Grimm's Household Tales

Once, seven Swabians were together. The first was Master Schulz; the second, Jackli; the third, Marli; the fourth, Jergli; the fifth, Michal; the sixth, Hans; the seventh, Veitli. All seven had made up their minds to travel about the world to seek adventures and perform great deeds. But in order that they might go in security and with arms in their hands, they thought it would be advisable to have one single but very strong and very long spear made for them. All seven of them took this spear in their hands at once; in front walked the boldest and bravest, and that was Master Schulz; all the others followed in a row, and Veitli was the last. Then one day in the haymaking month (July), after they had walked a long distance, they still had a long way to go before they reached the village where they were to spend the night. As they were in a meadow in the twilight, a great beetle or hornet flew by them from behind a bush and hummed in a menacing manner. Master Schulz was so terrified that he all but dropped the spear, and a cold perspiration broke out over his whole body. “Listen! Listen!” he cried to his comrades. “Good heavens! I hear a drum.” Jackli, who was behind him holding the spear and who noticed some kind of smell, said, “Something is most certainly going on, for I taste powder and fuses.” At these words Master Schulz began to take to flight and in an instant jumped over a hedge, but as he happened to jump onto the teeth of a rake that had been left lying there after the haymaking, the handle of it struck against his face and gave him a tremendous blow. “Oh dear! Oh dear!” screamed Master Schulz. “Take me prisoner; I surrender! I surrender!” The other six all leaped over, one on top of the other, crying, “If you surrender, I surrender too! If you surrender, I surrender too!” At length, as no enemy was there to bind and take them away, they saw that they had been mistaken. They did not want the story to become known, and they did not want to be treated as fools and ridiculed, so they all swore to one another to keep quiet about it until one of them accidentally spoke of it. Then they journeyed onward. The second danger that they survived cannot be compared with the first. Some days afterward, their path led them through a fallow field where a hare was sitting asleep in the sun. Her ears were standing straight up, and her great glassy eyes were wide open. All of them were alarmed at the sight of the horrible wild beast, and they consulted together about what it would be least dangerous to do. For if they were to run away, they knew that the monster would pursue and swallow them whole. So they said, “We must go through a great and dangerous struggle. Boldly ventured is half won,” and all seven grasped the spear, Master Schulz in front and Veitli behind. Master Schulz was always trying to hold the spear back, but Veitli had become quite brave while behind and wanted to dash forward, and he cried:

“Strike home, in every Swabian’s name,
Or else I wish that you were lame.”

But Hans knew how to counter this and said:

“Thunder and lightning, it is easy to prate,
But for dragon-hunting you are always too late.”

Michal cried:

“Nothing is missing, not even a hair;
Be sure the Devil himself is there.”

Then it was Jergli’s turn to speak:

“If it is not he, it is at least his mother,
Or else it is the Devil’s own stepbrother.”

And now Marli had a bright thought and said to Veitli:

“Advance, Veitli, advance, advance,
And I behind will hold the lance.”

Veitli, however, did not pay attention to that, and Jackli said:

“The first place is Schulz’s, as it should be;
No one deserves that honor but he.”

Then Master Schulz plucked up his courage and said gravely:

“Then let us boldly advance to the fight,
And thus we will show our valor and might.”

At that they all set upon the dragon together. Master Schulz crossed himself and prayed for God’s assistance, but as all this was of no avail and he was getting nearer and nearer to the enemy, he screamed, “Oho! Oho! Ho! Ho! Ho!” in the greatest anguish. This awakened the hare, which darted swiftly away in great alarm. When Master Schulz saw her thus fleeing from the field of battle, he cried in his joy:

“Quick, Veitli, quick, look there, look there!
The monster is nothing but a hare!”

But the Swabian allies went in search of further adventures and came to the Moselle, a mossy, quiet, deep river over which there are few bridges and which people have to cross in boats in many places. As the seven Swabians did not know this, they called to a man who was working on the opposite side of the river to ask how people managed to get across. The distance and their way of speaking made the man unable to understand what they wanted, and he said, “What? What?” in the way people speak in the neighborhood of Treves. Master Schulz thought he was saying, “Wade, wade through the water,” and as he was the first, he began to set out and went into the Moselle. It was not long before he sank in the mud and the deep waves that drove against him, but his hat was blown onto the opposite shore by the wind, and a frog sat down beside it and croaked, “Wat, wat, wat.” The other six on the opposite side heard that and said, “Oho, comrades, Master Schulz is calling us; if he can wade across, why can we not?” So they all jumped into the water together in a great hurry and were drowned, and thus one frog took the lives of all six of them, and not one of the Swabian allies ever reached home again.