Grimm's Household Tales

A man and a woman once lived quite alone in a solitary valley with their only child. It happened that the mother went into the woods one day to gather branches of fir and took with her little Hans, who was just two years old. Because it was springtime and the child took pleasure in the many-colored flowers, she went still farther on with him into the forest. Suddenly two robbers sprang out of the thicket, seized the mother and child, and carried them far away into the black forest, where no one ever came from one year’s end to the next. The poor woman urgently begged the robbers to set her and her child free, but their hearts were made of stone; they would not listen to her prayers and entreaties and drove her on farther by force. After they had worked their way through bushes and briars for about two miles, they came to a rock with a door in it, and when the robbers knocked, it opened at once. They had to go through a long, dark passage and at last came into a great cavern, which was lit by a fire that burned on the hearth. On the wall hung swords, sabers, and other deadly weapons that gleamed in the light, and in the middle stood a black table at which four other robbers were sitting and gambling, with the captain at the head of it. As soon as he saw the woman, he came and spoke to her and told her to be at ease and have no fear: they would do nothing to hurt her, but she must look after the housekeeping, and if she kept everything in order, she would not fare badly with them. Then they gave her something to eat and showed her a bed where she could sleep with her child.

The woman stayed with the robbers for many years, and Hans grew tall and strong. His mother told him stories and taught him to read from an old book of tales about knights that she found in the cave. When Hans was nine years old, he made himself a strong club out of a branch of fir, hid it behind the bed, and then went to his mother and said, “Dear Mother, please tell me who my father is; I must and will know.” His mother was silent and would not tell him, so that he would not become homesick; moreover, she knew that the wicked robbers would not let him go away, and it almost broke her heart that Hans could not go to his father. That night, when the robbers came home from their robbing expedition, Hans brought out his club, stood before the captain, and said, “I now wish to know who my father is, and if you do not tell me at once, I will strike you down.” Then the captain laughed and gave Hans such a box on the ear that he rolled under the table. Hans got up again, held his tongue, and thought, “I will wait another year and then try again; perhaps I will do better then.” When the year was over, he brought out his club again, rubbed the dust off it, looked it over well, and said, “It is a stout, strong club.” At night the robbers came home, drank one jug of wine after another, and their heads began to grow heavy. Then Hans brought out his club, placed himself before the captain, and asked him who his father was. But the captain again gave him such a vigorous box on the ear that Hans rolled under the table; it was not long, however, before he was up again, and he beat the captain and the robbers so hard with his club that they could no longer move either their arms or their legs. His mother stood in a corner, full of admiration for his bravery and strength. When Hans had finished his work, he went to his mother and said, “Now I have shown that I am in earnest, and now I must also know who my father is.” “Dear Hans,” answered the mother, “come, we will go and look for him until we find him.” She took the key to the entrance door from the captain, and Hans fetched a great meal sack and packed into it gold and silver and whatever else he could find that was beautiful, until it was full, and then he took it on his back. They left the cave, and Hans opened his eyes wide when he came out of the darkness into daylight and saw the green forest, the flowers, the birds, and the morning sun in the sky. He stood there and marveled at everything just as if he were not very wise. His mother looked for the way home, and when they had walked for a couple of hours, they got safely into their lonely valley and to their little house. The father was sitting in the doorway. He wept for joy when he recognized his wife and heard that Hans was his son, for he had long regarded them both as dead. But Hans, although he was not yet twelve years old, was a head taller than his father. They went into the little room together, but Hans had scarcely put his sack on the bench by the stove when the whole house began to crack; the bench broke down, then the floor, and the heavy sack fell through into the cellar. “God save us!” cried the father. “What is that? Now you have broken our little house to pieces!” “Do not grow any gray hairs about that, dear Father,” answered Hans. “There, in that sack, is more than is needed for a new house.” The father and Hans at once began to build a new house, to buy cattle and land, and to keep a farm. Hans plowed the fields, and when he followed the plow and pushed it into the ground, the oxen had scarcely any need to pull. The next spring Hans said, “Keep all the money, and have a walking stick that weighs a hundredweight made for me so that I can go traveling.” When the stick he had wished for was ready, he left his father’s house, set out, and came to a deep, dark forest. There he heard something crunching and cracking, looked around, and saw a fir tree that was twisted like a rope from the bottom to the top, and when he looked upward, he saw a huge fellow who had taken hold of the tree and was twisting it like a willow wand. “Hello!” cried Hans. “What are you doing up there?” The fellow replied, “I gathered some firewood yesterday and am twisting a rope for it.” “That is what I like,” thought Hans. “He has some strength.” And he called to him, “Leave that alone and come with me.” The fellow came down, and he was taller than Hans by a whole head, and Hans was not small. “Your name is now Fir-twister,” said Hans to him. Then they went farther and heard something knocking and hammering with such force that the ground shook at every stroke. Shortly afterward they came to a mighty rock, in front of which a giant was standing and striking great pieces off it with his fist. When Hans asked what he was doing, he answered, “At night, when I want to sleep, bears, wolves, and other vermin of that kind come and sniff and snuffle around me and will not let me rest; so I want to build myself a house and lie down inside it, so that I can have some peace.” “Oh, indeed,” thought Hans, “I can make use of this one also,” and he said to him, “Leave your house building alone and go with me. You will be called Rock-splitter.” The man consented, and all three of them roamed through the forest, and wherever they went, the wild beasts were terrified and ran away from them. In the evening they came to an old deserted castle, went up into it, and lay down in the hall to sleep. The next morning Hans went into the garden. It had grown quite wild and was full of thorns and bushes. And as he was walking around there, a wild boar rushed at him; he, however, gave it such a blow with his club that it fell at once. He took it on his shoulders and carried it in, and they put it on a spit, roasted it, and enjoyed themselves. Then they arranged that each day, in turn, two would go out hunting and one would stay at home and cook nine pounds of meat for each of them. Fir-twister stayed at home the first day, and Hans and Rock-splitter went out hunting. When Fir-twister was busy cooking, a little shriveled-up old man came to him in the castle and asked for some meat. “Be off, you sly hypocrite,” he answered. “You need no meat.” But how astonished Fir-twister was when the little insignificant dwarf sprang up at him and beat him so hard with his fists that he could not defend himself but fell to the ground and gasped for breath! The dwarf did not go away until he had thoroughly vented his anger on him. When the other two came home from hunting, Fir-twister said nothing to them about the old man or the blows that he himself had received, and he thought, “When they stay at home, they can just try their luck with the little scrubbing brush,” and the mere thought of that already gave him pleasure.

