Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version (25 page)

At that point she would recognize his voice and run, calling for help, only to find herself locked inside the church with her father. Her screams would arouse the guard, and they would break down the door to find the false priest on the point of ravishing her.

At the orders of the king, the villain would be taken away and hanged. After his death his arms and legs would be cut off and buried separately in unconsecrated ground.

That night the queen would wake from troubled dreams to find earthy fingers probing her lips: her father’s right arm. Mad with terror, she would scream for her husband, only to find him in the bed next to her on the point of death by strangulation: her father’s left arm. No one can help but herself. She would tear the arm away from her face and thrust it into the fire, and then do the same with the other from her husband’s throat, and pile on more wood till they blazed up and finally crumbled into ashes.

I think that would work quite well.

THIRTY-ONE

JORINDA AND JORINGEL

Once upon a time there was an ancient castle in the middle of a deep forest, where an old woman lived all by herself. She was a powerful witch. Every day she turned herself into a cat or an owl, and every evening she turned herself back into her human form. She knew how to capture birds and other game, which she would slaughter and then roast and eat. If any man came within a hundred steps of the castle, she would cast a spell over him, making him unable to move until she freed him. If an innocent girl came that close, however, the old woman would change her into a bird and force her into a wicker basket. Then she would carry the basket up to a room in the castle, where she kept more than seven thousand other birds of this kind.

Now at that time there was a girl called Jorinda, who people said was the most beautiful girl in the whole kingdom. She was betrothed to a handsome boy called Joringel. It wasn’t long before their marriage, and they loved nothing more than to be in each other’s company.

One afternoon they wanted to be alone, so they went for a walk in the forest. ‘We must be careful not to go too close to the castle,’ Joringel said.

It was a lovely evening; the sun shone warmly on the tree trunks against the dark green of the deep woods, and turtledoves cooed mournfully in the old beech trees. From time to time Jorinda wept, though she didn’t know why. She sat down in the sunlight and sighed, and Joringel sighed too. They felt as sad as if they were close to death. In the intensity of their emotions they lost track of where they were, and couldn’t find the way home.

When the sun had not quite set, when it was half below and half above the mountains, Joringel, searching for the right path, parted the leaves of a bush and saw the wall of the castle only a few yards away. It was such a shock that he nearly fainted. In the same moment he heard Jorinda beginning to sing:

‘My little bird with the red, red ring,

Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow sing;

My sweet bird with the ring so red,

The lovely turtledove is—’

But she couldn’t complete the verse. Instead Joringel heard a nightingale pouring out its song, and he saw to his horror that there was indeed a nightingale perching on a branch just where Jorinda had been standing. Not only that, but a night owl with glowing eyes was flying around her. It flew around three times, crying: ‘
To-whoo! To-whoo! To-whoo!
’

And Joringel himself had been turned to stone. He couldn’t move, couldn’t cry out, couldn’t even blink. It was almost dark by then. The owl flew into a bush and he lost sight of it, but then the leaves rustled and out came a bent old woman, haggard and yellow, with blood-red eyes and a crooked nose whose tip almost touched her chin. Mumbling to herself, she snatched the nightingale from the branch and carried it away.

And Joringel couldn’t cry out, couldn’t move a muscle. The nightingale was gone.

Before long the old woman came back empty-handed. In a cracked old voice she said, ‘When the moon shines into the basket, Zachiel, set him free.’

And at that moment Joringel felt his limbs loosen, and he was able to move again. He flung himself to his knees before the old woman and cried, ‘Oh, please give me back my Jorinda!’

‘Never!’ said the witch. ‘You’ll never get her back.’

He pleaded, he cried aloud, he wept, but nothing would change her mind. She didn’t stop to listen, but left him crying, ‘Oh, what’s to become of me?’

He left the castle, and made his way to a village where he wasn’t known. There he found work as a shepherd, which kept him there for a long time. He often went back to gaze at the castle, but never went close.

One night he had a strange dream: he dreamed he had found a beautiful red flower with a pearl nestling in its petals. In the dream he plucked the flower and took it to the castle, where he could open every door and every wicker bird cage just by touching it with the flower, and he managed to free his Jorinda.

When he woke up next morning, he set off at once to find the flower from his dream. He searched for eight days, and on the ninth he found a flower as red as blood, with a dewdrop among its petals as large as the finest pearl.

