Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm

by Philip Pullman

  They went home, and once again Two Eyes left her scraps of food untouched. This time it was a few crusty bits of burnt pastry. Three Eyes and their mother couldn’t wait to hear what had happened out in the meadow, but all One Eye could say was, ‘I dunno. I fell asleep. Well, it was hot.’

  ‘Useless!’ said their mother. ‘Tomorrow, you go, Three Eyes. There must be something going on.’

  So next morning Three Eyes said to Two Eyes, ‘I’m coming with you today, and I’m going to keep a close eye on what you’re up to.’

  Off they went with the little goat. Two Eyes could see at once that Three Eyes was up to the same trick as One Eye had been, so as soon as they were safely in the meadow and Three Eyes had slumped down by the hedge, she began to sing:

  ‘Three Eyes, are you awake?’

  But then instead of singing, as she meant to,

  ‘Three Eyes, are you asleep?’

  she sang:

  ‘Two Eyes, are you asleep?’

  And she kept singing:

  ‘Three Eyes, are you awake?

  Two Eyes, are you asleep?’

  Gradually two of Three Eyes’s eyes closed as they became drowsy, but the third one didn’t close because Two Eyes hadn’t sung it to sleep. Three Eyes let the eyelid droop and seem to close, but she was only pretending. That eye could see perfectly.

  When Two Eyes thought Three Eyes was asleep, she sang:

  ‘Little goat, bleat,

  Bring me good things to eat.’

  The table appeared at once. This time there was beetroot soup, a big meat pie and a delicious cake. Two Eyes ate and drank happily till she was full, and then sang:

  ‘Little goat, bleat,

  I’ve had all I can eat,’

  and the table disappeared.

  Three Eyes was watching everything, but she closed her third eye quickly when Two Eyes came over to wake her up.

  ‘Come on, Three Eyes!’ said Two Eyes. ‘You’ve been asleep all day. It’s a good thing I was here to look after the goat. Come on, let’s go home.’

  When they got back to the house, Two Eyes again refused the food they gave her. It was the water some cabbage had been boiled in.

  The mother took Three Eyes aside and said, ‘Well? What happened? Did you see?’

  ‘Yes, I did. She tried to send me to sleep, but my third eye stayed awake. What she does is sing to the goat like this:

  “Little goat, bleat,

  Bring me good things to eat,”

  and a table all covered with lovely food just comes out of nowhere and she eats as much as she wants. Then she sings:

  “Little goat, bleat,

  I’ve had all I can eat,”

  and it disappears. Honest! It’s true! I saw it. She put two of my eyes to sleep, but the third one stayed awake.’

  Well, the mother was furious when she heard that. She yelled, ‘Two Eyes! Come here at once! What makes you think you’re better than us, eh? Playing magic tricks with the goat! How dare you! I’ll make you sorry, just you watch.’

  And she took the biggest knife in the kitchen and stabbed the little goat in the heart, so that it fell dead on the floor.

  Two Eyes ran outside at once and ran all the way to the meadow, and burst into tears. She sobbed and sobbed for the poor little goat, which had never done anything wrong, and for herself, too.

  Then she realized that the wise woman was standing there.

  ‘Why are you crying, Two Eyes?’ she said.

  ‘I can’t help it,’ said Two Eyes. ‘My mother stabbed the poor little goat in the heart and killed it, and now it’s dead and I’ll never be able to ask it for a table of food again.’

  ‘Let me give you some good advice,’ said the wise woman. ‘Ask your sisters to give you the entrails of the goat, and bury them in the garden near the front door. That will bring you luck.’

  Then she disappeared. Two Eyes went slowly home and said to her sisters, ‘I’d like to have something to remember the goat by. Can I just have the entrails?’

  ‘Well, if that’s all you want,’ said One Eye, and Three Eyes said, ‘Oh, let her have them. She might stop snivelling then.’

  Two Eyes put the entrails of the goat in the washing-up bowl and carried them out to the front garden, where she buried them in a little patch of grass.

