The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (57 page)

“All right,” said the huntsman. “I'll get her for you soon enough.”

“But wait, there's something else,” the giants continued. “There's a little dog that starts barking as soon as anyone approaches, and when it barks, everyone at the royal court wakes up. That's why we can't get in. Do you think you can shoot the little dog?”

“Certainly,” he said. “That's just trifling sport for me.”

Soon after that the huntsman got on a boat and sailed over the river, and as soon as he landed, the little dog came running and was about to bark when the huntsman took out his air gun and shot it dead. When the giants saw that, they rejoiced, thinking that they had the princess for sure, but the huntsman wanted first to check on things at the castle and told them to stay outside until he called them. So he went into the castle, where everyone was asleep, and it was dead quiet. When he opened the door to the first room, he saw a saber of pure silver hanging on the wall. It had a gold star on it, and the king's name was inscribed on the handle. Nearby on a table lay a sealed letter, which he opened, and it said that whoever had possession of the saber could kill anything he encountered. So he took the saber from the wall, went to the entrance, and called the giants to come in. However, he told them he couldn't get the door to open completely and that they had to crawl through a hole. So the first giant came and crawled inside, and as soon as his head appeared, the huntsman took the saber and sliced off his head and shoved his body completely inside. Then he called the second giant and sliced his head off, too, and shoved him inside. Finally, he called the third giant and told him that they already had the princess. So he came crawling inside, and he fared no better than the two other giants. This was how the huntsman saved the princess from the giants.

After this he closed the hole and went on to explore the castle. Next he came to the room where the princess was lying asleep. She was so beautiful that he stopped in his tracks, gazed at her, and held his breath. He looked around some more and saw a pair of slippers underneath her bed. Her father's name and a star were on the right slipper, and on the left, her own
name and a star. She was also wearing a large, silk neckerchief embroidered with gold. Her father's name was on the right side, and her own on the left, all in gold letters. The huntsman took a pair of scissors, cut off the right corner of the neckerchief, and slipped it into his knapsack. He also put in the right slipper with the king's name on it. The maiden kept sleeping, all wrapped up in her nightgown. Then he cut off a piece of the gown as well, without touching her, and put it into his knapsack with the rest of the articles. After that he went away and let her sleep undisturbed. When he came to the place where the giants were lying, he cut out all three of their tongues from their heads and stuck them in his knapsack. Finally, he decided to take everything home and show it all to his father.

When the king woke up in the castle, he saw the three giants lying there dead. Then he went into his daughter's bedchamber, woke her up, and asked her who could have possibly come and killed the giants.

“Dear father,” she said, “I don't know. I was asleep.”

When she got up and wanted to put on her slippers, the right one was missing, and when she looked at her neckerchief the right corner had been cut off and was missing. Then she glanced down at her nightgown and saw that a piece had been taken out of it. The king ordered the entire court to assemble, all the soldiers and everyone who was there, and he asked who had killed the giants.

Now, the king had an ugly, one-eyed captain, who claimed that he had done it. Thereupon the old king announced that he was entitled to wed his daughter since he had saved her. But the maiden said, “Dear father, I'd rather leave home and go as far away from here as my legs will carry me than marry him.”

Since she refused to marry the captain, the king commanded her to take off her royal garments, put on peasant clothes, and leave the court. He ordered her, furthermore, to go to a potter and start selling pottery. So she took off her royal garments, went to a potter, and borrowed a stock of his earthenware. She promised to pay him back if she sold everything by evening. Then the king told her to go sit by the roadside and sell the earthenware. In the meantime, he ordered some farmers to drive their wagons over her wares and crush everything into a thousand pieces. When the
princess set out her wares along the road, the wagons came and smashed everything to pieces. She burst into tears and said, “Oh, Lord, how am I going to pay the potter now?”

This was the way that the king wanted to force her to marry the captain. However, she went back to the potter and asked him if he would lend her some more earthenware. He told her no, not until she paid for the stock that he had already given her. So she went to her father and screamed and told him she wanted to go far away from there.

He answered that she was to go into the forest where he was going to have a cottage built for her. She was to stay there for the rest of her life and cook for anyone who came along. But she was not allowed to accept money for this.

When the cottage was finished, a sign was hung outside the door, and on it was written “Today for nothing, tomorrow for money.” She lived there a long time, and news spread throughout the world that a maiden was living there who cooked for nothing, just as the sign said on the door. Word of this also reached the huntsman, and he thought, “That's something for you. After all, you're poor and have no money.” So he took his air gun and knapsack, in which he had put all the tokens he had taken from the castle, went into the forest, and found the cottage with the sign, “Today for nothing, tomorrow for money.” Now, he was still wearing the saber with which he had cut off the heads of the giants, and he carried it into the cottage with him. He asked to have something to eat and was delighted to see the beautiful maiden, who was as pretty as a picture. She asked him where he had come from and where he was going, and he replied, “I'm just traveling about the world.”

Then she asked him where he had got the saber, for her father's name was on it. In response, he inquired whether she was the king's daughter.

“Yes,” she answered.

“With this saber,” he said, “I cut off the heads of three giants,” and as proof he took the tongues out of his knapsack. Then he also showed her the slipper, the corner of her neckerchief, and the piece of nightgown. All at once she was overcome with joy, for she realized that he was the one who had saved her. Then they went to the old king together, and she led
her father into her room and told him that the huntsman was the one who had saved her. When the old king saw the proof, all his doubts vanished, and he said he was glad and that the huntsman was entitled to marry the princess, and the princess was tremendously happy.

