them, and one will fall down dead: the cloak will fall too; take it, it is a wishing-cloak, and when you wear it you will find yourself at any place where you may wish to be. Cut open the dead bird, take out its heart and keep it, and you will find a piece of gold under your pillow every morning when you rise. It is the bird’s heart that will bring you this good luck.’
The huntsman thanked her, and thought to himself, ‘If all this does happen, it will be a fine thing for me.’ When he had gone a hundred steps or so, he heard a screaming and chirping in the branches over him, and looked up and saw a flock of birds pulling a cloak with their bills and feet; screaming, fighting, and tugging at each other as if each wished to have it himself. ‘Well,’ said the huntsman, ‘this is wonderful; this happens just as the old woman said;’ then he shot into the midst of them so that their feathers flew all about. Off went the flock chattering away; but one fell down dead, and the cloak with it. Then the huntsman did as the old woman told him, cut open the bird, took out the heart, and carried the cloak home with him.
The next morning when he awoke he lifted up his pillow, and there lay the piece of gold glittering underneath; the same happened next day, and indeed every day when he arose. He heaped up a great deal of gold, and at last thought to himself, ‘Of what use is this gold to me whilst I am at home? I will go out into the world and look about me.’
Then he took leave of his friends, and hung his bag and bow about his neck, and went his way. It so happened that his road one day led through a thick wood, at the end of which was a large castle in a green meadow, and at one of the windows stood an old woman with a very beautiful young lady by her side looking about them. Now the old woman was a fairy, and said to the young lady, ‘There is a young man coming out of the wood who carries a wonderful prize; we must get it away from him, my dear child, for it is more fit for us than for him. He has a bird’s heart that brings a piece of gold under his pillow every morning.’ Meantime the huntsman came nearer and looked at the lady, and said to himself, ‘I have been travelling so long that I should like to go into this castle and rest myself, for I have money enough to pay for any thing I want;’ but the real reason was, that he wanted to see more of the beautiful lady. Then he went into the house, and was welcomed kindly; and it was not long before he was so much in love that he thought of nothing else but looking at the lady’s eyes, and doing every thing that she wished. Then the old woman said, ‘Now is the time for getting the bird’s heart.’ So the lady stole it away, and he never found any more gold under his pillow, for it lay now under the young lady’s, and the old woman took it away every morning; but he was so much in love that he never missed his prize.