Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version (14 page)

FIFTEEN

THE MOUSE, THE BIRD AND THE SAUSAGE

A mouse, a bird and a sausage decided to set up home together. For a long time they carried on happily, living within their means and even managing to save a little. The bird’s job was to go into the forest every day and bring back wood for the fire, the mouse had to get water from the well, make the fire and lay the table, and the sausage did the cooking.

But we’re never content with living well if we think we can live better. One day, as the bird was in the forest, he met another bird and boasted about his pleasant way of life. The other bird only called him a poor dupe.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Well, who’s doing the lion’s share of the work? You are. You have to fly back and forth carrying heavy bits of wood, while the other two take it easy. They’re taking advantage of you, make no mistake about it.’

The bird thought about it. It was true that after the mouse had lit the fire and carried the water in, she usually went to her little room and had a snooze before getting up in time to lay the table. The sausage stayed by the pot most of the time, keeping an eye on the vegetables, and from time to time he’d slither through the water to give it a bit of flavouring. If it needed seasoning, he’d swim more slowly. That was more or less all he did. When the bird came home with the wood, they’d stack it neatly by the fire, sit down to eat, and then sleep soundly till the next day. That was how they lived, and a fine way of life it was.

However, the bird couldn’t help thinking about what the other bird had said, and next day he refused to go and gather wood.

‘I’ve been your slave long enough,’ he declared. ‘You must have taken me for a fool. It’s high time we tried a better arrangement.’

‘But this works so well!’ said the mouse.

‘You would say that, wouldn’t you?’

‘Besides,’ said the sausage, ‘this suits our different talents.’

‘Only because we’ve never tried to do it any other way.’

The mouse and the sausage argued, but the bird wouldn’t be denied. Finally they gave in and drew lots, and the job of gathering wood fell to the sausage, of cooking to the mouse, and of fetching water and making the fire to the bird.

What happened?

After the sausage went out to gather some wood, the bird lit the fire and the mouse put the saucepan on the stove. Then they waited for the sausage to come back with the first load of wood, but he was gone so long that they began to worry about him, so the bird went out to see if he was all right.

Not far from the house he came across a dog licking his lips.

‘You haven’t seen a sausage, have you?’

‘Yeah, I just ate him. Delicious.’

‘What d’you mean? You can’t do that! That’s appalling! I’ll have you up before the law!’

‘He was fair game. There’s no sausage season that I know of.’

‘He certainly was not fair game! He was innocently going about his business! This is outright murder!’

‘Well, that’s just where you’re wrong, chum. He was carrying forged papers, and that’s a capital crime.’

‘Forged papers – I’ve never heard such nonsense. Where are they? Where’s your proof?’

‘I ate them too.’

There was nothing the bird could do. In a fight between a dog and a bird, there’s only one winner, and it isn’t the bird. He turned back home and told the mouse what had happened.

‘Eaten?’ she said. ‘Oh, that’s dreadful! I shall miss him terribly.’

‘It’s very sad. We’ll just have to do the best we can without him,’ said the bird.

The bird laid the table while the mouse put the finishing touches to the stew. She remembered how easily the sausage had managed to swim round and round to season it, and thought she could do the same, so she clambered on to the saucepan handle and launched herself in; but either it was too hot and she suffocated, or else she couldn’t swim at all and she drowned, but at all events she never came out.

When the bird saw the vegetable stew coming to the boil with a dead mouse in it, he panicked. He was making up the fire at the time, and in his shock and alarm he scattered the burning logs all over the place and set fire to the house. He raced to the well to get some water to put it out, but got his foot caught in the rope; and when the bucket plunged down the well, down he went with it. So he was drowned, and that was the end of them all.

***

Tale type:
ATU 85, ‘The Mouse, the Bird and the Sausage’

Source:
a story in Hans Michael Moscherosch’s
Wunderliche und Wahrhafftige
Gesichte Philanders von Sittewald
(
The Wonderful True Story of Philander von Sittewald
; 1650)

Unlike
the cat and the mouse
these housemates are not fundamentally ill-matched. They could have lived happily together for a long time, if the bird’s satisfaction had not been fatally undermined. That’s the only moral of this story, but it is a sort of fable, like the tale of the cat and the mouse, so a moral is only to be expected.

