The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales (Penguin Classics) (6 page)

There was once a couple so poor that they had to beg in order to feed their children. One day they were at an inn with nothing but a crust of bread to eat. The innkeeper’s wife shouted down to them from upstairs: “Sell me your two children. I don’t have any of my own!”

The beggars replied: “We can’t sell them, but if you want, we will give them to you.” The two children were named Elias and Caroline, and the parents took them upstairs and then left. The innkeeper’s wife was thrilled to have the children.

One day the children were left on their own, and the innkeeper’s wife gave them a card game to play while she was away. They were supposed to go to church when they finished playing. Caroline kept winning at cards, and finally Elias became so angry that he said: “I wish the devil would just come get you!” And the devil appeared right then and there and took her away. Elias was now all alone, and he fainted dead away. When the innkeeper’s wife returned home and learned from the cook what had happened, she flew into a rage and kicked the boy out of the house.

Elias traveled down roads day after day. At one point, he learned that a king in the region needed a servant. He lined up for the position and was hired. In the evening he would often take walks by the sea and watch the fish in the waters. One day twelve swans came swimming toward him. The most majestic in the group turned to him and said: “Come back tomorrow and bring a bowl with six roses in it. No one, not even the
king, can ask where you are going. In return, we will give you some money for the king. He is in desperate straits.”

Elias went back home and said to the king: “When I ride out tomorrow in the coach, don’t ask where I am going. And when I return, don’t ask how I came by what I will have with me!” The next day he set out on his own and from a distance he could already see the swans in the water, paddling toward him. Each one had a little cask around its neck. The most magnificent among them said: “Put the casks into the carriage and give them to the king. But don’t say a word about where they came from.”

When Elias returned, the king opened up the first cask. It was full of coins. The king was overjoyed. But when he asked where the money had come from, there was no answer.

Elias went back to spend some time with his friends, the swans. The most magnificent among them asked: “Did anyone question you about us?”

“Yes, but I didn’t say a word.”

The swan said: “Now you must go deep into the dark forest.”

When he returned to the palace, Elias told the king that he would have to travel into the dark forest. The king refused to let him go alone and asked a servant to accompany him. The two left the next day.

While walking awhile in the woods, the two young men met a stranger. He said: “You must have lost your way if you are looking for the dark forest. You’ll have to turn around and walk along the path until you reach an inn. Ask for directions there.” The stranger vanished.

They found the inn, which was quite beautiful, and they asked about the dark woods. The innkeeper said: “Those woods belong to me!”

The next day the innkeeper’s wife handed the servant an apple: “Give this to your master. He will be thirsty.” Elias was in fact thirsty when they left for the woods, and he ate the apple. He fell asleep right away, and suddenly the twelve swans appeared and tried to wake him up with their hissing. But they could not. Elias and the servant went back to the inn. The next
day the same thing happened. This time the innkeeper’s wife gave Elias a pear to quench his thirst. And nothing could rouse him from his sleep.

When the swans still could not wake him up on the third day, the most magnificent among them waited until no one else was around and wrote these words on his hat: “Saddle your horse and prepare to leave. Go back to the inn. Behind the door you will find a stag all trussed up. Chop off its head. Then make your way at once to the glass mountain, and I’ll meet you there.” Elias did everything as the swan had said, but instead of chopping off the head of the stag, he chopped off the head of the innkeeper’s wife. He rode away as fast as he could after sending the servant back home. From now on he was going to be on his own.

When he reached a mill, he asked the owner how to find the glass mountain. “You will have to wait until tomorrow. Every day some giants stop by here for flour, and they take it to the castle on the glass mountain. I’ll put you in one of the containers, and the giants can take you up there.” And so one of the giants ended up carrying Elias up to the mountain, and the whole time he was wondering why the container was so heavy this time around. Once the giant reached the top of the mountain, he slammed the container to the ground, and it burst into a thousand pieces.