  Next morning there was a beautiful tree standing there. Its leaves were made of silver, and among them there were dozens of fruits the size of apples, made of solid gold. No one had ever seen a lovelier tree, and of course no one had any idea about how it had grown in the night; only Two Eyes knew, because it was growing in the spot where she’d buried the entrails of the goat.

  As soon as the mother saw it, she said, ‘Up you go, One Eye, climb up and get some of that golden fruit.’

  One Eye climbed up, huffing and puffing, and tried, but each time she reached for a golden apple, the branch pulled itself up out of her reach. She grabbed for this one and that one, but she couldn’t so much as touch one, no matter what she did.

  ‘Useless,’ said the mother. ‘She can’t see what she’s doing. Three Eyes, you get up there. You can probably see better than she can.’

  One Eye came down and Three Eyes clambered up, but in spite of her better eyesight, she got on no better than her sister. Every time she reached for an apple, the branch moved just enough to take it out of reach, and finally she had to give up.

  ‘Can I try?’ said Two Eyes. ‘Maybe I’ll have more luck.’

  ‘You, you freak?’

  ‘Yes, monster, what makes you think you can do any better than us?’

  Two Eyes climbed the tree, and instead of pulling themselves out of her reach the apples positively dropped into her hands. She gathered more and more until she had a whole apron full. When she climbed down, her mother took them away, and instead of treating her better because she was the only one who could reach the fruit, One Eye and Three Eyes grew envious and spiteful, and treated her even worse than before.

  Now one day when they were all in the garden, a young knight happened to ride by.

  The sisters saw him coming and said, ‘Quick, Two Eyes! Under the barrel! If he sees you, he’ll think we’re all horrible to look at!’

  And they shoved her under a barrel that stood near the tree, together with the golden apples she’d already picked. Then they stood by the tree, preening themselves and simpering. As the knight came closer, they could see how handsome he was and what fine armour he was wearing.

  ‘Well, good morning, ladies,’ he said, getting off his horse. ‘That’s a splendid tree you have there. Gold and silver! If I could have a branch of it, you could have anything you wanted in exchange.’

  ‘Oh, yes, the tree belongs to us,’ said One Eye.

  ‘It’s completely ours,’ said Three Eyes. ‘I’ll break off a branch for you.’

  But when she tried, there was the same result as before, and One Eye had no success either. However quickly they reached for a branch, it would always snatch itself out of their reach.

  ‘That’s odd,’ said the knight. ‘You say the tree is yours, but it won’t let you pick anything from it.’

  ‘Oh, it’s ours all right,’ said One Eye.

  ‘It’s just shy,’ said Three Eyes. ‘Probably because you’re looking.’

  ‘Let me have another go,’ said One Eye.

  But as they were speaking, Two Eyes lifted the barrel a little, and rolled out some of the golden apples towards the knight’s feet. The knight saw them, and stepped back in astonishment.

  ‘I say! Where did they come from?’ he said.

  ‘Well, we’ve got another sister, but she—’

  ‘She looks a bit odd, you see, because she’s got two eyes, and—’

  ‘Well, we keep he
r out of sight. We don’t want to shame the family.’

  ‘I’d like to see her,’ said the knight. ‘Two Eyes, wherever you are, come out!’

  Two Eyes managed to lift the barrel off and stood up. The knight was amazed at how lovely she was.

  ‘And can you break off a branch for me, Two Eyes?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I can,’ said Two Eyes, ‘because the tree belongs to me.’

  And with the greatest of ease she climbed the tree and broke off a branch with beautiful silver leaves and gold fruit, and gave it to the knight.

  ‘And what would you like in return, Two Eyes?’ he said.

  ‘Ah,’ said Two Eyes, ‘I have nothing but hunger and thirst, sorrow and distress from early morning till late at night. If you could take me away from all that, I’d be grateful.’

