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ALTERNATE TALES
extracted from the Authors’ Notes
as translated by Margaret Hunt.

I. First Story. From Hesse, but belongs to several places. The ringed snake (Coluber natrix) which likes milk and is not poisonous, is the snake which is meant.

[SYNOPSIS] A knight becomes poor, and is very sorrowful about it. Then a snake, which has lived for a long time in a corner of his room, begins to speak, and says, “Give me some milk every day, and set it ready for me yourself, and I will make you rich.” So the knight brings the milk for it every day, and in a short time he becomes rich again. The knight’s foolish wife, however, advises him to kill the snake for the sake of the treasures which are sure to be found in its hole. So the knight takes a bowl of milk in one hand, and a hammer in the other, and goes with them to the snake, which glides out of its hole to enjoy the milk. While it is drinking, he raises the hammer, but instead of hitting the snake strikes the bowl violently, on which the snake at once hurries away. From that day forth his property begins to decrease as much as it had increased before. He entreats the snake to take him into favour again, but it says, “Dost thou think that I have forgotten the blow which the bowl received instead of my head? There can be no peace between us!” Then the knight continues in poverty all the days of his life.

[SYNOPSIS] In a certain farm the daughter of the house had the task of milking the cows which were in the fields, and for this purpose usually drove them into a shed or cow-house. Once when she was milking, a great snake crept out from beneath the boards. The girl filled a little trough, into which she often poured milk for the cats, with milk, and set it before the snake, which drank the whole of it. This she did daily, and even in winter. When the girl was married, and all the guests were sitting happily at table, the snake unexpectedly came into the room and laid down before the bride a valuable crown of gold and silver as a mark of its gratitude.

In Lower Lusatia, it is believed that there is a water snake-king who wears a crown on his head which is not only valuable in itself, but also brings great riches to its possessor.

[SYNOPSIS] On a sunny May day a certain man ventures to spread out a great white sheet on a green plot in front of the castle of Lübenau, for the Snake King is fond of putting his crown down on pure white things, and then playing with the other snakes. Hardly has the man spread the sheet when the King appears, puts his crown on it, and then goes away to play with the snakes. And now the man comes softly thither (on horseback in order to escape the quicker), seizes the sheet, on which the crown is lying, by the four corners, and gallops off. He hears the shrill whistling of the snakes behind him, but escapes by the speed of his horse. The possession of the precious crown soon makes him enormously rich.

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[SYNOPSIS] The miller sends out his three sons, and the one who brings back the best horse is to have the mill. The youngest—the simpleton—meets a little grey man, serves him faithfully and honourably as a wood cutter for one year, and for this receives the most beautiful horse. The brothers meet him on his way home, and as one of them has a blind horse and the other a lame one, they seize Dummling’s, and thrust him into a lime pit. But the little grey man comes and pulls him out and anoints him with salve, so that he returns to life and health; his horse too is given back to him. He goes with it to his father; the latter, however, does not give him the mill, but says that it shall belong to the one who brings him the best shirt. Dummling procures the shirt, but the brothers bind him to a tree, and shoot him dead. The little grey man brings him back to life again, but when he arrives at home with the shirt, his brothers have told his father that he is in league with the Devil. The father maintains that they must go forth once more, and the one who brings home the best loaf of bread shall have the mill, for the Devil has no power over bread. Dummling meets an aged woman in the forest, and shares his food with her, and in return for this she gives him a wishing-rod. Next day when he is standing on a bridge, and feeling very hungry, he holds the wishing-rod over the water, and a little tortoise comes out to him. “What is the use of that to me?” thinks he, but puts the little creature on the wall of the bridge. When he is going away, it cries after him, “Take me with you! Take me with you!” He thrusts it in his pocket, and the next time he puts his hand into it, he finds great piles of money. And now all goes well with him, he treats the tortoise with great respect, hires the best room in an inn for himself, puts it in the bed there, and travels onwards to seek the best bread.

