The Grimm Chronicles, Vol.3

by Ken Brosky

  “When I think about it properly,” he said to himself, “I have even gained by the trade. First there is the good roast meat, then the quantity of fat which will drip from it, and which will give me goose fat for my bread for a quarter of a year, and lastly the beautiful white feathers. I will have my pillow stuffed with them, and then indeed I shall go to sleep without being rocked. How glad my mother will be!”

  As he was going through the last village, there stood a scissors grinder with his cart, as his wheel whirred he sang,

  “I sharpen scissors and quickly grind,

  My coat blows out in the wind behind.”

  Hans stood still and looked at him. At last he spoke to him and said, “All’s well with you, as you are so merry with your grinding.”

  “Yes,” answered the scissors grinder, “this trade has a golden foundation. A real grinder is a man who as often as he puts his hand into his pocket finds gold in it. But where did you buy that fine goose?”

  “I did not buy it, but traded my pig for it.”

  “And the pig?”

  “I got it for a cow.”

  “And the cow?”

  “I got it for a horse.”

  “And the horse?”

  “For that I gave a lump of gold as big as my head.”

  “And the gold?”

  “Well, that was my wages for seven years’ service.”

  “You have known how to look after yourself each time,” said the grinder. “If you can only get on so far as to hear the money jingle in your pocket whenever you stand up, you will have made your fortune.”

  “How shall I manage that?” said Hans.

  “You must become a grinder, as I am. Nothing particular is needed for it but a grindstone. Everything else takes care of itself. I have one here. It is certainly a little worn, but you need not give me anything for it but your goose. Will you do it?”

  “How can you ask?” answered Hans. “I shall be the luckiest fellow on earth. If I have money whenever I put my hand in my pocket, why should I ever worry again?” And he handed him the goose and received the grindstone in exchange.

  “Now,” said the grinder, picking up an ordinary heavy stone that lay nearby, “here is another good stone for you as well, which you can use to hammer on and straighten your old nails. Carry it along with you and take good care of it.”

  Hans loaded himself with the stones, and went on with a contented heart, his eyes shining with joy. “I must have been born with lucky skin,” he cried. “Everything I want happens to me just as if I were a Sunday's child.”

  Meanwhile, as he had been on his legs since daybreak, he began to feel tired. Hunger also tormented him, for in his joy at the bargain by which he got the cow he had eaten up all his store of food at once. At last he could only go on with great difficulty, and was forced to stop every minute. The stones, too, weighed him down dreadfully, and he could not help thinking how nice it would be if he would not have to carry them just then.

  He crept like a snail until he came to a well in a field, where he thought that he would rest and refresh himself with a cool drink of water. In order that he might not damage the stones in sitting down, he laid them carefully by his side on the edge of the well. Then he sat down on it, and was about to bend over and drink, when he slipped, pushed against the stones, and both of them fell into the water. When Hans saw them with his own eyes sinking to the bottom, he jumped for joy, and then knelt down, and with tears in his eyes thanked God for having shown him this favor also, and delivered him in so good a way, and without his having any need to reproach himself, from those heavy stones which had been the only things that troubled him.

  “No one under the sun is as fortunate as I am,” he cried out. With a light heart and free from every burden he now ran on until he was at home with his mother.

  [ii] Tom Thumb

  by the Brothers Grimm

  A poor woodman sat in his cottage one night, smoking his pipe by the fireside, while his wife sat by his side spinning. “How lonely it is, wife,” said he, as he puffed out a long curl of smoke, “for you and me to sit here by ourselves, without any children to play about and amuse us while other people seem so happy and merry with their children!”

  “What you say is very true,” said the wife, sighing, and turning round her wheel; “how happy should I be if I had but one child! If it were ever so small—nay, if it were no bigger than my thumb—I should be very happy, and love it dearly.”

