by Jacob Grimm
Now therefore, when they arrived home, the youngest took his cup to the sick King in order that he might drink out of it, and be cured. But scarcely had he drunk a very little of the salt sea-water than he became still worse than before. And as he was lamenting over this, the two eldest brothers came, and accused the youngest of having intended to poison him, and said that they had brought him the true water of life, and handed it to him. He had scarcely tasted it, when he felt his sickness departing, and became strong and healthy as in the days of his youth. After that they both went to the youngest, mocked him, and said: “You certainly found the water of life, but you have had the pain, and we the gain; you should have been cleverer, and should have kept your eyes open. We took it from you whilst you were asleep at sea, and when a year is over, one of us will go and fetch the beautiful princess. But beware that you do not disclose aught of this to our father; indeed he does not trust you, and if you say a single word, you shall lose your life into the bargain, but if you keep silent, you shall have it as a gift.”
The old King was angry with his youngest son, and thought he had plotted against his life. So he summoned the court together, and had sentence pronounced upon his son, that he should be secretly shot. And once when the prince was riding forth to the chase, suspecting no evil, the King’s huntsman was told to go with him, and when they were quite alone in the forest, the huntsman looked so sorrowful that the prince said to him: “Dear huntsman, what ails you?” The huntsman said: “I cannot tell you, and yet I ought.” Then the prince said: “Say openly what it is, I will pardon you.” “Alas!” said the huntsman, “I am to shoot you dead, the King has ordered me to do it.” Then the prince was shocked, and said: “Dear huntsman, let me live; there, I give you my royal garments; give me your common ones in their stead.” The huntsman said: “I will willingly do that, indeed I would not have been able to shoot you.” Then they exchanged clothes, and the huntsman returned home, while the prince went further into the forest. After a time three waggons of gold and precious stones came to the King for his youngest son, which were sent by the three Kings who had slain their enemies with the prince’s sword, and maintained their people with his bread, and who wished to show their gratitude for it. The old King then thought: “Can my son have been innocent?” and said to his people: “Would that he were still alive, how it grieves me that I have suffered him to be killed!” “He still lives,” said the huntsman, “I could not find it in my heart to carry out your command,” and told the King how it had happened. Then a stone fell from the King’s heart, and he had it proclaimed in every country that his son might return and be taken into favor again.
The princess, however, had a road made up to her palace which was quite bright and golden, and told her people that whosoever came riding straight along it to her, would be the right one and was to be admitted, and whoever rode by the side of it, was not the right one, and was not to be admitted. As the time was now close at hand, the eldest thought he would hasten to go to the King’s daughter, and give himself out as her rescuer, and thus win her for his bride, and the kingdom to boot. Therefore he rode forth, and when he arrived in front of the palace, and saw the splendid golden road, he thought: “It would be a sin and a shame if I were to ride over that,” and turned aside, and rode on the right side of it. But when he came to the door, the servants told him that he was not the right one, and was to go away again. Soon after this the second prince set out, and when he came to the golden road, and his horse had put one foot on it, he thought: “It would be a sin and a shame, a piece might be trodden off,” and he turned aside and rode on the left side of it, and when he reached the door, the attendants told him he was not the right one, and he was to go away again. When at last the year had entirely expired, the third son likewise wished to ride out of the forest to his beloved, and with her forget his sorrows. So he set out and thought of her so incessantly, and wished to be with her so much, that he never noticed the golden road at all. So his horse rode onwards up the middle of it, and when he came to the door, it was opened and the princess received him with joy, and said he was her savior, and lord of the kingdom, and their wedding was celebrated with great rejoicing. When it was over she told him that his father invited him to come to him, and had forgiven him. So he rode thither, and told him everything; how his brothers had betrayed him, and how he had nevertheless kept silence. The old King wished to punish them, but they had put to sea, and never came back as long as they lived.