He plucked the flower with the greatest care and set off for the castle. As he passed within the magic circle, he felt nothing stopping him: he was able to move without hindrance as far as the gate. Encouraged by that, Joringel touched the flower to the gate, which immediately sprang open.

He went in and stood in the dismal courtyard listening for the sound of the birds. It wasn’t hard to hear. He followed the sound of their singing and soon found himself in the great room where they were all kept in their seven thousand baskets.

The witch was feeding them at that moment, and when Joringel came in she stopped and turned to him, spitting and screaming with anger. Her curses were appalling, and she spat gall and venom from her wrinkled lips, but nothing touched him, and she couldn’t get close enough to scratch him with her claw-like nails.

He took no notice, but went on freeing the birds one after another, wondering how in the world he would find his Jorinda among so many. But then he noticed that the old woman had taken one basket down and was making for the door.

He leaped across the room and touched the basket with the flower, and it flew open; and he touched the witch with the flower as well, and all her powers fell away. And there was Jorinda, as beautiful as ever, and she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight.

He released all the other birds, and then Joringel and his Jorinda went home, where they were soon married, and they lived together happily for many years.

***

Tale type:
ATU 405, ‘Jorinda and Joringel’

Source:
Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling’s
Heinrich Stillings Jugend
(
Heinrich Stilling’s Youth
; 1777)

This is an oddity, in that it isn’t like a folk tale at all. For one thing, it is the only tale in Grimm in which a description of nature (‘It was a lovely evening; the sun shone warmly . . .’) is there simply for the sake of describing it; for another, the behaviour of the lovers seems to exhibit such an excess of sensibility that it can only belong to literary romanticism. It simply doesn’t feel like a folk tale.

The Grimms’ source for this tale is part of the autobiography of Johann Heinrich Jung (1740–1817), a physician and friend of Goethe and best known by his assumed name, Heinrich Stilling. The motif of the quest for the flower seen in a dream recalls the archetypal work of German Romanticism, Novalis’s
Heinrich von Ofterdingen
(1802). This sort of thing was very much in the air at the time. ‘Jorinda and Joringel’ could be worked up at greater length, but that would take it even further from the realm of the folk tale and firmly into that of the fantasy novel. Whatever you did with it, though, you’d never rid it of the literary flavour it was born with.

The red, red ring in the verse refers to the eye of the turtledove, whose iris does appear like a red ring.

THIRTY-TWO

SIX WHO MADE THEIR WAY IN THE WORLD

There was once a man who could turn his hand to anything. He had fought in the war and conducted himself bravely, but when the war came to an end, he was sent on his way with three pennies, and nothing more.

‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘What sort of pay is this? If I find the right lads to help me, I’ll make the king empty his treasury, you wait and see.’

Furious, he marched off into the forest. He hadn’t gone far before he saw a man pulling up six trees as if they’d been stalks of corn. The soldier said to him, ‘Will you be my servant and go with me?’

‘Certainly,’ said the man, ‘but first I must take this bundle of twigs home to my mother.’

And he took one of the trees and tied it round the rest, and then slung the whole bunch up on his shoulder and carried it away. A little later he came back and went off together with his master, who said, ‘We two will certainly make our way in the world.’

They had gone a little way when they saw a hunter who was down on one knee, taking aim at something they couldn’t see.

The soldier said, ‘Hunter, what are you shooting at?’

‘Two miles from here,’ said the hunter, ‘there’s a fly sitting on the branch of an oak tree. I’m going to shoot out its left eye.’

‘Oh, come with me,’ said the soldier. ‘If we three go together, we’ll certainly make our way in the world.’

The hunter was willing, so off they went. They soon came to seven windmills whose sails were busily turning round and round, even though there wasn’t a breath of wind and not a leaf was stirring on the trees.

‘Well, would you look at that!’ said the soldier. ‘I’ve never seen the like. What can be turning those sails?’

On he went with his two servants, and two miles further on they came to a man sitting in a tree holding one nostril closed and blowing through the other.

‘What are you doing up there?’ said the soldier.

‘Two miles back along the road there are seven windmills. I’m blowing the sails round. I’m surprised you didn’t see them.’

‘Oh, come with me,’ said the soldier. ‘We saw them all right. With a talent like yours, we four will certainly make our way in the world.’