So now they dressed up the huntsman as a foreign lord, and the king had a banquet prepared. When they went to the table, the captain came and sat on the left side of the princess and the huntsman, on the right. The captain thought that the huntsman was a foreign lord who had come for a visit. When they had finished eating and drinking, the old king said to the captain that he wanted him to solve a riddle: how would it be possible if someone said he had killed three giants but couldn't find their tongues when asked to look for them?

“They probably never had any tongues,” said the captain.

“Not so,” replied the king. “Every creature has a tongue,” and he asked the captain what a person deserved if he were to deceive a king.

“He should be torn to pieces,” the captain replied.

The king told him he had pronounced his own sentence. The captain was thrown into prison and subsequently torn into four pieces. The princess, though, was wed to the huntsman, and he returned home to fetch his father and mother, who came to live happily with their son, and after the old king's death he inherited the kingdom.

26

THE FLESHING FLAIL FROM HEAVEN

A farmer once set out to plow with a pair of oxen. When he got to his field, the horns of both oxen began to grow. They grew and grew, and by the time he was ready to go home, the horns were so big that the oxen would not fit through the farm gate. Fortunately, a butcher happened to come along at that moment and was willing to take them over. They agreed that the farmer would bring a measure of turnip seeds to the butcher, and the butcher was to pay one Brabant gold coin for each seed. That's what I call a good bargain!

Now, the farmer went home, got the measure of turnip seeds, and carried them in a sack. However, along the way one little seed fell out of the
sack. The butcher paid him the price agreed upon. Now, as the farmer was on his way back home, the seed had grown into a tree that reached all the way to heaven.

“Oh,” thought the farmer, “you can't let an opportunity like this pass you by. You've got to go up and see for yourself what the angels are doing there.” So he climbed up and saw the angels threshing oats. He watched them doing this, and while he was watching, he noticed that the tree he was standing on had begun to wobble. He looked down and saw that somebody was chopping it down. “It'd be terrible,” he thought, “if you were to fall all the way down.” Given his desperate situation, he could think of nothing better to do than to twist a rope out of the oat chaff that lay there in heaps. After that he grabbed a hoe and a fleshing flail that were lying around there in heaven, and he let himself down by the rope. However, when he landed on earth, he landed in a deep, deep hole, so he was lucky to have taken the hoe because he was able to hack out steps for himself. He climbed the steps and took the flail with him because he wanted to have proof if anyone ever doubted his story.

27

THE CHILDREN OF THE TWO KINGS

Once upon a time there was a king who had a little boy, and according to the constellation of the stars, it was predicted that he would be killed by a stag when he turned sixteen. One day, when he had reached that age, the huntsmen went out hunting with him in the forest, but the prince got separated from them. Suddenly, he saw a big stag and kept trying to shoot it, without much success. Finally, the stag ran away and led him on a chase until they were out of the forest. All at once a big, lanky man was standing there instead of the stag and said, “Well, it's a good thing I've got you now. I wore out six pair of glass skates chasing after you and could never catch you.”

He took the prince with him and dragged him across a large lake toward a big royal castle. Once there the prince had to sit down at a table and eat something with the man. After they had eaten together, the king said, “I've got three daughters and want you to watch over the oldest one
for me from nine in the evening until six in the morning. Each time the clock strikes the hour, I shall come and call you. If you don't answer me, you will be put to death in the morning. However, if you answer you shall have my daughter for your wife.”

When the young people went up to the bedchamber, there was a stone statue of Saint Christopher standing there, and the king's daughter said to him, “My father will come at nine o'clock and every hour until the clock strikes six. If he asks anything, I want you to answer him in place of the prince.”

The stone Saint Christopher nodded his head very fast, then more and more slowly until he finally came to a stop. Meanwhile, the prince lay down on the threshold and fell asleep. The next morning the king said to the young prince, “You've done well, but I can't give you my daughter. Now, I want you to watch over my second daughter. Then I'll consider giving you my oldest daughter for your wife. I shall come every hour on the hour, and when I call, you must answer me. If you don't answer, your blood will flow.”

The prince went with the second daughter up to the bedchamber, where there was a stone statue of Saint Christopher, much larger than the first, and the king's daughter said to him, “If my father asks a question, I want you to answer.”

The big stone Saint Christopher nodded his head very fast, then more and more slowly until he came to a stop. The prince lay down on the threshold, put his hand under his head, and went to sleep. The next morning the king said to him, “You've done well, but I can't give you my daughter. Now, I want you to watch over my youngest daughter. Then I'll consider giving you the second for your wife. I shall come every hour, and when I call, answer me. If you don't answer me when I call, your blood will flow.”

Again the prince went with the youngest daughter up to the chamber, and there stood a Saint Christopher, much bigger and taller than the other two. The king's daughter said to him, “When my father calls, I want you to answer.”

The big, tall Saint Christopher nodded his head for a good hour before he came to a stop, and the prince lay down on threshold and fell asleep. The next morning the king said, “Indeed, you kept watch very well, but I
can't give you my daughter yet. Now, I've got a large forest, and if you cut it down for me between six this morning and six this evening, I'll consider giving her to you.”

The king gave him a glass axe, a glass wedge, and a glass pickaxe. When the prince reached the forest, he began chopping right away, and the axe broke in two. Then he took the wedge and began hitting it with the pickaxe, but it splintered into tiny pieces the size of grains of sand. This made the prince very downcast, for he thought he would now have to die. So he sat down and wept.

At noon the king said, “One of you girls must bring him something to eat.”

“No,” said the oldest, “we won't bring him anything. Let the one he watched over last take him something.”

So the youngest daughter had to go and bring him something to eat. When she reached the forest, she asked him how everything was going.

“Oh,” he said, “things are going very badly.”

She told him to come over to her and have a little something to eat.