Doctor Knowall
THERE WAS once upon a time a poor peasant called Crabb, who drove with two oxen a load of wood to the town, and sold it to a doctor for two talers. When the money was being counted out to him, it so happened that the doctor was sitting at table, and when the peasant saw how well he ate and drank, his heart desired what he saw, and he would willingly have been a doctor too. So he remained standing a while, and at length inquired if he too could not be a doctor. “Oh, yes,” said the doctor, “that is soon managed.” “What must I do?” asked the peasant. “In the first place buy yourself an A B C book of the kind which has a cock on the frontispiece; in the second, turn your cart and your two oxen into money, and get yourself some clothes, and whatsoever else pertains to medicine; thirdly, have a sign painted for yourself with the words: ‘I am Doctor Knowall,’ and have that nailed up above your house-door.” The peasant did everything that he had been told to do. When he had doctored people awhile, but not long, a rich and great lord had some money stolen. Then he was told about Doctor Knowall who lived in such and such a village, and must know what had become of the money. So the lord had the horses harnessed to his carriage, drove out to the village, and asked Crabb if he were Doctor Knowall. Yes, he was, he said. Then he was to go with him and bring back the stolen money. “Oh, yes, but Grete, my wife, must go too.” The lord was willing, and let both of them have a seat in the carriage, and they all drove away together. When they came to the nobleman’s castle, the table was spread, and Crabb was told to sit down and eat. “Yes, but my wife, Grete, too,” said he, and he seated himself with her at the table. And when the first servant came with a dish of delicate fare, the peasant nudged his wife, and said: “Grete, that was the first,” meaning that was the servant who brought the first dish. The servant, however, thought he intended by that to say: “That is the first thief,” and as he actually was so, he was terrified, and said to his comrade outside: “The doctor knows all: we shall fare ill, he said I was the first.” The second did not want to go in at all, but was forced. So when he went in with his dish, the peasant nudged his wife, and said: “Grete, that is the second.” This servant was equally alarmed, and he got out as fast as he could. The third fared no better, for the peasant again said: “Grete, that is the third.” The fourth had to carry in a dish that was covered, and the lord told the doctor that he was to show his skill, and guess what was beneath the cover. Actually, there were crabs. The doctor looked at the dish, had no idea what to say, and cried: “Ah, poor Crabb.” When the lord heard that, he cried: “There! he knows it; he must also know who has the money!”
On this the servants looked terribly uneasy, and made a sign to the doctor that they wished him to step outside for a moment. When therefore he went out, all four of them confessed to him that they had stolen the money, and said that they would willingly restore it and give him a heavy sum into the bargain, if he would not denounce them, for if he did they would be hanged. They led him to the spot where the money was concealed. With this the doctor was satisfied, and returned to the hall, sat down to the table, and said: “My lord, now will I search in my book where the gold is hidden.” The fifth servant, however, crept into the stove to hear if the doctor knew still more. But the doctor sat still and opened his A B C book, turned the pages backwards and forwards, and looked for the cock. As he could not find it immediately he said: “I know you are there, so you had better come out!” Then the fellow in the stove thought that the doctor meant him, and full of terror, sprang out, crying: “That man knows ev
erything!” Then Doctor Knowall showed the lord where the money was, but did not say who had stolen it, and received from both sides much money in reward, and became a renowned man.
The Spirit in the Bottle
THERE WAS once a poor woodcutter who toiled from early morning till late at night. When at last he had laid by some money he said to his boy: “You are my only child, I will spend the money which I have earned with the sweat of my brow on your education; if you learn some honest trade you can support me in my old age, when my limbs have grown stiff and I am obliged to stay at home.” Then the boy went to a High School and learned diligently so that his masters praised him, and he remained there a long time. When he had worked through two classes, but was still not yet perfect in everything, the little pittance which the father had earned was all spent, and the boy was obliged to return home to him. “Ah,” said the father, sorrowfully, “I can give you no more, and in these hard times I cannot earn a farthing more than will suffice for our daily bread.” “Dear father,” answered the son, “don’t trouble yourself about it, if it is God’s will, it will turn to my advantage. I shall soon accustom myself to it.” When the father wanted to go into the forest to earn money by helping to chop and stack wood, the son said: “I will go with you and help you.” “Nay, my son,” said the father, “that would be hard for you; you are not accustomed to rough work, and will not be able to bear it. Besides, I have only one axe and no money left wherewith to buy another.” “Just go to the neighbor,” answered the son, “he will lend you his axe until I have earned one for myself.”
The father then borrowed an axe of the neighbor, and next morning at break of day they went out into the forest together. The son helped his father and was quite merry and brisk about it. But when the sun was right over their heads, the father said: “We will rest, and have our dinner, and then we shall work twice as well.” The son took his bread in his hands, and said: “Just you rest, father, I am not tired; I will walk up and down a little in the forest, and look for birds’ nests.” “Oh, you fool,” said the father, “why should you want to run about there? Afterwards you will be tired, and no longer able to raise your arm; stay here, and sit down beside me.”