Some enquiring readers might like to know what sort of sausage it was. After all, according to the internet, Germany has over 1,500 kinds of sausage: from which could we expect this sort of selfless domesticity? Well, it – I mean he – was a bratwurst. But somehow the word ‘bratwurst’ isn’t as funny as the word ‘sausage’. According to a famous comedian whose name has slipped my mind, ‘sausage’ is the funniest word in the English language. This story would certainly have a different kind of poignancy if it had been about a mouse, a bird and a lamb chop.

SIXTEEN

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

Once upon a time there was a little girl who was so sweet and kind that everyone loved her. Her grandmother, who loved her more than anyone, gave her a little cap made of red velvet, which suited her so well that she wanted to wear it all the time. Because of that everyone took to calling her Little Red Riding Hood.

One day her mother said to her: ‘Little Red Riding Hood, I’ve got a job for you. Your grandmother isn’t very well, and I want you to take her this cake and a bottle of wine. They’ll make her feel a lot better. You be polite when you go into her house, and give her a kiss from me. Be careful on the way there, and don’t step off the path or you might trip over and break the bottle and drop the cake, and then there’d be nothing for her. When you go into her parlour don’t forget to say, “Good morning, Granny,” and don’t go peering in all the corners.’

‘I’ll do everything right, don’t worry,’ said Little Red Riding Hood, and kissed her mother goodbye.

Her grandmother lived in the woods, about half an hour’s walk away. When Little Red Riding Hood had only been walking a few minutes, a wolf came up to her. She didn’t know what a wicked animal he was, so she wasn’t afraid of him.

‘Good morning, Little Red Riding Hood!’ said the wolf.

‘Thank you, wolf, and good morning to you.’

‘Where are you going so early this morning?’

‘To Granny’s house.’

‘And what’s in that basket of yours?’

‘Granny’s not very well, so I’m taking her some cake and some wine. We baked the cake yesterday, and it’s full of good things like flour and eggs, and it’ll be good for her and make her feel better.’

‘Where does your granny live, Little Red Riding Hood?’

‘Well, I have to walk along this path till I come to three big oak trees, and there’s her house, behind a hedge of hazel bushes. It’s not very far away, about fifteen minutes’ walk, I suppose. You must know the place,’ said Little Red Riding Hood.

The wolf thought, ‘Now, this dainty young thing looks a very tasty mouthful. She’ll taste even better than the old woman, but if I’m careful I’ll be able to eat them both.’

So he walked along a while with Little Red Riding Hood, and then he said, ‘Look at those flowers, Little Red Riding Hood! Aren’t they lovely? The ones under the trees over there. Why don’t you go closer so you can see them properly? And you seem as though you’re walking to school, all serious and determined. You’ll never hear the birds if you go along like that. It’s so lovely in the woods – it’s a shame not to enjoy it.’

Little Red Riding Hood looked where he was pointing, and when she saw the sunbeams dancing here and there between the trees, and how the beautiful flowers grew everywhere, she thought, ‘I could gather some flowers to take to Granny! She’ll be very pleased with those. And it’s still early – I’ve got time to do that and still be home on time.’

So she stepped off the path, and ran into the trees to pick some flowers; but each time she picked one she saw an even prettier one a bit further away, so she ran to get that as well. And all the time she went further and further into the wood.

But while she was doing that, the wolf ran straight to the grandmother’s house and knocked on the door.

‘Who’s there?’

‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ said the wolf. ‘I’ve got some cake and wine for you. Open the door!’

‘Just lift the latch,’ said the grandmother. ‘I’m feeling too weak to get out of bed.’

The wolf lifted the latch and the door opened. He went inside, looked around to see where she was, and then leaped on the grandmother’s bed and ate her all up in one big gulp. Then he put on her clothes and put her nightcap on his head, and pulled the curtains tight shut, and got into bed.

All that time, Little Red Riding Hood had been wandering about picking flowers. Once she had gathered so many that she couldn’t hold any more, she remembered what she was supposed to be doing, and set off along the path to her grandmother’s house. She had a surprise when she got there, because the door was open and the room was dark.

‘My goodness,’ she thought, ‘I don’t like this. I feel afraid and I usually like it at Granny’s house.’

She called out, ‘Good morning, Granny!’ but there was no answer.

She went to the bed and pulled open the curtains. There was her grandmother, lying with her cap pulled down and looking very strange.

‘Oh, Granny, what big ears you’ve got!’

‘All the better to hear you with.’

‘Granny, what big eyes you’ve got!’

‘All the better to see you with.’

‘And Granny, what big hands you’ve got!’