Elias jumped out and ran away as fast as he could. He reached a majestic palace and walked in. No one was around. When night fell, the swans reappeared and told him that he would have to spend the night there. “No matter what happens, you have to stay where you are.” At midnight a huge giant appeared out of nowhere and spewed flames at him. Then he threatened to eat him up. That went on for more than an hour. At daybreak the swans returned and said: “Tonight a snake will appear and wrap itself around you.” That’s exactly what happened, and Elias had to endure the torture for an entire hour. The next day, the swans had another unpleasant task for him. “Tonight,” they said, “twelve tortoises will appear. Each one will be as big as a washtub, with eyes the size of windows. You must kiss every single one of them.” That
night twelve tortoises really did come crawling through the door. He kissed every single one of them, and suddenly they turned into human beings. The first one was the princess who had been living at the palace, the second was his sister, Caroline, and the others were all old friends. He had lifted the curse from them. The princess became his wife.

And if they have not died, they are still living happily today.

A couple living in the country longed to have a child, but for many years their wish was not granted. One day, they cried out in desperation: “We want a child, even if it’s no bigger than a thumb!” And a son was born to them. He was exactly the size of a thumb, and he never grew any bigger than that. He was named Nicholas, but called Thumbnickel.

The farmer carried his son around on the brim of his hat. When he plowed the fields, he would put the little rascal into the ear of one of the oxen, where he could sing and dance to his heart’s content.

One day a merchant drove by, and he watched Thumbnickel dancing and singing in the ear of the ox. He turned to the farmer and asked if he could buy the boy. The farmer was not interested in a deal, but the little boy whispered in his father’s ear, urging him to accept it. The merchant climbed back into his carriage with the little fellow. The farmer started running behind the carriage. While the merchant was dozing off, the little guy climbed through a keyhole into a chest filled with money in the back of the carriage. He opened the chest and started tossing coins out to his father.

The merchant turned in for the night at an inn. When he was about to pay the bill, he discovered that all his money was gone. He took out a whip and ran after Thumbnickel. But the rascal had already crawled into a barrel of salt, escaping any kind of punishment.

The maid at the inn was about to feed the cows, and she
reached into the barrel of salt. She grabbed Thumbnickel, along with some salt, and threw him into the feeding trough for the cows. One of the cows swallowed Thumbnickel with the salt. When the maid started milking the cow, Thumbnickel began shrieking so loudly that everyone was sure something must be wrong with the cow. The next day Thumbnickel emerged completely intact in a heap of cow dung. The innkeeper took a pitchfork and heaved the dung over a nest of mice.

One of the mice sniffed dinner and sped over to the place where Thumbnickel had landed, mouth wide open. And right behind the mouse was a fox waiting to eat it. Poor Thumbnickel was trembling with fear. But because the mouse had picked up the scent of the fox, and the fox had picked up the scent of the mouse, the two did not move from the spot.

Thumbnickel’s father happened to be plowing the field just then. He began plowing right next to the nest and ended up tossing the mouse and Thumbnickel up into the air. The father saw his son and caught him as he was flying through the air, and before long, Thumbnickel was back in the ox’s ear, dancing and singing, with his father happily plowing the field.

There was once a farmer, and he had two sons. The mother named one of the boys Hans and nursed him for seven years. Then his father sent him out into the woods and told him to uproot a tree. And the boy really did pull a small tree up by its roots, and then he took it home with him. But the tree was not tall enough to satisfy his father, and so the mother had to nurse the boy another seven years. By then Hans was strong enough to bring home a timber tree. The father was impressed, and he harnessed up his two boys so that they could plow the fields. Hans was always way ahead of his brother, who became so annoyed with his strength that he would push him away from the plow. He preferred pulling the plow all by himself.