  Now—odd as you may think it—it came to pass that this good woman’s wish was fulfilled, just in the very way she had wished it; for, not long afterwards, she had a little boy, who was quite healthy and strong, but was not much bigger than my thumb. So they said, “Well, we cannot say we have not got what we wished for, and, little as he is, we will love him dearly.” And they called him Thomas Thumb.

  They gave him plenty of food, yet for all they could do he never grew bigger, but kept just the same size as he had been when he was born. Still, his eyes were sharp and sparkling, and he soon showed himself to be a clever little fellow, who always knew well what he was about.

  One day, as the woodman was getting ready to go into the wood to cut fuel, he said, “I wish I had someone to bring the cart after me, for I want to make haste.”

  “Oh, father,” cried Tom, “I will take care of that; the cart shall be in the wood by the time you want it.”

  Then the woodman laughed, and said, “How can that be? You cannot reach up to the horse’s bridle.”

  “Never mind that, father,” said Tom; “if my mother will only harness the horse, I will get into his ear and tell him which way to go.”

  “Well,” said the father, “we will try for once.”

  When the time came the mother harnessed the horse to the cart, and put Tom into his ear; and as he sat there the little man told the beast how to go, crying out, “Go on!” and “Stop!” as he wanted: and thus the horse went on just as well as if the woodman had driven it himself into the wood. It happened that as the horse was going a little too fast, and Tom was calling out, “Gently! Gently!” two strangers came up.

  “What an odd thing that is!” said one: “there is a cart going along, and I hear a carter talking to the horse, but yet I can see no one.”

  “That is queer, indeed,” said the other; “let us follow the cart, and see where it goes.”

  So they went on into the wood, till at last they came to the place where the woodman was. Then Tom Thumb, seeing his father, cried out, “See, father, here I am with the cart, all right and safe! Now take me down!” So his father took hold of the horse with one hand, and with the other took his son out of the horse’s ear, and put him down upon a straw, where he sat as merry as you please.

  The two strangers were all this time looking on, and did not know what to say for wonder. At last one took the other aside, and said, “That little urchin will make our fortune, if we can get him, and carry him about from town to town as a show; we must buy him.” So they went up to the woodman, and asked him what he would take for the little man. “He will be better off,” said they, “with us than with you.”

  “I won’t sell him at all,” said the father; “my own flesh and blood is dearer to me than all the silver and gold in the world.” But Tom, hearing of the bargain they wanted to make, crept up his father’s coat to his shoulder and whispered in his ear, “Take the money, father, and let them have me; I’ll soon come back to you.”

  So the woodman at last said he would sell Tom to the strangers for a large piece of gold, and they paid the price. “Where would you like to sit?” said one of them. “Oh, put me on the rim of your hat; that will be a nice gallery for me; I can walk about there and see the country as we go along.”

  So they did as he wished; and when Tom had taken leave of his father they took him away with them.

  They journeyed on till it began to be dusky, and then the little man said, “Let me get down, I’m tired.” So the man took off his hat, and put him down on a clod
of earth, in a ploughed field by the side of the road. But Tom ran about amongst the furrows, and at last slipped into an old mouse-hole.

  “Good night, my masters!” said he, “I’m off! Mind and look sharp after me the next time.” Then they ran at once to the place, and poked the ends of their sticks into the mouse-hole, but all in vain; Tom only crawled farther and farther in; and at last it became quite dark, so that they were forced to go their way without their prize, as sulky as could be.

  When Tom found they were gone, he came out of his hiding-place. “What dangerous walking it is,” said he, “in this ploughed field! If I were to fall from one of these great clods, I should undoubtedly break my neck.” At last, by good luck, he found a large empty snail-shell. “This is lucky,” said he, “I can sleep here very well,” and in he crept.

  Just as he was falling asleep, he heard two men passing by, chatting together, and one said to the other, “How can we rob that rich parson’s house of his silver and gold?”

  “I’ll tell you!” cried Tom.

  “What noise was that?” said the thief, frightened; “I’m sure I heard someone speak.”

