Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm

by Philip Pullman

  ‘Just in time!’ he said, and he was about to wring its neck when there was a terrible squawking from across the pond, and an old mother duck flapped out from among the reeds and half swam, half flew across towards him.

  ‘Spare my child!’ she cried. ‘Can you imagine how your own poor mother would feel if someone wanted to eat you?’

  ‘Oh, calm down,’ said the good-natured tailor. ‘You can keep your child.’

  And he set the duckling back on the water.

  When he turned away ready to set off again, he found he was standing in front of an old hollow tree where dozens of wild bees were flying in and out.

  ‘Honey!’ he thought at once. ‘Thank goodness! That’s my reward for sparing the duckling.’

  But he’d hardly moved a step towards the tree when the queen bee came flying out.

  ‘If you touch my people and destroy our nest,’ she said, ‘you’ll be sorry for it. You’ll feel ten thousand red-hot needles piercing your skin. But leave us alone and go on your way, and one day we’ll do you a favour in return.’

  The tailor couldn’t win that one. ‘Three empty dishes and nothing in the fourth,’ he said to himself, ‘makes a miserable dinner.’

  So he dragged himself and his ravening stomach into the town, and since all the clocks were striking twelve, there was food already cooked in the first inn he came to. He sat down and devoured an enormous meal.

  When he was finally satisfied, he said to himself, ‘Well, it’s time to find some work.’

  He set off around the town to find a tailor’s shop, and soon found himself a job. He was a master of his trade, so it wasn’t long before he was well known, and every fashionable person was eager to have a new coat or jacket made by the little tailor. And day by day his reputation grew.

  ‘I can’t get any cleverer,’ he said, ‘so all I can do is get more successful.’

  The summit of his success came when the king appointed him Tailor Royal to the court.

  But strange things happen in this world. On the very same day of his royal appointment, his former companion the shoemaker was appointed Cobbler Royal. When the shoemaker caught sight of the tailor and saw that he had two healthy eyes, he was astonished and alarmed, and his conscience pricked him. ‘Before he takes revenge on me,’ he thought, ‘I’ll dig a pit for him.’

  But whoever digs a pit for someone else falls into it himself. One evening when it was getting dark, the shoemaker went to the king and said humbly, ‘Your majesty, I don’t like to speak ill of anyone, but that tailor fellow has been saying that he can find the golden crown that was lost all that time ago.’

  ‘Oh, he has, has he?’ said the king.

  Next morning he had the tailor summoned.

  ‘I hear you’ve been boasting you can find my golden crown,’ he said. ‘Well, you’d better make good your boast, or leave the city and not come back.’

  ‘Oh ho,’ thought the tailor, ‘I can see the way the wind’s blowing. There’s no point in hanging about if he wants me to do the impossible; I’ll go straight away.’

  He tied up his bundle and made his way to the city gate. Once he was outside, however, he couldn’t help regretting the need to leave this city where he’d been doing so well. He was walking along thinking about it when he came to the pond where he’d made the acquaintance of the ducks. At that moment, the old mother duck whose young one he’d spared was sitting on the grass preening herself, and she recognized him at once.

  ‘Morning,’ she said. ‘What’s the trouble? Why are you down in the dumps?’

  ‘Oh, duck,’ he said, ‘you won’t be surprised once I tell you all about it.’ And he told the duck everything that had happened.

  ‘Well, if that’s all,’ said the duck, ‘you can forget your troubles. The crown is down below at the bottom of the pond. We’ll bring it up for you. Spread your handkerchief out on the grass and enjoy the sunshine.’

  She called her twelve children, and they all dived down and vanished. A couple of minutes later she came up with the crown balanced on her wings.

  ‘Careful now,’ she said to the ducklings. ‘Some of you this side, some of you that . . .’

  They all swam round her supporting the heavy crown with their beaks, and in less than a minute the crown was resting on the tailor’s handkerchief. What a magnificent sight! The sun sparkled on the gold so it shone like a hundred thousand carbuncles.

