Grimm's Household Tales

A certain man had a donkey, which had carried the corn sacks to the mill tirelessly for many a long year, but its strength was going, and it was growing more and more unfit for work. Then his master began to consider how he might best save the cost of its keep, but the donkey, seeing that no good wind was blowing, ran away and set out on the road to Bremen. “There,” he thought, “I can surely be a town musician.” When he had walked some distance, he found a hound lying on the road, gasping like one who had run until he was tired. “What are you gasping for, you big fellow?” asked the donkey.

“Ah,” replied the hound, “since I am old and grow weaker every day and can no longer hunt, my master wanted to kill me, so I fled. But now how am I to earn my bread?”

“I tell you what,” said the donkey, “I am going to Bremen and will be a town musician there. Come with me and join as a musician too. I will play the lute, and you can beat the kettledrum.”

The hound agreed, and on they went.

Before long they came to a cat sitting on the path with a face like three rainy days! “Now then, old fellow, what has gone wrong with you?” asked the donkey.

“Who can be merry when his neck is in danger?” answered the cat. “Because I am getting old, and my teeth are worn to stumps, and I prefer to sit by the fire and purr rather than hunt about after mice, my mistress wanted to drown me, so I ran away. But now good advice is scarce. Where am I to go?”

“Go with us to Bremen. You understand night music, so you can be a town musician.”

The cat thought well of it and went with them. After this the three fugitives came to a farmyard, where the rooster was sitting on the gate, crowing with all his might. “Your crow goes right through a person,” said the donkey. “What is the matter?”

“I have been foretelling fine weather, because it is the day on which Our Lady washes the Christ child’s little shirts and wants to dry them,” said the rooster. “But guests are coming for Sunday, so the housewife has no pity, and she has told the cook that she intends to eat me in the soup tomorrow, and this evening I am to have my head cut off. Now I am crowing at the top of my voice while I can.”

“Ah, but Red-Comb,” said the donkey, “you had better come away with us. We are going to Bremen. You can find something better than death anywhere. You have a good voice, and if we make music together, it must have some quality!”

The rooster agreed to this plan, and all four went on together. They could not, however, reach the city of Bremen in one day, and in the evening they came to a forest where they meant to spend the night. The donkey and the hound lay down under a large tree, and the cat and the rooster settled themselves in the branches, but the rooster flew right to the top, where he was safest. Before he went to sleep, he looked around on all four sides and thought he saw a little spark burning in the distance, so he called out to his companions that there must be a house not far off, for he saw a light. The donkey said, “If so, we had better get up and go on, for the shelter here is bad.” The hound thought that a few bones with some meat on them would do him good too!

So they made their way to the place where the light was, and soon they saw it shine brighter and grow larger, until they came to a well-lit robbers’ house. The donkey, as the biggest, went to the window and looked in.

“What do you see, my gray horse?” asked the rooster. “What do I see?” answered the donkey. “A table covered with good things to eat and drink, and robbers sitting at it enjoying themselves.” “That would be just the thing for us,” said the rooster. “Yes, yes! Ah, how I wish we were there!” said the donkey.

Then the animals consulted together about how they could drive away the robbers, and at last they thought of a plan. The donkey was to place his front feet on the windowsill, the hound was to jump on the donkey’s back, the cat was to climb onto the dog, and lastly the rooster was to fly up and perch on the cat’s head.

When this was done, at a given signal they began to perform their music together. The donkey brayed, the hound barked, the cat meowed, and the rooster crowed. Then they burst through the window into the room, so that the glass clattered! At this horrible din the robbers sprang up, thinking nothing other than that a ghost had come in, and fled in a great fright out into the forest. The four companions now sat down at the table, well content with what was left, and ate as if they were going to fast for a month.

As soon as the four minstrels had finished, they put out the light, and each sought a sleeping place according to his nature and what suited him. The donkey lay down on some straw in the yard, the hound behind the door, the cat on the hearth near the warm ashes, and the rooster perched on a beam of the roof. Being tired from their long walk, they soon went to sleep.

When it was past midnight, and the robbers saw from afar that the light was no longer burning in their house and all appeared quiet, the captain said, “We ought not to have let ourselves be frightened out of our wits,” and he ordered one of them to go and examine the house.

The messenger, finding all still, went into the kitchen to light a candle. Taking the glistening, fiery eyes of the cat for live coals, he held a match to them to light it. But the cat did not understand the joke and flew in his face, spitting and scratching. He was dreadfully frightened and ran to the back door, but the dog, who lay there, sprang up and bit his leg, and as he ran across the yard by the straw heap, the donkey gave him a smart kick with its hind foot. The rooster, too, who had been awakened by the noise and had become lively, cried down from the beam, “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

Then the robber ran back as fast as he could to his captain and said, “Ah, there is a horrible witch sitting in the house, who spat on me and scratched my face with her long claws, and by the door stands a man with a knife, who stabbed me in the leg, and in the yard there lies a black monster, who beat me with a wooden club, and above, on the roof, sits the judge, who called out, ‘Bring the rogue here to me!’ So I got away as well as I could.”

After this the robbers did not trust themselves in the house again, but it suited the four musicians of Bremen so well that they did not care to leave it any more. And the mouth of the person who last told this story is still warm.