  They stood still listening, and Tom said, “Take me with you, and I’ll soon show you how to get the parson’s money.”

  “But where are you?” said they. “Look about on the ground,” answered he, “and listen where the sound comes from.”

  At last the thieves found him out, and lifted him up in their hands. “You little urchin!” they said, “what can you do for us?”

  “Why, I can get between the iron window-bars of the parson’s house, and throw you out whatever you want.”

  “That’s a good thought,” said the thieves; “come along, we shall see what you can do.”

  When they came to the parson’s house, Tom slipped through the window-bars into the room, and then called out as loud as he could bawl, “Will you have all that is here?”

  At this the thieves were frightened, and said, “Softly, softly! Speak low, that you may not awaken anybody.”

  But Tom seemed as if he did not understand them, and bawled out again, “How much will you have? Shall I throw it all out?”

  Now the cook lay in the next room; and hearing a noise she raised herself up in her bed and listened. Meantime the thieves were frightened, and ran off a little way; but at last they plucked up their hearts, and said, “The little urchin is only trying to make fools of us.” So they came back and whispered softly to him, saying, “Now let us have no more of your roguish jokes; but throw us out some of the money.” Then Tom called out as loud as he could, “Very well! Hold your hands! Here it comes.”

  The cook heard this quite plain, so she sprang out of bed, and ran to open the door. The thieves ran off as if a wolf was at their tails: and the maid, having groped about and found nothing, went away for a light. By the time she came back, Tom had slipped off into the barn; and when she had looked about and searched every hole and corner, and found nobody, she went to bed, thinking she must have been dreaming with her eyes open.

  The little man crawled about in the hay-loft, and at last found a snug place to finish his night’s rest in; so he laid himself down, meaning to sleep till daylight, and then find his way home to his father and mother. But alas! How woefully he was undone! What crosses and sorrows happen to us all in this world! The cook got up early, before daybreak, to feed the cows; and going straight to the hay-loft, carried away a large bundle of hay, with the little man in the middle of it, fast asleep. He still, however, slept on, and did not awake till he found himself in the mouth of the cow; for the cook had put the hay into the cow’s rick, and the cow had taken Tom up in a mouthful of it. “Good lack-a-day!” said he, “how came I to tumble into the mill?” But he soon found out where he really was; and was forced to have all his wits about him, that he might not get between the cow’s teeth, and so be crushed to death. At last down he went into her stomach. “It is rather dark,” said he; “they forgot to build windows in this room to let the sun in; a candle would be no bad thing.”

  Though he made the best of his bad luck, he did not like his quarters at all; and the worst of it was, that more and more hay was always coming down, and the space left for him became smaller and smaller. At last he cried out as loud as he could, “Don’t bring me any more hay! Don’t bring me any more hay!”

  The maid happened to be just then milking the cow; and hearing someone speak, but seeing nobody, and yet being quite sure it was the same voice that she had heard in the night, she was so frightened that she fell off her stool, and overset the milk-pail. As soon as she could pick herself up out of the dirt, she ran off as fast as she could to her master the parson, and said, “Sir, sir, the cow is talking!” But the parson said, “Woman, thou art surely mad!” However, he went with her into the cow-house, to try and see what was the matter.

  Scarcely had they set foot on the threshold, when Tom called out, “Don’t bring me any more hay!” Then the parson himself was frightened; and thinking the cow was surely bewitched, told his man to kill her on the spot. So the cow was killed, and cut up; and the stomach, in which Tom lay, was thrown out upon a dunghill.

  Tom soon set himself to work to get out, which was not a very easy task; but at last, just as he had made room to get his head out, fresh ill-luck befell him. A hungry wolf sprang out, and swallowed up the whole stomach, with Tom in it, at one gulp, and ran away.

  Tom, however, was still not disheartened; and thinking the wolf would not dislike having some chat with him as he was going along, he called out, “My good friend, I can show you a famous treat.”

  “Where’s that?” said the wolf.

