Grimm's Household Tales

Long ago there lived an aged queen who was a sorceress, and her daughter was the most beautiful maiden under the sun. The old woman, however, thought of nothing but how to lure people to destruction, and when a suitor appeared, she said that whoever wished to marry her daughter must first perform a task or die. Many had been dazzled by the daughter’s beauty and had actually risked this, but none of them could ever accomplish what the old woman commanded them to do, and then no mercy was shown. They had to kneel down, and their heads were cut off. A certain king’s son who had also heard of the maiden’s beauty said to his father, “Let me go there. I want to ask for her hand in marriage.” “Never,” answered the King. “If you were to go, you would be going to your death.” At this the son lay down and became deathly ill, and for seven years he lay there, and no physician could heal him. When the father realized that all hope was lost, he said to him with a heavy heart, “Go there and try your luck, for I know no other means of curing you.” When the son heard that, he rose from his bed and was well again, and he joyfully set out on his way.

As he was riding across a heath, he saw from a distance something like a great heap of hay lying on the ground, and when he drew nearer, he could see that it was the stomach of a man who had lain down there, but the stomach looked like a small mountain. When the fat man saw the traveler, he stood up and said, “If you are in need of anyone, take me into your service.” The prince answered, “What can I do with such a great big man?” “Oh,” said the Stout One, “this is nothing. When I stretch myself out well, I am three thousand times as fat.” “If that’s the case,” said the prince, “I can make use of you. Come with me.” So the Stout One followed the prince, and after a while they found another man who was lying on the ground with his ear to the turf. “What are you doing there?” asked the King’s son. “I am listening,” replied the man. “What are you listening to so attentively?” “I am listening to what is going on in the world right now, for nothing escapes my ears; I even hear the grass growing.” “Tell me,” said the prince, “what you hear at the court of the old Queen who has the beautiful daughter.” Then he answered, “I hear the whizzing of the sword that is cutting off a suitor’s head.” The King’s son said, “I can make use of you. Come with me.” They went onward and then saw a pair of feet lying there and part of a pair of legs, but they could not see the rest of the body. When they had walked on for a great distance, they came to the body, and at last to the head as well. “Goodness,” said the prince, “what a tall rascal you are!” “Oh,” replied the Tall One, “that is nothing at all yet. When I really stretch out my limbs, I am three thousand times as tall, and taller than the highest mountain on earth. I will gladly enter your service if you will take me.” “Come with me,” said the prince. “I can make use of you.” They went onward and found a man sitting by the road who had bound up his eyes. The prince said to him, “Are your eyes so weak that you cannot look at the light?” “No,” replied the man, “but I must not remove the bandage, for whatever I look at with my eyes splits to pieces; my glance is so powerful. If you can use that, I will be glad to serve you.” “Come with me,” replied the King’s son. “I can make use of you.” They journeyed onward and found a man who was lying in the hot sunshine, trembling and shivering all over his body, so that not a limb was still. “How can you shiver when the sun is shining so warmly?” said the King’s son. “Alas,” replied the man, “I am of quite a different nature. The hotter it is, the colder I am, and the frost pierces through all my bones. The colder it is, the hotter I am. In the midst of ice I cannot endure the heat, and in the midst of fire I cannot endure the cold.” “You are a strange fellow,” said the prince, “but if you will enter my service, follow me.” They traveled onward and saw a man standing there who stretched out his neck, looked around, and could see over all the mountains. “What are you looking at so eagerly?” said the King’s son. The man replied, “I have such sharp eyes that I can see into every forest and field, and hill and valley, all over the world.” The prince said, “Come with me if you will, for I still need someone like you.”

And now the King’s son and his six servants came to the town where the aged Queen lived. He did not tell her who he was but said, “If you will give me your beautiful daughter, I will perform any task you set for me.” The sorceress was delighted to get such a handsome youth into her net and said, “I will set three tasks for you, and if you are able to perform them all, you shall be the husband and master of my daughter.” “What is the first task?” “You shall fetch me my ring that I have dropped into the Red Sea.” So the King’s son went home to his servants and said, “The first task is not easy. We have to get a ring out of the Red Sea. Come, find some way of doing it.” Then the man with the sharp sight said, “I will see where it is lying,” and looked down into the water and said, “It is stuck there on a pointed stone.” The Tall One carried them there and said, “I would soon get it out if I could only see it.” “Oh, is that all!” cried the Stout One. He lay down and put his mouth to the water, and all the waves rushed into it just as if it were a whirlpool, and he drank up the whole sea until it was as dry as a meadow. The Tall One stooped down a little and brought out the ring with his hand. Then the King’s son rejoiced when he had the ring, and he took it to the old Queen. She was astonished and said, “Yes, it is the right ring. You have safely performed the first task, but now comes the second. Do you see the meadow in front of my palace? Three hundred fat oxen are feeding there, and you must eat them, skin, hair, bones, horns, and all. Down below in my cellar lie three hundred casks of wine, and you must drink these up as well, and if one hair of the oxen or one little drop of the wine is left, your life will be forfeited to me.” “May I not invite any guests to this meal?” inquired the prince. “No dinner is good without some company.” The old woman laughed maliciously and replied, “You may invite one for the sake of companionship, but no more.”

