Then, laying her ugly daughter in the bed, the old woman covered her up, even over her head; and when the King came back he wished to speak to his wife, but the old woman exclaimed, “Softly, softly! do not go near her; she is lying in a beautiful sleep, and must be kept quiet to-day.” The King, not thinking of any evil design, came again the next morning the first thing; and when he spoke to his wife, and she answered, a toad sprang out of her mouth at every word, as before a piece of gold had done. So he asked what had happened, and the old woman said, “That is produced by her weakness, she will soon lose it again.”
But in the night the kitchen-boy saw a duck swimming through the brook, and the duck said,
King, King, what are you doing!
Are you sleeping, or are you waking!
And as he gave no answer, the duck said,
What are my guests a-doing!
Then the boy answered,
They all sleep sound.
And she asked him,
How fares my child!
And he replied,
In his cradle he sleeps.
Then she came up in the form of the Queen to the cradle, and gave the child drink, shook up his bed, and covered him up, and then swam again away as a duck through the brook. The second night she came again, and on the third she said to the kitchen-boy, “Go and tell the King to take his sword, and swing it thrice over me, on the threshold.” Then the boy ran and told the King, who came with his sword, and swung it thrice over the duck; and at the third time his bride stood before him, bright, living, and healthful, as she had been before.
Now the King was in great happiness, but he hid the Queen in a chamber until the Sunday when the child was to be christened; and when all was finished he asked, “What ought to be done to one who takes another out of bed and throws her into the river?” “Nothing could be more proper,” said the old woman, “than to put such an one into a cask, stuck round with nails, and to roll it down the hill into the water.” Then the King said, “You have spoken your own sentence;” and, ordering a cask to be fetched, he caused the old woman and her daughter to be put into it, and the bottom being nailed up, the cask was rolled down the hill until it fell into the water.
The Three Spinsters
There was once a lazy girl who would not spin, and let her mother say what she would she could not get her to work. At last the mother, getting both angry and impatient, gave her a blow, which made the girl cry very loud; just then the Queen, passing by, heard the noise, and, stopping the carriage, she stepped into the house, and asked the mother why she beat her daughter in such a way that the passers-by in the street heard her shrieks. The mother, however, was ashamed that her daughter’s laziness should be known, and said, “I cannot make her leave off spinning; she will spin for ever and ever, and I am so poor that I cannot procure the flax.” The Queen replied, “I never heard any thing I like better than spinning, and I am never more pleased than when the wheels are whirring. Let your daughter go with me to the castle; I have flax enough, and she may spin as much as she pleases.” The mother was very glad at heart, and the Queen took the girl home with her. As soon as they entered the castle she led her up into three rooms, which were all full of the finest flax from top to bottom. “Now, spin this flax for me,” said the Queen, “and, when you have prepared it all, you shall have my eldest son for a husband. Although you are poor, I do not despise you on that account; your unwearied industry is dowry enough.” The girl, however, was inwardly frightened, for she could not have spun the flax had she sat there from morning till night until she was three hundred years old. When she was left alone she began to cry, and thus she sat three days without stirring a hand. On the third day the Queen came, and when she saw that nothing was yet spun she wondered, and the maiden excused herself by saying that she had not been able to begin yet, on account of her great sorrow at leaving her mother’s house. So the Queen was satisfied; but on leaving she said, “You must begin to work for me to-morrow.”
As soon as the girl was again alone she knew not how to act or help herself, and in her vexation she went and looked out of the window. She saw three women passing by, the first of whom had a broad flat foot, the second such a large under-lip that it reached nearly to her chin, and the third a very big thumb. They stopped before the window, and looking up asked the girl what she wanted. She told them her trouble, and they offered her their help, saying, “Will you invite us to the wedding, and not be ashamed of us, but call us your aunts, and let us sit at your table? If you do all these, we will spin the flax in a very short time for you.”
“With all my heart,” replied the girl; “come in and begin at once.” Then she let in these three women, and, making a clear place in the first room, they sat themselves down and began spinning. One drew the thread and trod the wheel, the other moistened the thread, and the third pressed it and beat with her fingers on the table; and as often as she did so a pile of thread fell on the ground, which was spun in the finest manner. The girl hid the three spinsters, however, from the Queen, and showed her, as often as she came, the heaps of spun yarn; so that she received no end of praise. When the first room was empty the three women went to the second, and at length to the third, so that soon all was cleared out. Now the three spinsters took leave, saying to the girl, “Do not forget what you promised us; it will make your fortune.”