When a year has gone by, he returns without having found it; but when he looks at the tortoise, it has got two pretty white feet. “Hallo! What’s that?” thinks he, and covers it up warmly. One night when he is lying in bed and trying to think how he is to obtain the bread, he sees something in the shade which looks like someone standing kneading bread in a dish. At night he dreams that this has become the best bread, and next morning when he awakes the most beautiful bread really is lying before him. He takes it home, and everyone is forced to own that he has gained the victory.

Then he returns to his tortoise and sees a wonderfully beautiful princess lying in the bed with the tortoise by her side. She tells him that she has been bewitched by her mother, but that he has delivered her. Then she promises to be his wife, but must first go home to her father. “Just go home,” says she. “When thou hearest the first cannon fired, I shall be dressing myself; when the second is fired, I am getting into the carriage; at the third, look round at the six white horses with which I shall drive up.” All this comes to pass, and they are married and live for a long time in great happiness.

But then it chances that he is so unfortunate as to let the tortoise (which she has preserved with the greatest care) fall into the fire, which makes the princess so angry that she spits in his face. He is very sad, and goes away at once, and digs a cave for himself five and twenty fathoms deep under ground, and there he means to pass his life. He has an inscription carved above it, “Here no one shall find me, save God alone.” Thus he lives for many years in prayer. The old king becomes ill and travels about and goes to every physician and tries every remedy, but all in vain. Then by accident he comes to this cave, and straightaway he is cured. He looks around, reads the inscription, and orders his people to dig down until at last they come to the cave. The man whom he finds will, however, not come up, and his only desire is to go to God; but the aged king at length prevails on him to ascend with him. Then the king discovers that he is his son-in-law, and brings about a reconciliation between him and his daughter, and they live together long and happily.

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The King proclaims that whosoever can tell the best lie shall have his daughter. The courtiers try in turn, but all do it too delicately, and cannot produce one single good strong bold lie. Then a poor peasant lad comes into the King’s presence and says, “Lord King, once on a time there was a cabbage in our garden which grew bigger and bigger, and began to shoot up in the air until at last it touched heaven itself. Then I climbed up it just to have a look at heaven for once. The door happened to be open, and I saw such splendour and magnificence that I was just going to jump straight in when it was shut in my face, and I was left hanging among the clouds. I let myself down by a rope, it is true, but it broke when I had got half-way, and I fell, and straight into a pebble; but I soon came to myself, ran home, got an axe, and cut myself loose.”

“That is rodomontade!” said the King, “I call those the greatest lies that I have ever heard in my life!” “So much the better,” replied the peasant, “for then your daughter is mine.” The King was alarmed, and gave him a great heap of money to get rid of him. That suited the peasant, for he had already seen that the princess had blear eyes, and was fearfully ugly.

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Three soldiers were so old and weak that they could no longer even eat pap, on which the King dismissed them without allowing them anything to keep themselves on, and they had to beg. They passed through a great forest, and at night two of them lay down to rest, and the third had to keep watch that they might not be torn to pieces in their sleep by wild beasts. As the latter was standing there, a little dwarf clad in red, came, and cried, “Who’s there?” “A good friend,” replied the soldier. “What kind of a good friend?” “Three discharged old soldiers who have no longer anything to live on.” Then the dwarf gave him a cloak which looked old, but if anyone put it on and wished for anything, his wish was fulfilled immediately; only he was not to tell his comrades about it till day. Next night the second received in the same way a purse full of money which would never become empty, and the night after, the third received a horn which, when blown, made all the people throng together.

And now they travelled about for a while in luxury, but at length they wished for a castle, and then for a carriage with three white horses. When they had all these things, they drove to a King who had only one daughter, and gave out that they were King’s sons. One of them was playing with the maiden, and when she saw that he had a wishing-purse, she made him so drunk that he fell asleep, and then she made a purse which looked exactly like his, and exchanged the two. Next morning the soldiers drove away again, and the deception soon came to light. “Alas!” one cried, “now we are poor people!” “Don’t grow any grey hairs about that,” said one of the others, “I will soon have the purse back,’ and he put on his cloak, and wished himself in the princess’s chamber. She was sitting there, counting out gold from the purse. When she saw a man she was terribly alarmed, and screamed,” Robbers! robbers!” till the whole court came running thither, and was about to seize him. In his haste he leapt out of the window, and left his cloak caught fast, so when he went back to his comrades they had now nothing left but the horn; with that, however, they were resolved to regain their property. They blew the horn till they had gathered together a whole army; and with that they marched to the kingdom, and informed the King that if he did not deliver up the purse and the cloak, not one stone of his palace should be left standing on another.