The blower agreed. They walked on, and after a while they came to a man who was standing on one leg, with his other one unhitched on the ground beside him.

‘You look as if you’ve made yourself comfortable,’ said the soldier. ‘Having a rest, are you?’

‘Well, you see, I’m a runner. I go fast – I can’t help it. With both legs on I go faster than a bird can fly.’

‘Oh, come with me,’ said the soldier. ‘That’s a rare talent. Join forces with us, and we’ll certainly make our way in the world.’

The runner joined in with them, and presently they came to a man who was wearing his cap on one side, with the flap over one of his ears.

‘Why are you wearing your hat like that?’ said the soldier. ‘You look half-witted.’

‘Ah, there’s a reason for it,’ said the man. ‘If I put it straight, such a deep frost will fall, all of a sudden, that birds will drop dead out of the air.’

‘Well, we can’t let a gift like that go begging,’ said the soldier. ‘Join the rest of us, and we’ll make our way in the world, all right.’

So he strode along with the rest, and soon they came to a city where the king had just made a proclamation. Whoever ran a race against his daughter and won would marry her and inherit the kingdom. If he lost the race, however, he’d lose his head as well.

The soldier thought this was worth risking, so he went to the king and said, ‘I’ll take on the race, your majesty, on condition that one of my servants can run instead of me.’

‘As you wish,’ said the king, ‘but on the same condition. If he loses, you’ll both go to the scaffold.’

They agreed on the terms: each runner was to be given a jug in which to bring some water from a spring that was a long way off, and the first one back would win. When everything was ready, the soldier buckled on his servant’s leg for him and said, ‘Don’t hang about. It’s your head too, remember.’

The runner and the king’s daughter took their jugs and set off. After less than a minute, when the king’s daughter had only gone a little way, the runner was already out of sight. In no time at all he reached the spring, filled his jug and turned around. Halfway back, though, he felt like taking a nap, so he lay down and closed his eyes, using for a pillow a horse’s skull he found lying on the ground, so he wouldn’t feel too comfortable; he didn’t want to sleep too long and lose the race.

Meanwhile, the king’s daughter, who was much better at running than common people, had reached the spring. She filled her jug and set off at once on the return lap, and soon she came across her opponent lying fast asleep.

‘The enemy’s been delivered into my hands!’ she thought, and emptied his jug before running on.

And everything would have been lost, if the hunter hadn’t happened to be standing on the castle walls, watching it all with his sharp eyes.

‘The king’s daughter shan’t beat us!’ he cried, and he loaded his gun, took aim and shot the horse’s skull out from under the runner’s head, waking him up with a jolt.

The runner sat up and blinked, and saw at once that his jug was empty and that the king’s daughter had overtaken him. Not a bit worried, he raced back to the spring, filled his jug again and sped back to the town, managing to beat the king’s daughter by ten minutes.

‘I was just beginning to stretch my legs,’ he said. ‘It could hardly be called running, what I was doing in the first lap.’

The king wasn’t at all pleased to lose his daughter to a common soldier, and as for the daughter, she liked it even less; so they put their heads together to think of a way of getting rid of both him and his companions. Finally the king said, ‘Ah! I’ve got it. Don’t you worry, we’ll make sure they never see their homes again.’

He went to the six and said, ‘I want to make sure you fellows have a good time. Eat, drink and be merry!’

He led them to a room that had an iron floor, and the doors were made of iron too, and the windows had heavy iron bars. In the middle of the room was a table spread with a splendid feast, and the king said, ‘In you go, and enjoy yourselves!’

As soon as they were all inside, he had the door locked and bolted. Then he sent for the cook and told him to light a fire in the room below, and build it up and keep feeding it till the iron glowed red-hot. The cook did so, and before long the six companions sitting round the table began to feel warm. At first they thought that was because of the food they were eating, but when it got hotter and hotter and they tried to leave the room, they found the door locked and the windows barred. Then they realized what the king was up to: he was intending to burn them alive.

‘Well, let him try,’ said the man with the cap on sideways. ‘I’ll bring a frost that’ll have this fire crawling away in shame.’

So he put his hat on straight, and such a frost set in that the heat faded at once and the food on the table began to freeze. After a couple of hours had gone by the king thought they must all have burned to death, so he had the door opened to see; but he found them all in the best of health. In fact they said they’d like to come outside and warm up a bit, because it was so cold in there that the food had frozen to the plates.