When the girl showed the Queen the empty rooms and the great pile of thread, the wedding was performed, and the bridegroom was glad that he had such a clever and industrious wife, and praised her exceedingly.
“I have three aunts,” said the girl, “who have done me much service; so I would not willingly forget them in my good fortune. Allow me, therefore, to invite them to the wedding, and sit with me at table.” The Queen and the bridegroom asked, “Why should we not allow it?”
When the feast was begun the three old maids entered in great splendour, and the bride said, “You are welcome dear aunts.”
“Ah,” said the bridegroom, “how do you come by such ugly friends?” and, going up to the one with the big foot, he asked, “Why have you such a broad foot?”—“From treading, from treading,” she replied. Then he went to the second and asked, “Why have you such an overhanging lip?”—“From licking,” she answered, “from licking.” Then he asked the third, “Why have you such a broad thumb?”—“From pressing the thread,” she replied, “from pressing the thread.” At this the Prince was frightened, and said, “Therefore my bride shall never touch a spinning-wheel again.”
And so she was set free from the unlucky flax-spinning.
Hansel and Grethel2
Once upon a time there dwelt near a large wood a poor woodcutter with his wife and two children by his former marriage, a little boy called Hansel, and a girl named Grethel. He had little enough to break or bite, and once, when there was a great famine in the land, he could not procure even his daily bread; and as he lay thinking in his bed one evening, rolling about for trouble, he sighed, and said to his wife, “What will become of us? How can we feed our children when we have no more than we can eat ourselves?”
“Know, then, my husband,” answered she, “we will lead them away quite early in the morning into the thickest part of the wood, and there make them a fire, and give them each a little piece of bread; then we will go to our work and leave them alone, so they will not find the way home again and we shall be freed from them.” “No, wife,” replied he, “that I can never do; how can you bring your heart to leave my children all alone in the wood, for the wild beasts will soon come and tear them to pieces?”
“Oh, you simpleton!” said she, “then we must all four die of hunger; you had better plane the coffins for us.” But she left him no peace till he consented, saying, “Ah, but I shall regret the poor children.”
The two children, however, had not gone to sleep for very hunger, and so they overheard what the stepmother said to their father. Grethel wept bitterly, and said to Hansel, “What will become of us?” “Be quiet, Grethel,” said he; “do not cry, I will soon help you.” And as soon as their parents had fallen asleep, he got up, put on his coat, and, unbarring the back-door, slipped out. The moon shone brightly, and the white pebbles which lay before the door seemed like silver pieces, they glittered so brightly. Hansel stooped down, and put as many into his pocket as it would hold, and then going back he said to Grethel, “Be comforted, dear sister, and sleep in peace; God will not forsake us;” and so saying he went to bed again.
Hansel and Grethel
The next morning, before the sun arose, the wife went and awoke the two children. “Get up, you lazy things; we are going into the forest to chop wood.” Then she gave them each a piece of bread, saying, “There is something for your dinner; do not eat it before the time, for you will get nothing else.” Grethel took the bread in her apron, for Hansel’s pocket was full of pebbles; and so they all set out upon their way. When they had gone a little distance Hansel stood still, and peeped back at the house; and this he repeated several times, till his father said, “Hansel, what are you peeping at, and why do you lag behind? Take care, and remember your legs.”
“Ah! father,” said Hansel, “I am looking at my white cat sitting upon the roof of the house, and trying to say good-bye.” “You simpleton!” said the wife, “that is not a cat; it is only the sun shining on the white chimney.” But in reality Hansel was not looking at a cat; but every time he stopped he dropped a pebble out of his pocket upon the path.
When they came to the middle of the wood the father told the children to collect wood, and he would make them a fire, so that they should not be cold; so Hansel and Grethel gathered together quite a little mountain of twigs. Then they set fire to them, and as the flame burnt up high the wife said, “Now, you children, lie down near the fire and rest yourselves, whilst we go into the forest and chop wood; when we are ready, I will come and call you.”
Hansel and Grethel sat down by the fire, and when it was noon each ate the piece of bread, and, because they could hear the blows of an axe, they thought their father was near; but it was not an axe, but a branch which he had bound to a withered tree, so as to be blown to and fro by the wind. They waited so long that at last their eyes closed from weariness, and they fell fast asleep. When they awoke it was quite dark, and Grethel began to cry; “How shall we get out of the wood?” But Hansel tried to comfort her by saying, “Wait a little while till the moon rises, and then we will quickly find the way.” The moon soon shone forth, and Hansel, taking his sister’s hand, followed the pebbles, which glittered like new-coined silver pieces, and showed them the path.
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