Grimm's Household Tales

Harry was lazy, and although he had nothing else to do but drive his goat to pasture every day, he nevertheless groaned when he went home after his day’s work was done. “It is indeed a heavy burden,” he said, “and a wearisome job to drive a goat into the field this way year after year, until late into the autumn! If only one could lie down and sleep! But no, one must keep one’s eyes open so that it does not hurt the young trees, or squeeze itself through the hedge into a garden, or run away altogether. How can one have any rest or peace in life?” He sat down, collected his thoughts, and considered how he could free his shoulders from this burden. For a long time all his thinking was to no purpose, but suddenly it was as if scales fell from his eyes. “I know what I will do,” he cried. “I will marry fat Trina, who also has a goat and can take mine out with hers, and then I will have no more need to trouble myself.”

So Harry got up, set his weary legs in motion, and went right across the street, for it was no farther, to where the parents of fat Trina lived, and asked for their industrious and virtuous daughter in marriage. The parents did not think about it long. “Birds of a feather flock together,” they thought, and they consented.

So fat Trina became Harry’s wife and led out both goats. Harry had a good time of it and had no work to rest from except his own idleness. He went out with her only now and then, and he said, “I do it merely so that I may enjoy rest more afterward; otherwise one loses all feeling for it.”

But fat Trina was no less idle. “Dear Harry,” she said one day, “why should we make our lives so toilsome when there is no need for it, and thus ruin the best days of our youth? Would it not be better for us to give the two goats, which disturb us every morning in our sweetest sleep with their bleating, to our neighbor? He will give us a beehive for them. We will put the beehive in a sunny place behind the house and trouble ourselves no more about it. Bees do not need to be taken care of or driven into the field; they fly out, find the way home again by themselves, and collect honey without giving the slightest trouble.” “You have spoken like a sensible woman,” replied Harry. “We will carry out your proposal without delay. Besides, honey tastes better and nourishes one better than goat’s milk, and it can be kept longer too.”

The neighbor willingly gave a beehive for the two goats. The bees flew in and out from early morning until late evening without ever tiring and filled the hive with the most beautiful honey, so that in autumn Harry was able to take a whole pitcherful out of it.

They placed the jug on a board that was fixed to the wall of their bedroom, and because they were afraid that it might be stolen from them or that the mice might find it, Trina brought in a stout hazel stick and put it beside her bed, so that, without having to get up unnecessarily, she could reach it with her hand and drive away the uninvited guests. Lazy Harry did not like to leave his bed before noon. “He who rises early,” he said, “wastes his property.”

One morning when he was still lying among the feathers in broad daylight, resting after his long sleep, he said to his wife, “Women are fond of sweet things, and you are always tasting the honey in private. It would be better for us to exchange it for a goose with a young gosling before you eat up the whole of it.” “But,” answered Trina, “not before we have a child to take care of them! Am I to worry myself with the little geese and spend all my strength on them to no purpose?” “Do you think,” said Harry, “that the youngster will look after geese? Nowadays children no longer obey; they do as they please, because they consider themselves cleverer than their parents, just like that lad who was sent to look for the cow and chased three blackbirds.” “Oh,” replied Trina, “this one will fare badly if he does not do what I say! I will take a stick and thrash his hide for him with more blows than I can count. Look, Harry,” she cried in her zeal, and seized the stick that she kept for driving the mice away. “Look, this is the way I will fall on him!” She reached her arm out to strike but unfortunately hit the honey pitcher above the bed. The pitcher struck against the wall and fell down in fragments, and the fine honey streamed down onto the ground. “There lie the goose and the young gosling,” said Harry, “and they need no looking after. But it is lucky that the pitcher did not fall on my head. We have every reason to be satisfied with our lot.” And then, as he saw that there was still some honey in one of the fragments, he stretched out his hand for it and said quite cheerfully, “We will still eat the remains with relish, my wife, and we will rest a little after the fright we have had. What does it matter if we do get up a little later? The day is always long enough.” “Yes,” answered Trina, “we will always get to the end of it at the proper time. Do you know that the snail was once invited to a wedding and set out to go but arrived at the christening? In front of the house it fell over the fence and said, ‘Speed does no good.’”