  The tailor thanked the ducks, tied the four corners of his handkerchief together, and carried the crown to the king. The king was so delighted that he hung a gold chain around the tailor’s neck.

  When the shoemaker saw that his first plan had failed, he thought of another. He went to the king and said, ‘Your majesty, I’m sorry to say that the tailor’s boasting again. His latest claim is that he can make a wax model of the royal palace, every room and every detail, furniture and all, inside and out.’

  The king sent for the tailor and ordered him to make a model like that, every detail, furniture and all.

  ‘And if you fail to include so much as a single nail on a wall, I’ll have you imprisoned underground for the rest of your life,’ said the king.

  The tailor thought, ‘This gets worse and worse. Who could put up with this sort of thing?’

  He slung his knapsack over his back and set off again. He got as far as the hollow tree, and he was so depressed that he just slumped down and hung his head. The bees flying in and out must have told the queen he was there, because very soon she came out and sat on a twig beside him.

  ‘Got a stiff neck?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, hello. No, I’m just hanging my head in despair.’

  And he told her what the king had ordered him to do. The queen bee flew up and had a buzzing conversation with several others, and then she came back down again.

  ‘Just go back to the city now,’ she said, ‘but come back here tomorrow morning and bring a large cloth with you. Don’t worry. It’ll all come right in the end.’

  So he turned back and kept out of the way. Meanwhile, the bees flew to the palace and in through the windows, and buzzed around looking at every single detail. Then they all flew out again and went back to their hive, where they started modelling the palace in wax. They worked so quickly that anyone watching would have sworn it was just growing by itself. By the evening it was all ready. When the tailor came back the next morning, he could hardly believe what he saw. The whole building was there, from the tiles on the roof to the cobbles in the courtyard, and not one single detail was missing, not even a single nail on a wall. What’s more, it was as white and delicate as a snowflake, and it smelled like honey.

  ‘Oh, bees, I don’t know how to thank you!’ said the tailor.

  He placed it in the large cloth, wrapped it as carefully as he possibly could, and carried it all the way to the throne room, taking the greatest care in the world not to drop it or fall over. He got there safely, and unfolded the cloth and showed it to the king, who walked all round staring in at the windows, peering at the sentry-boxes, admiring the details of the ironwork on the balconies.

  He couldn’t admire it enough. He had it set up in the largest hall, and rewarded the tailor with a handsome stone house.

  The shoemaker was beaten once more, but he didn’t give up. He went to the king and said, ‘I’m truly sorry to tell you this, your majesty, but that tailor has been boasting again. He’s heard that there’s no water under the castle courtyard, but he says that’s nothing to a man like him. If he wanted to he could cause a fountain to spring up there as tall as a man, flowing with crystal-clear water.’

  The king sent for the tailor.

  ‘I’ve heard this claim of yours about making a fountain spring up in the courtyard. If you don’t do it I shall look like a fool, and I won’t have that. So you put a fountain of crystal-clear water there as
you’ve promised, or else there’ll be a fountain of your blood when the Executioner Royal cuts your head off.’

  The poor tailor hurried out of the city gate as fast as he could. This time his life was at stake, and he couldn’t stop the tears rolling down his face.

  He wandered out into the country, with no idea how he could possibly fulfil this latest command. As he passed a wide green meadow, the foal he’d given his liberty to some time before came galloping up. He had now become a beautiful chestnut horse.

  ‘The time has come,’ he said to the tailor, ‘for me to repay your kindness. No need to tell me what you want – I know already, and I can make it happen. Just climb on my back. I’m strong enough now to take a brace of tailors.’

  The tailor’s courage came back all at once. With one bound he leaped on the horse’s back, and clung on to his mane as the horse galloped at full speed towards the city. Pedestrians scattered as he charged through the gate and made straight for the castle. Ignoring the sentries, they galloped right up the steps and into the courtyard, where the horse raced round and round faster and faster, the tailor clinging on with all his might, and then crash! The horse fell down right in the middle. At the same moment there was an almighty clap of thunder, a great clump of earth and cobblestones flew straight up into the air and way over the castle roof, and then a spring of water shot into the air as high as a man on horseback. The water was so clear that the sunbeams sparkled on it, making rainbows.