The King spoke to his daughter, but she was determined to use a stratagem, and dressed herself like a poor girl, took a basket with a handle on her arm, and went forth to the camp to sell all kinds of drinks. She took her waiting-maid as a companion. When she was there, she began to sing so beautifully that the entire army ran out to hear her, and the tents were all emptied, and the soldier who had the horn came too. Then she made a sign to the waiting-maid, who stole into his tent, took the horn, and ran away to the palace. When she had the horn, the King’s daughter was able to overcome the army quite easily; and now she had all three wishing-gifts in her possession.

When the three comrades were once more alone together, the one who had had the purse said, “We must separate; do you go that way, and I will go this.” So he went away alone, and came to a forest, and lay down beneath a tree to sleep, and when he awoke again he saw that it was an apple-tree covered with magnificent fruit. He was so hungry that he plucked an apple and ate it, and then he ate another. Hereupon his nose began to grow, and it grew so long that he was no longer able to stand up, and it grew till it stretched all through the forest, and sixty miles further still. His two companions, however, were walking about the world m search of him, and suddenly one of them stumbled against something soft, and trod on it. “Oho!” thought he, “What can that be?” Then it moved, and he saw that it was a nose. So they said, “We will follow the nose,” and thus they at length came to the forest to their companion, who was lying there unable to stand up or move. They took a pole, wound the nose round it, and tried to lift it up, but it was too heavy. Then they searched the forest for an ass, and put him on it, and the long nose on two poles, and thus they carried him away, but when they had gone a short distance the burden was so great that they were forced to rest.

Then they saw very near them a tree with beautiful pears, and the little red dwarf came out from behind it, and said to the long-nosed one, “Eat one of the pears and your nose will fall off.” He obeyed, and the long nose fell off, and he was left with no more nose than he had had before. Then the little man spoke again, and said, “Prepare a powder from the apples, and one from the pears, and then if anyone eats of the former his nose will grow, and if he eats the other it will fall off again. Then go to the princess, and first give her some of the apples, and then some of the powder made from the apples, and her nose will grow twenty times as long as thine; but be firm.”

Then the soldier followed the dwarf’s advice, and went as a gardener’s boy to the King’s court, and said that he had finer apples than any which grew in that region. The princess bought some, and ate two with great satisfaction. And now her nose began to grow, and with such rapidity that she could not rise from her seat, but fell back. Her nose grew sixty ells round the table, sixty round her wardrobe, a hundred round the castle, and twenty leagues more in the direction of the town. The King caused it to be proclaimed that whosoever would cure her should be made rich for life.

Then the old soldier presented himself disguised as a doctor, and gave her some of the apple-powder, and her nose began to grow once more, and became twenty times longer still. When her anxiety was at its highest point, he gave her some of the pear-powder, and her nose became a little smaller. But next morning in order to make the treacherous woman really miserable, he again gave her some of the apple-powder so that her nose grew again, and gained much more than it had lost the day before. He told her that she must at some time have stolen something, and that if she did not restore it, no medicine would do her any good. She denied this, and he threatened her with death. Then the King said, “Give up the purse and the cloak, and the horn, which thou hast stolen. The waiting-maid was sent for the three things, and when the physician had them, he gave the princess the right quantity of the pear-powder: the nose fell off immediately, and two hundred and fifty men had to come and cut it in pieces. He, however, went back home to his comrades, in great delight with the wishing-gifts which he had recovered.

A popular story which Prätorius has given in the Weltbeschreibung, is related to Donkey Cabbages.

