The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (11 page)

However, the stepmother had heard about the good fortune of the poor little sister. She had thought that the maiden had long since been torn to pieces by wild beasts, but they had never done anything to her. Indeed, the maiden was now the queen of the realm. The witch was so angry about this that she could only think of some way she might ruin the queen's happiness.

When the queen gave birth to a handsome prince the next year and the king was out hunting, the witch appeared in the form of a chambermaid and entered the room where the queen was recovering from the birth.

“The bath has been prepared for you,” she said. “It will do you good and strengthen you. Come, before the water becomes too cold.”

The witch led the queen into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. Inside there was a brutally hot fire, and the beautiful queen was suffocated to death.

Now the witch had a daughter of her own, and she endowed her with the outward shape of the queen and laid her in bed in place of the queen. In the evening when the king returned home. he didn't realize that he had a false wife. But in the night—and the nurse saw this—the real queen appeared in the room. She went to the cradle, lifted the child to her breast, and suckled him. Then she plumped up his tiny mattress, laid the baby in the cradle again, and covered him. After this, she went into the corner, where the fawn slept, and stroked his back. This was how she came and went every night without saying a word.

One time, however, she entered again and said:

“How's my child? How's my fawn?

Twice more I'll come, then I'll be gone.”

Then she did what she had usually done the other nights. Meanwhile, the nurse woke the king and told him secretly what had occurred. So the next night the king kept watch, and he, too, saw how the queen came, and he clearly heard her words.

“How's my child? How's my fawn?

Once more I'll come, then I'll be gone.”

However, he didn't dare to speak to her. The following night he kept watch again, and the queen said:

“How's my child? How's my fawn?

There's no more time. Soon I'll be gone.”

The king could no longer restrain himself. He sprang forth and embraced her, and as soon as he touched her, she was restored to life, rosy red and well. The false queen was led into the forest, where the wild beasts devoured her. The evil stepmother was burned at the stake, and as the fire consumed her, the fawn was transformed, and brother and sister were once again together and lived happily until the end of their days.

12

RAPUNZEL

Once upon a time there lived a husband and wife who had been wishing for a child many years, but it had all been in vain. Finally, the woman became pregnant.

Now, in the back of their house the couple had a small window that overlooked a fairy's garden filled with all kinds of flowers and herbs. But nobody ever dared to enter it.

One day, however, when the wife was standing at the window and looking down into the garden, she noticed a bed of wonderful rapunzel. She had a great craving to eat some of the lettuce, and yet she knew that she couldn't get any. So she began to waste away and looked wretched. Her husband eventually became horrified and asked what was ailing her.

“If I don't get any of that rapunzel from the garden behind our house, I shall have to die.”

Her husband loved her very much and thought, “No matter what it costs, you're going to get her some rapunzel.”

So one evening he quickly climbed over the high wall into the garden, grabbed a handful of rapunzel, and brought the lettuce to his wife. Then she immediately made a salad and ate it with great zest. However, the rapunzel tasted so good to her, so very good, that her craving for it became three times greater by the next day. Her husband knew that if she was ever to be satisfied, he had to climb into the garden once more. And so he went over the wall into the garden but was extremely terrified when he stood face-to-face with the fairy, who angrily berated him for daring to come into the garden and stealing her rapunzel.

He excused himself as best he could by explaining that his wife was pregnant and that it had become too dangerous to deny her the rapunzel.

“All right,” the fairy finally spoke. “I shall permit you to take as much rapunzel as you like, but only if you give me the child that your wife is carrying.”

In his fear the man agreed to everything, and when his wife gave birth, the fairy appeared at once, named the baby girl Rapunzel, and took her away.

Rapunzel grew to be the most beautiful child under the sun. But when she turned twelve, the fairy locked her in a very high tower that had neither doors nor stairs, only a little window high above. Whenever the fairy wanted to enter the tower, she would stand below and call out:

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,

let down your hair.”

Rapunzel had radiant hair, as fine as spun gold. Each time she heard the fairy's voice, she unpinned her braids and wound them around a hook on the window. Then she let her hair drop twenty yards, and the fairy would climb up on it.

One day a young prince went riding through the forest and came upon the tower. He looked up and saw beautiful Rapunzel at the window. When he heard her singing with such a sweet voice, he fell completely in love with her. However, since there were no doors in the tower and no ladder could ever reach her high window, he fell into despair. Nevertheless, he went into the forest every day until one time he saw the fairy, who called out:

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,

let down your hair.”

As a result, he now knew what kind of ladder he needed to climb up into the tower. He took careful note of the words he had to say, and the next day at dusk, he went to the tower and called out:

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
let down your hair.”

So she let her hair drop, and when her braids were at the bottom of the tower, he tied them around him, and she pulled him up. At first Rapunzel was terribly afraid, but soon the young prince pleased her so much that she agreed to see him every day and pull him up into the tower. Thus, for a while they had a merry time and enjoyed each other's company. The fairy didn't become aware of this until, one day, Rapunzel began talking and said to her, “Tell me, Mother Gothel, why are my clothes becoming too tight? They don't fit me any more.”

“Oh, you godless child!” the fairy replied. “What's this I hear?”

And she immediately realized that she had been betrayed and became furious. Then she grabbed Rapunzel's beautiful hair, wrapped it around her left hand a few times, picked up a pair of scissors with her right hand, and
snip, snap
, the hair was cut off. Afterward the fairy banished Rapunzel to a desolate land, where she had to live in great misery. In the course of time she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl.

On the same day that the fairy had banished Rapunzel, she fastened the braids that she had cut off to the hook on the window, and that evening, when the prince came and called out

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
let down your hair,”

she let the braids down. But when the prince climbed up into the tower, he was astonished to find the fairy instead of Rapunzel.

