Grimm's Household Tales

There was once an enchantress who had three sons who loved each other as brothers, but the old woman did not trust them and thought they wanted to steal her power from her. So she changed the eldest into an eagle that was forced to dwell in the rocky mountains and was often seen sweeping in great circles in the sky. She changed the second into a whale that lived in the deep sea, and all that anyone saw of it was that it sometimes spouted a great jet of water into the air. Each of them was in his human form for only two hours a day. The third son, who was afraid that she might change him into a raging wild beast, perhaps a bear or a wolf, went away secretly. He had heard that a King’s daughter, who was bewitched, was imprisoned in the Castle of the Golden Sun and was waiting for deliverance. Those, however, who tried to free her risked their lives; twenty-three youths had already died a miserable death, and now only one more was permitted to make the attempt, after which no more would be allowed to come. And since his heart was without fear, he eagerly seized on the idea of seeking out the Castle of the Golden Sun. He had already traveled about for a long time without being able to find it when he came by chance into a great forest and did not know the way out of it. All at once he saw in the distance two giants, who made a sign to him with their hands, and when he came to them, they said, “We are quarreling about a cap and about which of us is to have it, and since we are equally strong, neither of us can get the better of the other. Small men are cleverer than we are, so we will leave the decision to you.” “How can you dispute about an old cap?” said the youth. “You do not know what properties it has! It is a wishing cap; whoever puts it on can wish himself away wherever he likes, and in an instant he will be there.” “Give me the cap,” said the youth. “I will go a short distance off, and when I call you, you must run a race, and the cap will belong to the one who gets to me first.” He put it on and went away, thought of the King’s daughter, forgot the giants, and kept walking onward. At last he sighed from the very bottom of his heart and cried, “Ah, if only I were at the Castle of the Golden Sun!” and hardly had the words passed his lips when he was standing on a high mountain before the gate of the castle.

He entered and went through all the rooms until in the last one he found the King’s daughter. But how shocked he was when he saw her! She had an ashen-gray face full of wrinkles, bleary eyes, and red hair. “Are you the King’s daughter, whose beauty the whole world praises?” he cried. “Ah,” she answered, “this is not my form; human eyes can see me only in this state of ugliness. But so that you may know what I am like, look in the mirror; it does not let itself be misled, and it will show you my image as it truly is.” She placed the mirror in his hand, and in it he saw the likeness of the most beautiful maiden on earth, and he saw, too, how the tears were rolling down her cheeks with grief. Then he said, “How can you be set free? I fear no danger.” She said, “Whoever gets the crystal ball and holds it before the enchanter will destroy his power with it, and I will regain my true shape. Ah,” she added, “so many have already gone to meet death for this, and you are so young; I grieve that you should face such great danger.” “Nothing can keep me from doing it,” he said, “but tell me what I must do.” “You shall know everything,” said the King’s daughter. “When you go down the mountain on which the castle stands, a wild bull will be standing below by a spring, and you must fight it, and if you have the luck to kill it, a fiery bird will spring out of it, carrying in its body a burning egg, and in the egg the crystal ball lies like a yolk. The bird will not, however, let the egg fall until it is forced to do so, and if the egg falls on the ground, it will flame up, burn everything near it, and melt even ice itself, and the crystal ball with it, and then all your trouble will have been in vain.”

The youth went down to the spring, where the bull snorted and bellowed at him. After a long struggle he plunged his sword into the animal’s body, and it fell down. Instantly a fiery bird rose from it and was about to fly away, but the young man’s brother, the eagle, who was passing between the clouds, swooped down, chased it away toward the sea, and struck it with his beak until, in its desperation, it let the egg fall. The egg did not, however, fall into the sea but onto a fisherman’s hut that stood on the shore, and the hut began at once to smoke and was about to burst into flames. Then waves as high as a house rose in the sea, streamed over the hut, and put out the fire. The other brother, the whale, had come swimming there and had driven the water high up. When the fire was out, the youth searched for the egg and happily found it; it was not yet melted, but the shell was broken by being cooled so suddenly with the water, and he could take out the crystal ball unhurt.

When the youth went to the enchanter and held the crystal ball before him, the enchanter said, “My power is destroyed, and from this time on you are the King of the Castle of the Golden Sun. With this you can likewise give your brothers back their human form.” Then the youth hurried to the King’s daughter, and when he entered the room, she was standing there in the full splendor of her beauty, and joyfully they exchanged rings with each other.