  The king was standing in the doorway, watching in amazement. As the horse got to his feet again and the tailor staggered up, shaking and trembling, the king ran to him and embraced him in the sight of all the court.

  So the tailor was in the king’s good books again, but it didn’t last long. This time the wicked shoemaker took a calculating look at the royal family. The king had plenty of daughters, each one more beautiful than all the others, but no son, and it was known that his majesty was eager for a prince to succeed him on the throne. The shoemaker went to him and said, ‘Your majesty, I’m afraid you won’t like what I’m going to tell you now, but it can’t be hidden. That insolent tailor has boasted that if he wanted to, he could have a son brought to your majesty through the air.’

  That was too much for the king. He summoned the tailor again.

  ‘I hear you’ve been making claims about the succession. I hear that you’ve said you could bring me a son. Well, you’ve got nine days. Bring me a son in that time, and you can marry the eldest princess.’

  The tailor thought, ‘She’d be a prize worth winning. I’d do a lot to marry her, but those cherries are growing too high for me. If I tried to climb that high, the branch would break. What am I going to do now?’

  He went to his workshop, sat himself cross-legged on the bench, and wondered what on earth he could do. Finally he gave up.

  ‘It’s no good!’ he cried. ‘It can’t be done, and I’m going to have to go away for good this time. I can’t live here in peace.’

  He tied up his bundle and set off once again. When he got to the meadow he saw his friend the stork walking slowly up and down, looking just like a philosopher. Every so often he’d stop, look closely at a frog, then pick it up and swallow it.

  Seeing the tailor, the stork strolled over to greet him.

  ‘I see you’re carrying your possessions with you. Are you leaving the city, then?’

  The tailor told him what the trouble was. ‘He keeps asking me to do these impossible things, and with the help of some good friends I’ve managed the other tasks, but this one’s completely beyond me,’ he said.

  ‘Well, don’t let it turn your hair grey,’ said the stork. ‘We storks have a certain expertise in this field. It won’t take me long to fish a little prince out of the well where they grow. Go home, my dear tailor, and put your feet up. Nine days, was it? Go to the palace in nine days’ time, and I’ll meet you there.’

  The little tailor went home feeling much more cheerful, and on the appointed day he went to the palace. Just as he arrived, there was a tapping at the window, and there was the stork. The tailor opened the window and the stork came in, carrying a bundle in his beak. He walked very carefully over the smooth marble floor, and laid the bundle in the lap of the queen, who opened it to find the most beautiful baby boy reaching up his arms for her. She picked him up and caressed him and kissed him, transported with delight.

  Before he flew away, the stork took another bundle off his back and handed it to the king. In it there were combs, mirrors, ribbons and what not, presents for all the princesses except the eldest, because her present was the tailor for a husband.

  ‘It seems to me that I’ve got the best prize of the lot,’ said the tailor. ‘My old mother was right after all. She always used to say that whoever trusts in God can’t fail, as long as his luck holds, that is.’

  The shoemaker had to make the shoes in which the tailor danced at his wedding. After that, though, he was ordered to leave the city for ever. He left in a foul mood and slouched along the road towards the forest, which led him past the gallows. By that time he was worn out; tired, hot, angry and bitter, he threw himself down and was about to fall asleep when the two crows who’d been sitting on the heads of the hanged men flew down and pecked his eyes out. At that point he went mad, and he ran off into the forest, where he must have died of hunger, for he was never seen again.