  The knight lifted her on to his horse and took her to his father’s castle. He gave her some beautiful clothes and enough to eat and drink to her heart’s content, and because he’d fallen in love with her, he married her; and the wedding was celebrated joyfully all through the kingdom.

  After Two Eyes had been taken away by the handsome knight, her two sisters were consumed with envy. But at least the beautiful tree is still ours, they thought, and even if we can’t pick the gold apples, people will stop to admire it, and who knows what good luck may flower from that?

  But next morning they were aghast to see that the tree had disappeared, and all their hopes had gone with it. Meanwhile, Two Eyes was looking out of her bedroom window to see the tree standing happily in the castle courtyard, for in the middle of the night it had pulled its roots out of the ground and tiptoed all the way there to find her.

  Two Eyes lived happily for a long time. One day many years later, two poor women came knocking at the castle gate to beg for something to eat, because they had been stricken with poverty and had to wander the world begging for bread from door to door. Two Eyes welcomed them and treated them so kindly that they were sorry for all the wrong they’d done to her; and the strange thing was that although so many years had passed, Two Eyes recognized One Eye and Three Eyes at once.

  ***

  Tale type: ATU 511, ‘One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes’

  Source: a story by Theodor Peschek, published in the journal Wöchentliche Nachrichten für Freunde der Geschichte, Kunst und Gelahrtheit des Mittelalters (Weekly News for Friends of the History, Art and Learning of the Middle Ages), vol. 2 (1816)

  Similar stories: Alexander Afanasyev: ‘Burenushka, the Little Red Cow’ (Russian Fairy Tales); Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: ‘Cinderella’ (Children’s and Household Tales)

  This is ‘Cinderella’, of course, with added absurdity. The presence of the wise woman, the goat, the entrails and the tree confirms it beyond any doubt: they are all aspects of the necessary but absent good mother, who turns up in every ‘Cinderella’ variant in one form or another.

  In Afanasyev’s Russian version, Two Eyes invites her nosy sisters to put their heads in her lap and let her delouse them. That nice hygienic detail turns up in ‘The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs’, too.

  FORTY-THREE

  THE SHOES THAT WERE DANCED TO PIECES

  There was once a king who had twelve daughters, each one more beautiful than all the rest. They slept together in one room, their beds all in a row, and every evening, when they were all tucked up, the king himself locked the door and bolted it. However, when he opened the room every morning, he discovered that their shoes had been danced to shreds, and no one knew how that could possibly have happened. The princesses would say nothing about the matter.

  The king announced that anyone who could discover where his daughters went to dance in the night could choose one of them for his wife, and in time become king himself. On the other hand, if he failed to find out the truth after three nights, he would lose his own life.

  Soon a prince from another country arrived and offered to take on the task. He was made welcome, and taken to a room next to the princesses’ bedroom, where he was to keep watch and see where they went to dance. A bed was made up for him, and to make the task even easier, the door to the princesses’ bedroom was left open.

  But unfortunately the prince’s eyes felt heavier and heavier as the night wore on, and he fell asleep. And when he woke up in the morning, the princesses’ shoes were nearly worn to pieces. The same thing happened the second night, and the third, and so the prince lost his head. Many others came to try their luck at this dangerous task, but they all failed as he had done.

  Now it so happened that a poor soldier, who had been wounded and could no longer serve in the army, was making his way to that very city. On the way he met an old woman begging for alms, and feeling sorry for her he sat down and shared his last bit of bread and cheese with her.

  ‘Where are you going, dear?’ she said.

  ‘I’m not too sure, to be honest,’ he replied, but then went on, ‘Tell you what, though, I’d like to discover where those princesses go to dance their shoes to pieces. I could marry one of ’em then, and be king myself.’

  ‘That’s not difficult,’ said the old woman. ‘They’ll bring you a glass of wine when you go to bed, but don’t drink it whatever you do.’

  Then she unfolded a cloak from her bundle, and said, ‘And when you put this on you’ll become invisible, and you can follow them and find out where they go.’