  “In such and such a house,” said Tom, describing his own father’s house. ‘You can crawl through the drain into the kitchen and then into the pantry, and there you will find cakes, ham, beef, cold chicken, roast pig, apple-dumplings, and everything that your heart can wish.”

  The wolf did not want to be asked twice; so that very night he went to the house and crawled through the drain into the kitchen, and then into the pantry, and ate and drank there to his heart’s content. As soon as he had had enough he wanted to get away; but he had eaten so much that he could not go out by the same way he came in.

  This was just what Tom had reckoned upon; and now he began to set up a great shout, making all the noise he could. “Will you be easy?” said the wolf; “you’ll awaken everybody in the house if you make such a clatter.”

  “What’s that to me?” said the little man; “you have had your frolic, now I’ve a mind to be merry myself,” and he began singing and shouting as loud as he could.

  The woodman and his wife, being awakened by the noise, peeped through a crack in the door; but when they saw a wolf was there, you may well suppose that they were sadly frightened; and the woodman ran for his axe, and gave his wife a scythe. “Do you stay behind,” said the woodman, “and when I have knocked him on the head you must rip him up with the scythe.”

  Tom heard all this, and cried out, “Father, father! I am here, the wolf has swallowed me.”

  And his father said, “Heaven be praised! We have found our dear child again,” and he told his wife not to use the scythe for fear she should hurt him. Then he aimed a great blow, and struck the wolf on the head, and killed him on the spot! And when he was dead they cut open his body, and set Tommy free. “Ah!” said the father, “what fears we have had for you!”

  “Yes, father,” answered he; “I have traveled all over the world, I think, in one way or other, since we parted; and now I am very glad to come home and get fresh air again.”

  “Why, where have you been?” said his father. “I have been in a mouse-hole—and in a snail-shell—and down a cow’s throat— and in the wolf’s belly; and yet here I am again, safe and sound.”

  “Well,” said they, “you are come back, and we will not sell you again for all the riches in the world.”

  Then they hugged and kissed their dear little son, and gave him plenty to eat and d
rink, for he was very hungry; and then they fetched new clothes for him, for his old ones had been quite spoiled on his journey. So Master Thumb stayed at home with his father and mother, in peace; for though he had been so great a traveler, and had done and seen so many fine things, and was fond enough of telling the whole story, he always agreed that, after all, there’s no place like home!

  [iii] The Brave Little Tailor

  by the Brothers Grimm

  One summer morning a little tailor was sitting on his table near the window. In good spirits, he was sewing with all his might. A peasant woman came down the street crying, “Good jam for sale! Good jam for sale!”

  That sounded good to the little tailor, so he stuck his dainty head out the window and shouted, “Come up here, my dear woman! You can sell your goods here!”

  The woman carried her heavy basket up the three flights of stairs to the tailor, who had her unpack all of her jars. He examined them, picking each one up and holding it to his nose. Finally he said, “This jam looks good to me. Weigh out four ounces for me, even if it comes to a quarter pound.”

  The woman, who had hoped to make a good sale, gave him what he asked for, then went away angry and grumbling.

  “May God bless this jam to give me health and strength,” said the little tailor. Then taking a loaf of bread from his cupboard, he cut himself a large slice and spread it with the jam. “That is not going to taste bad,” he said, “but I will finish the jacket before I bite into it.”

  He laid the bread aside and continued his sewing, happily making his stitches larger and larger. Meanwhile the smell of the sweet jam rose to the wall where a large number of flies were sitting. Attracted by the smell, a swarm of them settled onto the bread.

  “Hey! Who invited you?” said the little tailor, driving away the unbidden guests. However, the flies, who did not understand German, would not be turned away, and they came back in ever-increasing numbers. Finally, losing his temper, he reached for a piece of cloth and shouted, “Wait, now I’m going to give it to you!” then hit at them without mercy. When he backed off and counted, there were no fewer than seven of them lying dead before him, with their legs stretched out.