The next day Rock-splitter stayed at home, and he fared just as Fir-twister had; the dwarf treated him very badly because he was not willing to give him any meat. When the others came home in the evening, Fir-twister easily saw what Rock-splitter had suffered, but both kept silent and thought, “Hans must taste some of that soup, too.”

Hans, who had to stay at home the next day, did his work in the kitchen as it had to be done, and as he was standing skimming the pan, the dwarf came and without further ado demanded a bit of meat. Then Hans thought, “He is a poor wretch. I will give him some of my share, so that the others will not run short,” and he handed him a bit. When the dwarf had devoured it, he asked for some meat again, and good-natured Hans gave it to him and told him that it was a handsome piece and that he was to be content with it. But the dwarf begged yet a third time. “You are shameless!” said Hans, and he gave him none. Then the malicious dwarf wanted to spring on him and treat him as he had treated Fir-twister and Rock-splitter, but he had met the wrong man. Without exerting himself much, Hans gave him a couple of blows that sent him jumping down the castle steps. Hans was about to run after him but, being so tall, fell right over him. When he got up again, the dwarf had gotten a head start. Hans hurried after him as far as the forest and saw him slip into a hole in the rock. Then Hans went home, but he had marked the spot. When the other two came back, they were surprised that Hans was so well. He told them what had happened, and then they no longer concealed how it had gone with them. Hans laughed and said, “It served you right. Why were you so greedy with your meat? It is a disgrace that you, who are so big, should have let yourselves be beaten by the dwarf.” Then they took a basket and a rope, and all three went to the hole in the rock into which the dwarf had slipped and let Hans and his club down in the basket. When Hans had reached the bottom, he found a door, and when he opened it, a maiden was sitting there who was as lovely as any picture—indeed, so beautiful that no words can express it—and by her side sat the dwarf, who grinned at Hans like a monkey! She, however, was bound with chains and looked so mournfully at him that Hans felt great pity for her. He thought to himself, “You must deliver her from the power of the wicked dwarf,” and he gave the dwarf such a blow with his club that the dwarf fell down dead. Immediately the chains fell from the maiden, and Hans was enraptured with her beauty. She told him that she was a King’s daughter whom a brutal count had stolen away from her home and imprisoned there among the rocks because she would have nothing to say to him. The count had, however, set the dwarf to watch over her, and the dwarf had made her endure misery and vexation enough. And now Hans placed the maiden in the basket and had her drawn up. The basket came down again, but Hans did not trust his two companions, and he thought, “They have already shown themselves to be false and told me nothing about the dwarf; who knows what plot they may have against me?” So he put his club in the basket, and it was lucky that he did, for when the basket was halfway up, they let it fall again, and if Hans had really been sitting in it, he would have been killed. But now he did not know how he was to work his way out of the depths, and when he turned it over and over in his mind, he could find no way out. “It is indeed sad,” he said to himself, “that I have to waste away down here.” And as he was walking back and forth, he once more came to the little chamber where the maiden had been sitting and saw that the dwarf had a ring on his finger that shone and sparkled. Then he drew it off and put it on, and when he turned it around on his finger, he suddenly heard something rustle over his head. He looked up and saw spirits of the air hovering above, who told him that he was their master and asked what his desire might be. Hans was at first struck speechless, but afterward he said that they were to carry him up again. They obeyed instantly, and it was just as if he had flown up himself. When he was up above again, however, he found no one in sight. Fir-twister and Rock-splitter had hurried away and had taken the beautiful maiden with them. But Hans turned the ring, and the spirits of the air came and told him that the two were on the sea. Hans ran and ran without stopping until he came to the seashore, and there, far, far out on the water, he saw a little boat in which his faithless comrades were sitting. In fierce anger he leaped into the water, club in hand, without thinking what he was doing, and began to swim, but the club, which weighed a hundredweight, dragged him deep down until he was all but drowned. Then, in the very nick of time, he turned his ring, and immediately the spirits of the air came and carried him, swift as lightning, into the boat. He swung his club, gave his wicked comrades the reward they deserved, and threw them into the water. Then he sailed with the beautiful maiden home to her father and mother. She had been in the greatest alarm, and he had delivered her for the second time. He married her, and all rejoiced exceedingly.