  The soldier thanked her and went on his way, thinking: ‘This is getting serious now.’

  At the palace they received him generously, showed him to his room, and gave him a splendid new suit of clothes to wear. And at bedtime, the oldest princess brought him a goblet of wine.

  He’d made plans for that, and tied a sponge under his chin. He let the wine run into that, and didn’t let a single drop pass his lips. Presently he lay down and closed his eyes and snored a little to make them think he was asleep.

  The twelve princesses heard him, and laughed, saying, ‘There’s one more who’s going to lose his life.’

  They got up and opened their wardrobes and drawers and closets, trying on this dress and that one, putting up their hair, making themselves as beautiful as possible, and all the time skipping and hopping with excitement at the thought of the dancing to come. Only the youngest wasn’t sure. ‘You can laugh and joke,’ she said, ‘but I’ve got a feeling something bad is going to happen.’

  ‘You’re a silly goose,’ said the oldest princess. ‘You’re afraid of everything! Think of all those princes who’ve tried to watch us, and all for nothing. I bet I didn’t even need to give this soldier a sleeping draught. He’d have fallen asleep all by himself.’

  When they were ready, the oldest princess looked at the soldier again, but he seemed to be fast asleep, so they thought it was safe. Then the oldest princess went to her bed and knocked on it. At once it sank down through the floor, and one by one the princesses climbed down into the opening. The soldier was watching secretly, and as soon as they’d all gone down, he put on the cloak and followed them. So as not to lose them, he walked so close behind them that he trod on the dress of the youngest one, and she felt it and called out, ‘Who’s that? Who’s pulling my dress?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ said the oldest. ‘It just caught on a nail or something.’

  They went on down the staircase till they came to a beautiful avenue between rows of trees. The leaves on the trees shone and gleamed like moonlight, because they were made of silver, and the soldier thought, ‘I’d better take something back as proof,’ and he snapped off a branch.

  It made such a loud crack that the youngest princess was frightened again.

  ‘Didn’t you hear that? Something’s wrong . . .’

  ‘You’re cuckoo,’ said the oldest. ‘They’re just firing a salute to welcome us.’

  The silver avenue changed into one where the trees were
all made of gold, and finally to one where they were made of diamonds. The soldier broke off a branch from each of them, and they made such a noise that the youngest princess was frightened again each time, and each time the oldest one said it was the sound of a salute.

  On they went till they came to a large body of water, where twelve boats were waiting, each with a prince at the oars. As the princesses arrived, the princes stood up and helped them into the boats, one each; but the soldier joined the youngest princess and her prince in theirs without their knowing.

  The prince said, ‘I don’t know why the boat’s so heavy today. I can hardly make it move.’

  ‘I expect it’s the heat,’ said the princess. ‘I’m suffocating.’

  On the other side of the water there stood a beautiful castle that was brilliantly lit by a thousand lanterns. The joyful music of trumpets and kettledrums sounded clearly through the air, and the princes brought their boats to rest at the bank and helped their princesses out, and then they began to dance. The soldier danced along with them, and whenever a princess lifted a glass of wine to her lips, the soldier drank it before she could. The older ones were merely puzzled by this, but the youngest was frightened, and the oldest one had to calm her down yet again.

  They stayed there until three o’clock, by which time their shoes were all danced to pieces and they had to leave. The princes rowed them back across the water, and this time the soldier sat in the boat next to the oldest princess. He got out first and ran ahead, and by the time the tired princesses reached their beds again, he was already snoring in his.

  ‘We’re safe,’ they said, and took off their lovely dresses, placed their worn-out shoes under their beds, and went to sleep.

  Next morning the soldier said nothing. He wanted to see that beautiful castle and the avenues of precious trees again. He went along with them the second night and then the third, and saw it all happen just as before, and each time their shoes were danced to pieces; and on the third night he brought back a goblet as more evidence.

  On the final morning he had to give his answer, so he took the three branches and the goblet and went to the king. The princesses stood behind the door to listen.