Grimm's Household Tales

In a certain country there was once great lamentation over a wild boar that laid waste the farmers’ fields, killed the cattle, and ripped up people’s bodies with his tusks. The king promised a large reward to anyone who would free the land from this plague, but the beast was so big and strong that no one dared to go near the forest in which it lived. At last the king gave notice that whoever captured or killed the wild boar would marry his only daughter.

Now there lived in the country two brothers, sons of a poor man, who declared themselves willing to undertake the dangerous task. The elder, who was crafty and shrewd, did so out of pride; the younger, who was innocent and simple, did so from a kind heart. The king said, “In order that you may be more sure of finding the beast, you must go into the forest from opposite sides.” So the elder went in on the west side, and the younger on the east.

When the younger had gone a short way, a little man stepped up to him. He held a black spear in his hand and said, “I give you this spear because your heart is pure and good. With this you can boldly attack the wild boar, and it will do you no harm.”

He thanked the little man, shouldered the spear, and went on fearlessly.

Before long he saw the beast, which rushed at him. But he held the spear toward it, and in its blind fury it ran so swiftly against it that its heart was split in two. Then he took the monster on his back and went homeward with it to the king.

As he came out at the other side of the wood, he saw a house at the entrance where people were making merry with wine and dancing. His elder brother had gone in here and, thinking that the boar would not run away from him after all, was going to drink until he felt brave. But when he saw his young brother coming out of the wood laden with his prize, his envious, evil heart gave him no peace. He called out to him, “Come in, dear brother, and rest and refresh yourself with a cup of wine.”

The youth, who suspected no evil, went in and told him about the good little man who had given him the spear with which he had killed the boar.

The elder brother kept him there until the evening, and then they went away together. When they came to a bridge over a brook in the darkness, the elder brother let the other go first, and when he was halfway across, he gave him such a blow from behind that he fell down dead. He buried him beneath the bridge, took the boar, and carried it to the king, pretending that he had killed it, and so he won the king’s daughter in marriage. And when his younger brother did not come back, he said, “The boar must have killed him,” and everyone believed it.

But as nothing remains hidden from God, this black deed also was to come to light.

Years afterward a shepherd was driving his herd across the bridge and saw a snow-white little bone lying in the sand beneath. He thought that it would make a good mouthpiece, so he climbed down, picked it up, and cut a mouthpiece for his horn out of it. But when he blew through it for the first time, to his great astonishment, the bone began to sing of its own accord:

“Ah, friend, you are blowing upon my bone! / Long have I lain beside the water; / My brother killed me for the boar, / And took for his wife the king’s young daughter.”

“What a wonderful horn!” said the shepherd. “It sings by itself; I must take it to my lord the king.” And when he came with it to the king, the horn again began to sing its little song. The king understood it all and had the ground below the bridge dug up, and then the whole skeleton of the murdered man came to light. The wicked brother could not deny the deed, and he was sewn up in a sack and drowned. But the bones of the murdered man were laid to rest in a beautiful tomb in the churchyard.