“Do you know what, you villain?” the angry fairy said. “Rapunzel is lost to you forever!”

In his despair the prince threw himself from the tower. He escaped with his life, but he lost both eyes. Sadly he wandered around in the forest, eating nothing but grass and roots, and did nothing but weep. Some years later, he made his way to the desolate land where Rapunzel was leading a wretched existence with her children. When he heard her voice, it sounded familiar at first, and then he immediately recognized it. She recognized him, too, and embraced him. Two of her tears fell upon his eyes. Then his eyes became clear again, and he could see as usual.

13

THE THREE LITTLE MEN IN THE FOREST

There was a man whose wife died, and he was undecided whether he wanted to marry again. Finally, he took off one of his boots that had a hole in the sole and said to his daughter, his only child: “Take this boot and carry it up to the loft, where you'll find a large nail. Hang the boot on the nail. Then fetch some water, and pour the water into the boot. If it holds the water, I'll get married again. But if it leaks, I'll let things remain as they are.”

The maiden did as she was told. The water drew the hole together, and the boot became full to the brim. The father checked to see for himself whether this was true. Then he said: “Well, now I've got to take a wife.”

So he went and courted a widow who brought a daughter from her first husband with her into the house. When she saw that her stepdaughter was beautiful and that everyone was fond of her, and that her own daughter was ugly, she scolded the stepdaughter whenever she could and only thought of how she might torment her.

One day, in the middle of winter, when the snow was high, the stepmother sewed her a dress made of paper, and when it was finished, she called her stepdaughter to her and said, “I've got a craving to eat strawberries. So put on this dress, go into the forest, and fetch me a basket of strawberries. And don't you dare return home until the basket is full.”

The maiden wept bitter tears and said, “Strawberries don't grow in winter, and even if they were there, they'd be covered by the snow. How am I supposed to find them? It's so cold outside that my breath will freeze. How can I go out in a paper dress? The wind will blow right through the dress, and the thorns will tear it off my body.”

“Don't say one more word!” the stepmother replied. “Get going and look for the strawberries.”

In her jealous heart she thought that the maiden would freeze outside and never return. That's why she had made the thin paper dress. Since the maiden was obedient, she put on the paper dress and went out into the forest. There was nothing but snow, not even a blade of green grass. So she kept going, and when she reached the middle of the forest, she saw a small cottage, and three
little men were looking out the window. She wished them a good day, and since she greeted them so politely, they asked her what she was looking for in the forest dressed in such a thin paper dress when it was wintertime.

“Oh,” she answered, “I'm supposed to look for strawberries, and I'm not allowed to return home until I've gathered a basketful.”

The three little men responded: “Go behind our house and clear the snow away. The strawberries have been protected there and have grown. You'll find enough to fill your basket.”

The maiden thanked them and did as she was told. While she cleared away the snow and gathered the strawberries, the three little men began talking among themselves.

“Since she's been so polite to us and is so beautiful, what gifts should we grant her?”

“I'll make sure that she becomes even more beautiful than she is. This is my gift,” one of the little men said.

“Each time she speaks, golden coins will fall out of her mouth. That will be my gift,” said another one of the little men.

“I'll grant her a king who will come and take her for his wife,” the third little man said.

When the maiden came back to them, they bestowed their gifts on her, and when she wanted to thank them, golden coins fell out of her mouth. Then she went home, and the stepmother was astonished by the strawberries that she had brought with her and was even more astonished when she saw the coins that fell from the girl's mouth. Shortly thereafter, a king came, took the maiden with him, and made her his wife.

Now the mother thought about how she might provide her daughter with the same great fortune. So she sewed her a splendid fur coat and told her to go into the forest and ask the little men for a gift. But the men saw that she had a wicked heart, and instead of giving her good gifts, they gave her bad ones. The first wished that she would freeze in her fur coat as if it were made of paper. The second wished that she would grow uglier with each passing day. The third wished that she would die a miserable death.

The girl returned home shivering, as if her fur coat had been made of paper, and she told her mother what she had encountered, and when her
mother saw that the curses of the three men were starting to take effect, she thought only of avenging herself. So she went to her stepdaughter, who was now the queen, and pretended to be friendly and charming. Consequently, she was welcomed and given her own apartment.

Shortly thereafter the queen gave birth to a prince, and one night, when she was alone and sick and weak, the wicked stepmother lifted her out of the bed with the help of her daughter, and they carried the queen outside to a river and threw her into it. The next morning they told the king that the queen had died during the night.

The following night the kitchen boy saw a duck swimming through the drain into the kitchen, and it asked:

“Are all my guests now sound asleep?”

Then the kitchen boy answered:

“Yes, indeed, you can't hear a peep.”

“How about that baby of mine?”

“He's asleep and doing just fine.”

Then the duck assumed the shape of the queen, went upstairs, suckled and nursed the baby, plumped up his little bed, covered him, and returned to the drain, where she swam away as a duck. This happened the next night too, and on the third night, she said to the kitchen boy, “Go and tell the king to take his sword and swing it three times over my head on the threshold.”

The kitchen boy ran and told the king, and when he swung the sword three times, his wife appeared before him alive and well. The duplicity of the stepmother and her daughter was now clear as day, and they were cast into the forest to be devoured by wild animals.

14

NASTY FLAX SPINNING

In olden times there lived a king who loved flax spinning more than anything else, and his daughters had to spin the entire day. If he didn't hear the wheels humming, he became angry. One time he had to take a trip, and
before he said his farewell, he gave a large casket of flax to the queen and said: “All this must be spun by the time I return.”