  ***

  Tale type: ATU 613, ‘The Two Travellers’, continuing as ATU 554, ‘The Grateful Animals’

  Source: a story told to the Grimm brothers by a student named Mein from Kiel

  Similar stories: Alexander Afanasyev: ‘Right and Wrong’ (Russian Fairy Tales); Katharine M. Briggs: ‘The King of the Herrings’ (Folk Tales of Britain); Italo Calvino: ‘The Two Muleteers’ (Italian Folktales); Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: ‘The Queen Bee’, ‘The Sea-Hare’, ‘The White Snake’ (Children’s and Household Tales)

  This tale didn’t appear in the Grimms’ collection until their fifth edition, in 1843. It’s one of the most delightfully vigorous of all the stories; it moves forward without a pause or a hitch, and the two tale types are sewn together so neatly that you can’t see the join. The little tailor himself would be proud of this workmanship. So should the student called Mein, who was the Grimms’ source.

  Like many folk-tale tailors, this one is small, cheerful and lucky. He has a great deal in common with other Grimm protagonists, who, as Jack Zipes points out, ‘come largely from the peasant, artisan, or mercantile class. By the end of many of the tales, these protagonists, whether male or female, experience a rise in fortune that enables them to win a wife or husband, amass a fortune and power . . . The succession to power of lower-class figures is legitimized by their essential qualities of industriousness, cleverness, opportunism, and frankness’ (The Brothers Grimm, pp. 114–15).

  That certainly describes the little tailor, though luck plays a big part in his good fortune as well. As for the shoemaker, he is a villain from the start. Bad luck to him.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  HANS-MY-HEDGEHOG

  Once there was a farmer who had all the money and land he wanted, but despite his wealth there was one thing missing from his life. He and his wife had never had any children. When he met other farmers in town or at the market, they would often make fun of him and ask why he and his wife had never managed to do what their cattle did regularly. Didn’t they know how to do it? In the end he lost his temper, and when he got back home, he swore and said, ‘I will have a child, even if it’s a hedgehog.’

  Not long afterwards his wife did have a child, a boy, as they could see from his bottom half. The top half, though, was a hedgehog. When she saw him, she was horrified.

  ‘See what you’ve done!’ she cried. ‘This is all your fault.’

  ‘It can’t be helped,’ said the farmer. ‘We’re stuck with him. He’ll have to be baptized like
a normal boy, but I don’t know who we can ask to be godfather.’

  ‘And the only name we can give him,’ she said, ‘is Hans-my-Hedgehog.’

  When he was baptized, the priest said, ‘I don’t know what you’ll do for a bed. He can’t sleep on a normal mattress, he’d jab holes all over it.’

  The farmer and his wife saw the truth of that, and put some straw down behind the stove and laid him there. His mother couldn’t suckle him; she tried, but it was too painful altogether. The little creature lay behind the stove for eight years, and his father grew sick to death of him. ‘I wish he’d kick the bucket,’ he thought, but Hans-my-Hedgehog didn’t die; he just lay there.

  One day there happened to be a fair in the town, and the farmer wanted to go. He asked his wife what she’d like him to bring back for her.

  ‘A bit of steak and a half a dozen rolls,’ she said.

  Then he asked the maidservant, and she asked for a pair of slippers and some fancy stockings. Finally he said to his son, ‘Well, what would you like?’

  ‘Papa,’ said Hans-my-Hedgehog, ‘I’d like some bagpipes.’

  When the farmer came back, he gave his wife the steak and the rolls, he gave the maid the slippers and stockings, and finally he went behind the stove and gave Hans-my-Hedgehog his bagpipes.

  Then Hans-my-Hedgehog said, ‘Papa, go to the blacksmith’s and have him make some shoes for the cockerel. Once you’ve done that, I’ll ride away and never come back.’

  The farmer was happy to get rid of him, so he took the cockerel to the blacksmith’s and had him shod. Once that was done, Hans-my-Hedgehog jumped on the cockerel’s back and rode away, taking some pigs with him to tend in the forest.

  When they were in the forest he spurred the cockerel up, and it flew high into a tree with him. There he sat keeping an eye on his pigs and learning how to play the bagpipes. Years went by, and his father had no idea where he was; but the herd grew bigger and bigger and he played more and more skilfully. In fact the music he made was quite beautiful.