[SYNOPSIS] A burger’s son from Brück, in Saxony, goes among the Swedes, and for some time occupies a Silesian town where he has an intrigue with the beautiful daughter of a poor widow, and betroths himself to her. When he goes away, and is trying to console the mother and daughter by promising to come back for them, the mother sees that he does not sincerely mean this, and says, “Thy betrothed intends to desert thee; so I will change him into an ass.” The daughter replies, “If he intends to act so unfaithfully, he deserves no better fate.” The trooper goes away, but when he is riding a little behind the others and comes to a thicket, he dismounts, and no sooner has he done so, than he is turned into an ass, and remains standing by his horse. And now some other troopers come who keep the horse, and sell the ass to a miller to carry sacks. But he is mischievous, and throws off all the sacks, so the miller sells him to another miller, with whom, however, the man-ass behaves no better; nay, once when the miller is going to kiss the maid, the ass even cries aloud and kicks, and is again sold, and to a man in the very town where he had been turned into an ass. Once when he with his sacks is passing by the witch’s house, just as the mother and daughter are standing at the door, the latter says, “Oh, mother, look! there is our little ass! Will he never be able to become a man again?” “Yes,” answers the mother, “if he eats some of the lilies when they are in flower, he can do so.” The ass hears that, and when the lilies are in flower, and a pot filled with some of them is standing rather high up in the chemist’s shop, he throws down his sack as he is passing by, leaps on it, snatches at the lilies, and instantly becomes a man again, but stands there naked.

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… During their flight, the three soldiers had gone beneath a pear-tree, where one of them cried in his sore need, “I wish the Devil would take us!” On this the Devil appeared immediately, closed with the proposition, and helped them out of their difficulty. And now they were compelled to remain in hell for the space of one year, until the time came when the Devil should set them the riddles; but they were occasionally allowed to take a walk in the neighbourhood.

Lucifer (who always stays at home, and only sends out his emissaries the devils) was however not quite at ease, for he thought the Devil would not set the fellows good riddles, and would be cheated by them. One day the three soldiers went out walking, and were very sad, and the two who had not spoken, upbraided the other for having brought them into this trouble by the rash words which had escaped from him. “And thou must help us out of it now,” said they, “or it shall be the worse for thee!” “Good gracious!” he answered, “we shall at all events, certainly be able to guess one of the three riddles!” Then he walked on alone for a short distance to consider the matter in private, and when he saw a tall pear-tree he climbed it, and looked on the country round about.

Just at this moment he perceived Lucifer and the Devil, who were also taking a walk, and seated themselves under this very pear-tree to rest. “Hark you,” said Lucifer, “what riddles are you going to set them? I am afraid they will guess them; discharged soldiers are as sharp as devils!” “You may be quite easy,” answered the Devil, “they will never guess them. In the first place I’ll give them a goat’s skin, but will turn it into Dutch [Holland] cloth; secondly, I will come riding on a he-goat, which will seem to them to be the most beautiful horse; thirdly, I will show them a cup made of pitch, which they will believe to be a cup of the purest gold.” Hereupon the soldier in the pear-tree thought, “Now it’s all right,” but said nothing about it to the two others. On the day appointed the Devil came, and the two others were properly befooled by him, but the third said boldly in his face, “Thy Dutch cloth is a stinking goatskin; thy horse is an old he-goat, good enough for thee, but too bad for us; thy gold cup is an old pitch-pot and nothing better. And now I require thee to give me money enough for the rest of my life.” Then to his great wrath the Devil was forced to bear the consequences, and to carry as much money as they chose to have to the place where the bargain had first been made.