‘All the better to hold you with.’

‘And oh, Granny, what a great grim ghastly mouth you’ve got—’

‘All the better to eat you with!’

And as soon as the wolf said that, he leaped out of bed and gobbled up Little Red Riding Hood. Once he’d swallowed her he felt full and satisfied, and since the bed was so nice and soft, he climbed back in, fell deeply asleep, and began to snore very loudly indeed.

Just then a huntsman was passing by.

‘The old woman’s making such a noise,’ he thought, ‘I’d better go and see if she’s all right.’

He went into the parlour, and when he came near the bed he stopped in astonishment.

‘You old sinner!’ he thought. ‘I’ve been looking for you for a long time. Found you at last!’

He raised his rifle to his shoulder, but then he put it down again, because it occurred to him that the wolf might have eaten the old lady, and he might be able to rescue her. So he put down the rifle and took a pair of scissors, and began to snip open the wolf’s bulging belly. After only a couple of snips he saw the red velvet cap, and a few snips later the girl jumped out.

‘Oh, that was horrible!’ she said. ‘I was so frightened! It was so dark in the wolf’s belly!’

And then the grandmother began to clamber out, a bit out of breath but not much the worse for her experience. While the hunter helped her to a chair, Little Red Riding Hood ran outside to fetch some heavy stones. They filled the wolf’s body with them, and then Little Red Riding Hood sewed him up very neatly, and then they woke him up.

Seeing the hunter there with his gun, the wolf panicked and ran outside, but he didn’t get very far. The stones were so heavy that soon he fell down dead.

All three of them were very happy. The hunter skinned the wolf and went home with the pelt, Granny ate the cake and drank the wine, and Little Red Riding Hood thought, ‘What a narrow escape! As long as I live, I’ll never do that again. If mother tells me to stay on the path, that’s exactly what I’ll do.’

***

Tale type:
ATU 333, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’

Source:
a story told to the Grimm brothers by Jeanette and Marie Hassenpflug

Similar stories:
Italo Calvino: ‘The False Grandmother’, ‘The Wolf and the Three Girls’ (
Italian Folktales
); Charles Perrault: ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ (
Perrault’s Complete Fairy Tales
)

I suppose that this and
‘Cinderella’
are the two best-known fairy tales (in Britain, at any rate), and they both owe a great deal of their popularity to Charles Perrault (
see the note to ‘Cinderella’
). His version differs from Grimm mainly in that it ends with the wolf eating Little Red Riding Hood. There is no rescue by a brave huntsman; instead, a moralistic verse warns that not all wolves are wild – some of them are smooth-talking seducers.

The huntsman is an interesting detail. The German forests were not just wildernesses, belonging to no one: their owners were often of princely rank, and after the great demand for ship-building timber and the destruction of the forests to make way for crops and cattle to feed the armies of the Thirty Years War, what they wanted most from their woods was pleasure and recreation: hunting, in a word. As John Eliot Gardiner says in his forthcoming work on J. S. Bach: ‘In terms of influencing the way their [i.e. the princely owners’] woods were managed, the huntsman eclipsed the trained forester (just as the pheasant and the gamekeeper today so often has more sway than the woodman).’

Perhaps a forester, being less confident with wild animals than a huntsman, and less likely to carry a gun, too, would have tiptoed away carefully from the sleeping wolf and left Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother to be digested.

Whatever the likelihood of that, both Perrault and Grimm reinforce the moral of bourgeois respectability. Little Red Riding Hood, in the Grimms’ version, has no need of a moralistic reminder not to leave the path – she’s learned her lesson. (During the panic about paedophilia, it was common to hear this story used to remind children of ‘stranger danger’.) She’ll never leave the path again.

Gustave Doré’s famous engraving, published in 1863 to illustrate an edition of Perrault’s version, showing Little Red Riding Hood actually in bed with the wolf reminds us of part of this story’s power: wolves
are
sexy. And so are foxes, as Beatrix Potter knew when creating and drawing the suave ‘gentleman with the sandy-coloured whiskers’ in
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
(1908), her own variation on the Little Red Riding Hood story. Perrault would have recognized him at once.

Perhaps Charles Dickens’s comment sums up the attraction of the heroine most vividly. ‘Little Red Riding Hood was my first love,’ Bruno Bettelheim quotes him as saying. ‘I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood, I should have known perfect bliss’ (
The Uses of Enchantment
, p. 23).