The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales (Penguin Classics) (10 page)

Once there was a good king who was married to an evil woman. The queen poisoned him so that she would be able to rule until the day when her son, the prince, came of age.

When the prince grew up and was crowned king, his mother chose a variety of brides for him, but he rejected all her choices and picked a bride whose dowry was nothing more than virtue and beauty. His mother felt insulted by the choice and began to contemplate revenge. She made an alliance with the royal midwife.

While the king was at war, his wife bore a beautiful son, and the midwife took him and substituted a little dog for the child. The king received a message about the strange birth, but he was not upset and imagined that something had just gone wrong.

Once again the king had to go to battle, and his wife gave birth to a second beautiful boy. The midwife put a pig in place of the child. The king heard the news, and once again he forgave the queen and thought that something must have gone wrong.

Before he left for war a third time, he told his mother that he could not stand the idea of another deformed creature instead of a child. The mother took in his words. And when the queen gave birth to a third child, a kitten was substituted for the child.

The king returned and his wife was nowhere to be found. His mother explained that her daughter-in-law had given birth for a third time to an animal. “That must be a punishment for adultery. I thought I was doing you a favor when I had that
guilty woman drowned.” The king went into mourning, for he had loved the queen with all his heart.

The mother searched in vain for a new bride. Her son became withdrawn, and he stopped seeing his friends. He spent most of his time in the woods, weeping silently in a quiet place.

Many years later he lost his way in the woods while on a hunt. He followed a babbling brook and reached a mill. Six boys were playing there together, and three of them were especially tall and handsome. He took a closer look and noticed that one of the boys reminded him of his wife; another had his own features.

While they were playing, one of the boys muddied his hands, but he didn’t go to the nearby well to wash up. Instead he went down to the brook. When the king asked him why the brook, he replied: “I go down there instead of to the well, because the water in the well rushed away from under my mother’s feet.” The king asked the boy where his mother was, but the only reply he received was that she was “in the water.”

Later that day, one of the other boys tore a hole in his pants. He picked up needle and thread and started to repair them. The thread was too thick for the needle, and he went down to the brook to wet it. The king asked why he was going all the way down there, and he was given the same answer that he received from the other boy.

The third boy wanted to wash the ball that he had used to bowl, and he did exactly what his brothers had done.

The king was lost in thought, and he went over to the mill to ask about the boys. The miller’s wife became unnerved and abruptly replied: “All of them are my children, the one as much as the other, and I love them all equally.”

The king went down to the brook and stayed there until night fell. Something lit up in the thickets surrounding him, and he followed the light. But before long he gave in to his exhaustion and fell asleep under a tree.

When he awoke in the morning, he could hear water splashing nearby, right where the undergrowth was the thickest. Curious about the source, he bent the branches apart and saw a beautiful woman perched on a branch over the water,
splashing her feet. It was his wife. His astonishment was great, but his joy at being reunited with her was even greater. The queen gently said to him: “My mother-in-law brought me here and thought I would end up starving and freezing to death. The wood sprites kept me from starving by giving me food during the day. They braided my hair and brought me fresh garments whenever mine were wet. I moved my legs back and forth to keep the water from freezing over and to keep myself from getting cold. The good little women came to visit me often, and they warmed up my feet. They comforted me by bringing news about my children. And they promised that my reputation would be restored and that I would see my children again.”

The wood sprites confirmed what the queen had said. They dressed the poor woman in beautiful clothes and gave her jewels to wear. Then they pointed her in the direction of the mill, where she would be able to find her children.

The three handsome boys were already running toward her. They rushed into the arms of their mother, whom they recognized from a picture given to them by the wood sprites.

The miller’s wife came over to them and said: “I’m going to stop calling these boys my children. I have three boys of my own. Every time I gave birth, my husband would discover a container that had washed on shore. And there would be a baby lying in it. The children were so beautiful and they smiled at me in such a charming way that I could not bear to part with them. My husband agreed to keep them and raise them as if they were our own. Take a look at the arms of the boys. They are all tattooed—one with a dog, the second with a pig, and the last with a cat.”

The king blew on his horn. His retinue appeared and he introduced his wife and the three princes to them. He asked everyone around to name the punishment for someone who had treated his family so badly. The answer came: “That person deserves to be drawn and quartered.” And that’s exactly what happened to the evil old woman.

The royal couple lived happily ever after in peace, and they remained grateful all their lives to the miller’s wife as well as to the wood sprites.

Three young men, a tailor, a miller, and a soldier, found themselves lost in the woods one day. It was growing dark, and they still could not find a way out. The tailor decided to climb to the top of a tree, and from there he could see a light in the distance. He started walking in that direction, without saying a word to his companions, until he reached a castle. The first room he entered had nothing in it but three-legged goats and cats. Some of the cats were playing the fiddle on tables and benches; others were dancing to the tunes. The tailor was hungry, so he sat down and ate some food. Once he was done, he stuffed his pockets with good things to eat and went back to give some of the food to his companions. After the tailor returned, the miller also climbed up that same tree, saw the light, found the castle, and discovered everything the tailor had found.

The soldier was eager to go to the castle as well. He found everything his companions had described, but he stayed a little longer. Once a full hour had passed, he was no longer able to leave. The dancing and singing came to a halt. Suddenly a young woman dressed in black appeared and gave him a staff made of iron along with seven candlesticks. He was supposed to use those objects to disenchant her. If he failed, he would die.

The next night the soldier painted a circle on the floor of the dance hall. Then he placed the lit candles around the perimeter and stepped inside the circle. The cats and goats arrived soon enough and blew out all the candles but one, which they
just could not put out. They tried to lure the soldier out of the circle and began to attack him. But whenever one of them got close to him, he poked it with the staff, and then it was swallowed up by the earth. At midnight, the spooks all vanished.