Around that time a wealthy man stopped at the farm. He had taken note of the strong boy and asked the farmer if he would be willing to make a trade. He wanted to give him the two horses pulling his own carriage, along with a bag of coins, in exchange for Hans. The farmer was willing to make the trade, and so was Hans. The boy was harnessed up to the man’s carriage, and he started pulling it.

“What’s your name?” the man asked.

“Hans.”

“Can you run?”

“A little.”

“Then speed up!”

Hans ran faster and faster and didn’t listen to the passenger, who was now trying to get him to slow down. One of the wheels on the carriage flew off, then a second, and finally the entire coach fell apart.

“Stop, Hans, stop!”

But Hans would not stop, even though he was now holding nothing but a pole in his hands. The man had to run after him and catch him.

Hans reached the house long before his master. The master’s wife made a big fuss about the fine farmhand her husband had hired.

The next day Hans was supposed to take two horses out into the woods. The other farmhands were long gone, and Hans would not get up until a dish of dumplings was set before him. Finally, when he went riding into the woods, the other fellows were already returning, their carts piled high with wood. Hans saw a narrow passageway and went straight to it. There he relieved himself, and when the other farmhands made their way through the passageway, they were soon stuck in the mess he had made. Hans’s horses had trouble getting through the passageway too, no matter how hard he whipped them. Enraged, he beat one of the horses until it was dead, threw its corpse on the cart, and harnessed himself up. There were wolves all around, and one of them tried to make off with the dead horse. But Hans killed the wolf, tossed it on the cart, and brought home a load of wood.

The woman was now furious about this stupid farmhand, and her husband finally agreed to get rid of him. He told Hans: “I’m going over to the inn to have a glass of wine. When it gets dark, come over and show me the way home with a bright light.” When night fell, Hans set the barn on fire. With the light from it, the farmer could find his way home. When he was raked over the coals for this new prank, Hans said in all innocence: “I was just following the orders of my master. The barn was just a big bright light that made it easy for him to find his way back home.”

The farmer’s wife was now completely fed up with Hans.
Near the house there was a deep well, which Hans was supposed to clean. “When he gets down there,” she said to her servants, “we’ll throw stones down after him until he’s dead.”

But Hans shouted cheerfully from below: “There must be some hens up there. They’re scratching and scraping, and the pebbles are landing down here.” Even a huge millstone did not bother him. He put it around his neck as a ruff, finished his work, and crawled back up unharmed.

Hans’s master was baffled, and he decided to send the farmhand to a haunted mill. He was told to grind some grain over there. When the clock struck midnight, there was a knock at the door. Hans shouted: “Come on in!” Twelve fellows marched in and sat down at the table to play cards. Hans watched them carefully and discovered that they were all cheating. Without further ado he grabbed one of them by the shoulders, took him over to the mill, pulled his pants down, and ground his buttocks down with the millstone. Then he carried him back upstairs and sat him down with the others. The horror-struck comrades fled, and Hans returned home with the flour.

Husband and wife now despaired of ever getting rid of Hans. They decided to send him to hell to bring back some money they had loaned the devil. The devil refused to pay back the cash and started a quarrel. Hans came running toward him with the ground-up buttocks of the fellow from the mill and shouted: “You can’t get anywhere with this lad!” Hans now had his money and was about to return home.

But one of the more rowdy devils stopped him and said: “I have a bag of coins. Want to make a bet? Whoever can blow the loudest on this horn will get everything that belongs to both of us.” Hans found that to be a fine bargain. The devil blew into the horn and the entire world began to shake.

“You moron! Can’t you do better than that?” Hans said contemptuously. “Give me that little horn, but let me tie some roots around it so that it doesn’t burst into pieces when I blow on it.”

The devil began worrying when he heard that. “Stop!” he shouted. “That’s no fair! I can’t get back to hell without that
horn.” He dashed off with the horn and left all his money with Hans.

Hans brought the money back to the farmer’s wife. She sent him off to his father, along with the money, hoping that he would stay there. And that’s how Hans the Strong Man returned home as a rich man.