The king was furious, and went downstairs to scold the cook.

‘I thought I told you to make the fire hotter and hotter!’

‘And so I did, your majesty – here it is, look, blazing away!’

When the king saw the raging fire he realized that he hadn’t got the better of the six companions yet, and he’d have to try something cleverer next time.

So he cudgelled his brains and finally thought he had found a way of getting rid of them. He said to the soldier, ‘Look, you’re a man of the world, let’s be straight with each other. If I give you some gold, will you give up the princess and clear off?’

‘Fair enough,’ said the soldier. ‘What about letting me take as much as one of my servants can carry? Then I’ll say cheerio to the princess and we’ll be off.’

‘Just one servant?’

‘Just the one. Give us a couple of weeks and then we’ll come to collect it.’

The king agreed. The soldier went off and summoned all the tailors in the kingdom, and gave them the job of sewing one gigantic sack. It took them two weeks, and when it was ready the strong man, the one who pulled up trees, slung it over his shoulder and went with his master to the king.

The king saw them coming, and said, ‘Who’s that extraordinary fellow carrying that huge bundle of canvas over his shoulder? Good Lord, it’s as big as a hou—’

Suddenly he realized who the man was. ‘Oh no!’ he thought. ‘That’s the servant who’s going to carry the gold – and that’s the sack he’s going to carry it in! I don’t believe it!’

The king ordered his treasurers to bring a ton of gold, thinking that surely that would be enough. It took sixteen mighty bombardiers to carry it all out, but the strong man tossed it into his bag with one hand and said, ‘This hardly covers the bottom. Get a move on and bring some more – we want to leave today.’

Little by little all the king’s treasury was brought out, and the strong man tossed it all into the sack.

‘Still not half full!’ he said. ‘You’ve brought nothing but crumbs so far. Keep going!’

So they had to send for seven thousand wagons filled with gold from all over the kingdom, and the strong man tossed them all into the sack together with the oxen that pulled them.

‘Well, it’s not quite full, but that’ll have to do,’ he said. ‘No point in being greedy about it.’

And he swung the sack up over his shoulder and went off with his companions.

The king watched all this, and when he saw all the wealth of his kingdom disappearing on the back of one man, he lost his temper.

‘Send the cavalry after them!’ he ordered. ‘I won’t stand for this. Bring back that gold!’

The two finest regiments soon caught up with the soldier and his servants, and their commander called out: ‘Hands up! Put down that sack of gold and stand back, or we’ll cut you to ribbons!’

‘What’s that he’s trying to say?’ said the blower. ‘Hands up? Cut to ribbons? Let’s see how you like dancing around in the air.’

He closed one nostril and blew through the other, and in moments every horse and every rider was whirled into the air as if a hurricane was tossing them about, here, there and everywhere. Some went high, some were scattered among the bushes, and one sergeant called out, ‘Mercy! Mercy!’

He was a valiant fellow, who’d been wounded nine times in the king’s service, so the blower and his companions didn’t want to humiliate him, and they let him down gently.

‘Now go back and tell the king to send as many regiments as he wants,’ said the blower, ‘and I’ll make them all dance in the clouds like yours.’

When the king got the message, he said, ‘Oh, let the fellows go. I’ve had enough.’

So the six made their way home, divided up their fortune, and lived happily for the rest of their days.

***

Tale type:
ATU 513A, ‘Six Go Through the Whole World’

Source:
a story told to the Grimm brothers by Dorothea Viehmann

Similar stories:
Alexander Afanasyev: ‘The Seven Semyons’ (
Russian Fairy Tales
); Italo Calvino:
‘The Five Scapegraces’ (
Italian Folktales
); Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: ‘The Six Servants’ (
Children’s and Household Tales
)

The story of the gifted companions lends itself to many variations. The version in Calvino is particularly lively.

The story also works very well in the cinema, where plots involving the recruiting of a team of specialists for some impossible task have often been popular.
Ocean’s Eleven
(Steven Soderbergh, 2001) was one successful version. So, in a different way, was
The Dirty Dozen
(Robert Aldrich, 1967). The French film
Micmacs
(Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2009) is more inventive and charming than either.