The young lady dressed in black reappeared in the morning. Her arms had turned white, and the soldier spent some time with her. On the next night, the exact same things happened, but the attacks became more vicious. The soldier struck his staff on the ground three times and was able to ward off the mysterious animals. By the morning the young woman’s dress had turned half-white, and she told him to hit one of the three-legged goats so hard that it would burst into pieces. He should then pick up all of the pieces and put one into each corner of the castle. He finished on the third night, and now the young woman was completely white and the spell was broken. Soldiers were standing watch in every corner of the castle, and the cats and goats had turned into human beings.

The soldier and the princess, released from the spell, were married, and they lived happily together. But before long the soldier began to feel homesick and was longing to see his parents. His wife agreed to let him leave, and she gave him a wishing ring: “If you turn it three times to the right, you will be able to wish yourself anywhere you want. If you turn it three times to the left, I will appear before you.”

When the soldier arrived back home, his parents simply could not believe that so many good things had happened to him. He took out the ring, turned it three times to the left, and the princess appeared right there in the shabby hut. She was so dismayed when she saw the circumstances in which her husband had been raised that she took the ring and disappeared with it that very night. Her husband did not want to lose her, and he searched everywhere for her.

At the top of a mountain, he met up with three thieves who were quarreling about how to divide up three valuable stolen objects: a coat that could blow harder than the wind, boots that let you run rapidly, and a sack of gold. The soldier cut an apple up into different-sized pieces and said to the thieves: “I’m going to throw these three pieces down into the valley.
Whoever comes back with the biggest piece will own the valuable coat.” That suited the three just fine. But while they were racing to find the pieces of the apple, the soldier put on the boots, threw the coat over his shoulders, and sprinted to the castle with the sack of gold. He decided to conceal his identity there, and so he asked innocently for news at a shoemaker’s house. “Tomorrow the princess is getting married!”

“I have to be there for that!” he said, and everyone burst out laughing, because he looked so pathetic.

The next morning he walked over to the church and threw the coat over his shoulders. A terrible gust of wind blasted through the place, picking up all the wedding guests and depositing them in the very same place where they had come from. The princess was at the castle when a stranger came calling. She recognized her husband right away but asked her father: “What should I do? Should I choose a new broom or take back the old one?”

Her father gave her some good advice: “Sometimes old brooms work better than new ones, which just sweep dirt into corners.”

She decided to take back the soldier, and he was now in her good graces. From then on, the two lived happily and peacefully.

A man who owned some horses kept a big dog out in the pasture. But instead of herding the horses together when it rained, the dog would just run away. The animal began worrying: “What should I do? If my master sees that the horses have run away, he will beat me to death. It’s best for me if I run away.” On the road, he met up with an old tomcat and asked: “My dear cat, where are you headed?” The cat told him that his master wanted to have him skinned, because he was now too old to catch mice. And so he had run off into the woods. The dog and the cat went on their way together.

A little later they met a rooster who also seemed to be at loose ends. He started complaining to the two others: “The farmer who kept me went drinking and dancing and gambling every day and returned home late at night. Exhausted from long nights of carousing, he threatened to wring my neck if I woke him up. But I couldn’t stop myself, for I just have to crow at a certain time, even if you put a lock on my beak. That’s why I ran off.” The dog and the cat invited the rooster to join them.

They then met a fox. “Where are you headed?” the rooster asked.

“I go wherever I can find something to eat,” he said, leering at the rooster. “But now that I’ve lost my teeth, I often go hungry.” And so the fox joined up with the trio.

Then an ancient ox, with ribs that stuck out from its sides like the teeth of a rake, linked up with them. The ox had
worked like a dog all its life and was given little to eat, and now his master was planning to sell him to the butcher. And so he was hoping to run away. He and an old mare complained to the other animals about their wretched treatment, and they went off with them.

All six of the animals traveled deeper and deeper into the woods. Their stomachs began to growl, and the dog told the cat to climb up a tree and see if there were any signs of life in the vicinity. The rooster turned out to be a more agile climber and began crowing to let the others know that he had seen a light. The other animals were wildly excited, and they ran as fast as they could through the underbrush until they reached a little hovel in a clearing. The dog and the fox wanted to figure out if anyone was living in the hut. They stole up to the house and looked through the window, and what did they see but a bunch of thieves sitting at a table!

The animals held a conference and made a plan to create a ruckus out in the back. The thieves were scared out of their wits, and they dashed out of the house. Now the new guests were able to make themselves at home. The rooster did not fail to find some grain left in a pot on the stove, and it began downing what was in there. There were plenty of oats in the stable for the nag, and in the barn there were piles of hay and straw for the ox. As for the dog, the fox, and the cat, they found plenty of butter, flour, eggs, and meat in the cabinets. There was room at the table for everyone.

At midnight, the thieves decided to send the dullard in their group back to the house to see what was going on. He crept up to the house from a distance, and since he couldn’t hear anything, he went over to the oven and looked up at the ceiling. Just then the rooster dropped something unspeakable on his nose. When he reached the stable, the nag kicked up her legs and hit him on the head. In the barn, the ox used its horns to pick him up and throw him out. In the kitchen, the cat scratched his face, and the dog bit him hard on the ankles.

The robber hightailed it out of there and told his companions about the ferocious fellows who had taken over their house. “I
was treated horribly by them, and they hit me, pushed me, stuck me, scratched me, and bit me. I’d rather face the gallows than go back to that place.”

The thieves did not dare to return to the house. And so the animals became good friends and lived a happy life in the den of the thieves. They lived peacefully until the day they died.