Grimm's Household Tales

A little brother and sister were once playing by a well, and while they were playing, they both fell in. A water-nix lived down below. She said, “Now I have you! Now you shall work hard for me!” and carried them off with her. She gave the girl dirty, tangled flax to spin, and the girl had to fetch water in a bucket with a hole in it. The boy had to chop down a tree with a blunt ax, and they got nothing to eat but dumplings as hard as stones. Finally the children became so impatient that they waited until one Sunday, when the nix was at church, and ran away. But when church was over, the nix saw that the birds had flown, and she followed them with great strides. The children saw her from afar, and the girl threw a brush behind her, and it formed an immense hill of bristles with thousands and thousands of spikes. The nix was forced to scramble over it with great difficulty; at last, however, she got over. When the children saw this, the boy threw a comb behind him, and it made a great hill of combs with a thousand times a thousand teeth. But the nix managed to keep herself steady on them and at last crossed over that. Then the girl threw a looking glass behind her, and it formed a hill of mirrors so slippery that it was impossible for the nix to cross it. Then she thought, “I will go home quickly and fetch my ax and cut the hill of glass in half.” However, long before she returned and had chopped through the glass, the children had escaped to a great distance, and the water-nix had to return to her well.