The King’s son went to his servants and said to the Stout One, “You shall be my guest today and eat your fill.” At this the Stout One stretched himself out and ate the three hundred oxen without leaving a single hair, and then he asked if he was to have nothing but his breakfast. He drank the wine straight from the casks without feeling any need for a glass, and he licked the last drop from his fingernails. When the meal was over, the prince went to the old woman and told her that the second task had also been performed. She marveled at this and said, “No one has ever done so much before, but one task still remains,” and she thought to herself, “You shall not escape me, and you will not keep your head on your shoulders!” “Tonight,” she said, “I will bring my daughter to you in your chamber, and you shall put your arms around her, but when you are sitting there together, beware of falling asleep. When the clock strikes twelve, I will come, and if she is then no longer in your arms, you are lost.” The prince thought, “The task is easy. I will most certainly keep my eyes open.” Nevertheless he called his servants, told them what the old woman had said, and remarked, “Who knows what treachery lurks behind this? Foresight is a good thing. Keep watch, and take care that the maiden does not leave my room again.” When night fell, the old woman came with her daughter and gave her into the prince’s arms, and then the Tall One wound himself around the two of them in a circle, and the Stout One placed himself by the door, so that no living creature could enter. There the two sat, and the maiden never spoke a word, but the moon shone through the window on her face, and the prince could see her marvelous beauty. He did nothing but gaze at her, and he was filled with love and happiness, and his eyes never felt weary. This lasted until eleven o’clock, when the old woman cast such a spell over all of them that they fell asleep, and at the very same moment the maiden was carried away.

Then they all slept soundly until a quarter to twelve, when the magic lost its power and all awoke again. “Oh, misery and misfortune!” cried the prince. “Now I am lost!” The faithful servants also began to lament, but the Listener said, “Be quiet. I want to listen.” Then he listened for an instant and said, “She is on a rock, three hundred leagues from here, mourning her fate. You alone, Tall One, can help her. If you stand up, you will be there in a couple of steps.”

“Yes,” answered the Tall One, “but the one with the sharp eyes must go with me, so that we can destroy the rock.” Then the Tall One took the one with the bandaged eyes on his back, and in the twinkling of an eye they were on the enchanted rock. The Tall One immediately took the bandage from the other’s eyes, and he merely looked around, and the rock shattered into a thousand pieces. Then the Tall One took the maiden in his arms and carried her back in a second, then fetched his companion with the same speed, and before the clock struck twelve they were all sitting as they had sat before, quite merrily and happily. When twelve struck, the aged sorceress came creeping in with a malicious face that seemed to say, “Now he is mine!” because she believed that her daughter was on the rock three hundred leagues away. But when she saw her in the prince’s arms, she was alarmed and said, “Here is one who knows more than I do!” She did not dare to oppose him and was forced to give him her daughter. But she whispered in her daughter’s ear, “It is a disgrace to you to have to obey common people and not to be allowed to choose a husband to your own liking.”

At this the maiden’s proud heart was filled with anger, and she plotted revenge. The next morning she had three hundred great bundles of wood gathered together and told the prince that although the three tasks had been performed, she still would not be his wife until someone was ready to seat himself in the midst of the wood and endure the fire. She thought that none of his servants would let themselves be burned for him, and that out of love for her he himself would place himself upon it, and then she would be free. But the servants said, “Every one of us has done something except the Frosty One. He must set to work,” and they put him in the middle of the pile and set fire to it. Then the fire began to burn, and it burned for three days until all the wood was consumed, and when the flames had burned out, the Frosty One was standing amid the ashes, trembling like an aspen leaf and saying, “I never felt such a frost during the whole course of my life; if it had lasted much longer, I would have been numb!”

Since no other pretext could be found, the beautiful maiden was now forced to take the unknown youth as her husband. But when they drove away to church, the old woman said, “I cannot endure the disgrace,” and sent her warriors after them with orders to cut down all who opposed them and bring back her daughter. But the Listener had sharpened his ears and heard the old woman’s secret talk. “What shall we do?” he said to the Stout One. But he knew what to do, and spat out some of the seawater that he had drunk, once or twice, behind the carriage, and a great sea arose in which the warriors were caught and drowned. When the sorceress saw that, she sent her armored knights, but the Listener heard the rattling of their armor and undid the bandage from one eye of Sharp-eyes, who looked rather fixedly at the enemy’s troops for a while, and then they all shattered like glass. Then the youth and the maiden went on their way undisturbed, and when the two had been blessed in church, the six servants took leave and said to their master, “Your wishes are now satisfied, and you no longer need us. We will go our way and seek our fortunes.”

Half a league from the palace of the prince’s father was a village near which a swineherd tended his herd, and when they came there, the prince said to his wife, “Do you know who I really am? I am no prince but a herder of swine, and the man who is there with that herd is my father. We two will have to set to work as well and help him.” Then he stopped with her at the inn and secretly told the innkeepers to take away her royal apparel during the night. So when she awoke in the morning, she had nothing to put on, and the innkeeper’s wife gave her an old gown and a pair of woolen stockings. At the same time she seemed to consider it a great gift, and she said, “If it had not been for your husband, I would have given you nothing at all!” Then the princess believed that he really was a swineherd, and she tended the herd with him and thought to herself, “I have deserved this for my haughtiness and pride.” This lasted for a week, and then she could endure it no longer, because she had sores on her feet. And now a couple of people came who asked whether she knew who her husband was. “Yes,” she answered, “he is a swineherd, and he has just gone out with cords and ropes to try to drive a little bargain.” But they said, “Just come with us, and we will take you to him,” and they took her up to the palace, and when she entered the hall, there stood her husband in kingly attire. But she did not recognize him until he took her in his arms, kissed her, and said, “I suffered much for you, and now you, too, have had to suffer for me.” And then the wedding was celebrated, and he who has told you all this wishes that he, too, had been present at it.