The son, however, went into the forest, ate his bread, was very merry and peered in among the green branches to see if he could discover a bird’s nest anywhere. So he walked to and fro until at last he came to a great dangerous-looking oak, which certainly was already many hundred years old, and which five men could not have spanned. He stood still and looked at it, and thought: “Many a bird must have built its nest in that.” Then all at once it seemed to him that he heard a voice. He listened and became aware that someone was crying in a very smothered voice: “Let me out, let me out!” He looked around, but could discover nothing; then he fancied that the voice came out of the ground. So he cried: “Where are you?” The voice answered: “I am down here amongst the roots of the oak-tree. Let me out! Let me out!” The schoolboy began to loosen the earth under the tree, and search among the roots, until at last he found a glass bottle in a little hollow. He lifted it up and held it against the light, and then saw a creature shaped like a frog, springing up and down in it. “Let me out! Let me out!” it cried anew, and the boy, thinking no evil, drew the cork out of the bottle. Immediately a spirit ascended from it, and began to grow, and grew so fast that in a very few moments he stood before the boy, a terrible fellow as big as half the tree. “Do you know,” he cried in an awful voice, “what your reward is for having let me out?” “No,” replied the boy fearlessly, “how should I know that?” “Then I will tell you,” cried the spirit; “I must strangle you for it.” “You should have told me that sooner,” said the boy, “for I should then have left you shut up, but my head shall stand fast for all you can do; more persons than one must be consulted about that.” “More persons here, more persons there,” said the spirit. “You shall have the reward you have earned. Do you think that I was shut up there for such a long time as a favor? No, it was a punishment for me. I am the mighty Mercurius. Whoso releases me, him must I strangle.” “Slowly,” answered the boy, “not so fast. I must first know that you really were shut up in that little bottle, and that you are the right spirit. If, indeed, you can get in again, I will believe, and then you may do as you will with me.” The spirit said haughtily: “That is a very trifling feat,” drew himself together, and made himself as small and slender as he had been at first, so that he crept through the same opening, and right through the neck of the bottle in again. Scarcely was he within than the boy thrust the cork he had drawn back into the bottle, and threw it among the roots of the oak into its old place, and the spirit was deceived.
And now the schoolboy was about to return to his father, but the spirit cried very piteously: “Ah, do let me out! ah, do let me out!” “No,” answered the boy, “not a second time! He who has once tried to take my life shall not be set free by me, now that I have caught him again.” “If you will set me free,” said the spirit, “I will give you so much that you will have plenty all the days of your life.” “No,” answered the boy, “you would cheat me as you did the first time.” “You are spurning your own good luck.” said the spirit; “I will do you no harm, but will reward you richly.” The boy thought: “I will venture it, perhaps he will keep his word, and anyhow he shall not get the better of me.” Then he took out the cork, and the spirit rose up from the bottle as he had done before, stretched himself out and became as big as a giant. “Now you shall have your reward,” said he, and handed the boy a little rag just like sticking-plaster, and said: “If you spread one end of this over a wound it will heal, and if you rub steel or iron with the other end it will be changed into silver.” “I must just try that,” said the boy, and went to a tree, tore off the bark with his axe, and rubbed it with one end of the plaster. It immediately closed together and was healed. “Now, it is all right,” he said to the spirit, “and we can part.” The spirit thanked him for his release, and the boy thanked the spirit for his present, and went back to his father.
“Where have you been racing about?” said the father; “why have you forgotten your work? I always said that you would never come to anything.” “Be easy, father, I will make it up.” “Make it up indeed,” said the father angrily, “that’s no use.” “Take care, father, I will soon hew that tree there, so that it will split.” Then he took his plaster, rubbed the axe with it, and dealt a mighty blow, but as the iron had changed into silver, the edge bent: “Hi, father, just look what a bad axe you’ve given me, it has become quite crooked.” The father was shocked and said: “Ah, what have you done? now I shall have to pay for that, and have not the wherewithal, and that is all the good I have got by your work.” “Don’t get angry,” said the son, “I will soon pay for the axe.” “Oh, you blockhead,” cried the father, “wherewith will you pay for it? You have nothing but what I give you. These are students’ tricks that are sticking in your head, you have no idea of woodcutting.” After a while the boy said: “Father, I can really work no more, we had better take a holiday.” “Eh, what!” answered he. “Do you think I will sit with my hands lying in my lap like you? I must go on working, but you may take yourself off home.” “Father, I am here in this wood for the first time, I don’t know my way alone. Do go with me.” As his anger had now abated, the father at last let himself be persuaded and went home with him. Then he said to the son: “Go and sell your damaged axe, and see what you can get for it, and I must earn the difference, in order to pay the neighbor.” The son took the axe, and carried it into town to a goldsmith, who tested it, laid it in the scales, and said: “It is worth four hundred talers, I have not so much as that by me.” The son said: “Give me what you have, I will lend you the rest.” The goldsmith gave him three hundred talers, and remained a hundred in his debt. The son thereupon went home and said: “Father, I have got the money, go and ask the neighbor what he wants for the axe.” “I know that already,” answered the old man, “one taler, six groschen.” “Then
give him two talers, twelve groschen, that is double and enough; see, I have money in plenty,” and he gave the father a hundred talers, and said: “You shall never know want, live as comfortably as you like,” “Good heavens!” said the father, “how have you come by these riches?” The boy then told how all had come to pass, and how he, trusting in his luck, had made such a packet. But with the money that was left, he went back to the High School and went on learning more, and as he could heal all wounds with his plaster, he became the most famous doctor in the whole world.