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A girl is once on a time quite alone in a great forest, and a swan comes and gives her a ball of yarn, and says, “I am a bewitched prince, if thou canst unwind this yarn as I fly away, thou canst deliver me, but beware of letting it break.” The girl begins to unwind it, and the swan rises up in the air. The livelong day she unwinds the yarn and the end of it is already visible, when unluckily it is caught in the branch of a thorn, and breaks. The maiden weeps, and as night is falling, she becomes alarmed, begins to run, and at length reaches a house where she had seen a light shining. She knocks, and an old dame comes out, and says, “Alas, my child, whence come you at this late hour?” She begs for food and lodging. “That is difficult to give,” says the woman; “my husband is a man-eater, and if he comes home, he will devour you, but if you stay in the forest the wild beasts will devour yon, so come in, and I will see if I can help you.” She gives the girl a small loaf, and hides her under the bed. Before midnight when the sun had quite set, the man-eater always came home, and he went out again before sunrise. When he comes in, he at once says, “I smell, I smell man’s flesh,” feels beneath the bed, pulls out the maiden, and says, “This is a dainty mouthful!” “Oh, do keep it for our breakfast,” says his wife; “after all, it is a mere nothing!” He lets himself be persuaded to do this, and falls asleep.

Before sunrise the old woman comes to the maiden and says, “Be quick, and run away; there, I present you with a golden spinning-wheel, my name is Sun.” The maiden walks onwards the whole day until night, and then she comes to another house where another old woman and a man-eater are living, and where all happens as on the preceding night. On her departure, the old woman gives her a golden spindle, and says, “My name is Moon.” On the third night the same events are repeated, and the old woman presents her with a golden reel, and says, “I am called Star.” And she also tells her that though the yarn had not been quite unwound, King Swan was nevertheless so far delivered from the spell as to have received his human form again, and was imprisoned on the Glass Mountain in his own kingdom, and living in great magnificence, and that he had there married. She tells the maiden also that she will reach the Glass Mountain that evening, but that a lion and a dragon lie before it, and that she must pacify them with bread and bacon, which things the old woman gives her.

And now the maiden walks on until she reaches the mountain, then she throws the bread and bacon into the monsters’ jaws, and they suffer her to pass, and thus she reaches the gate of the palace, but that the watchman refuses to open to her.” She sits down outside it, and spins with her golden spinning-wheel, and the Queen watches her from above, and would fain have it. In return for it the maiden requests to be allowed to pass one night near the King’s bed-chamber. When the King is lying in bed, she sings,

“Thinks not King Swan

Of his bride Julian?

Who traversed the sun and the moon and the stars,

Who lions and dragons has braved for his sake,

King Swan, King Swan, wilt thou never awake?”

But the King does not hear, for the crafty Queen has prepared a sleeping-drink for him. The maiden gives her spindle for a second night, and for a third she gives her golden reel; but as she has discovered the treachery, she this time asks the servant to substitute another drink for the sleeping-drink. So now when she begins to sing once more, the King hears her, recognises the maiden’s voice, and next morning has himself separated from his wife, sends her back to her father, and marries the faithful maiden who has set him free.

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The incident of the soldier fastening a sponge beneath his chin into which he lets the sleeping-drink run down, is taken from another story from Paderborn, which has also the following variations:

[SYNOPSIS] There are three princesses whose shoes are every morning found in holes. Whosover can discover the cause of this, is to have the youngest to wife, but if he is not able to find it out, must lose his life. Twelve have been hanged already, when the soldier presents himself as the thirteenth. At night he steals through the secret passage after them (he has not yet got the cloak which makes him invisible). The three maidens walk till they come to a lake where three tall giants are standing, each of whom takes one of the maidens on his back, and carries her through the lake to a castle of copper. The soldier is not able to follow them, but he perceives a lion and a fox with a cloak and a pair of boots, which have the property of carrying anyone who wears them whithersoever he wishes to be. The two are quarrelling as to which of them shall have the magic possessions, on which he says, “Go thirty paces away from me, and then begin to run, and the one who is first here again shall have them.” They are hardly gone before he puts on the boots, throws the cloak around himself, and wishes to be with the three princesses. Without being seen he seats himself by the eldest, and eats everything just as she is putting it into her mouth. After they have eaten, the dance begins, and they dance until their shoes are in holes, and then the giants carry them back again across the lake. He wishes himself in his bed so that they may seem to find him fast asleep. On the second night all happens just the same, only the castle is silver, and the soldier sits down beside the second; on the third night, the castle is golden, and he sits by the third, his promised bride. On the third day, the soldier discloses all these things to the King, and receives the youngest of the sisters in marriage, and after the King’s death inherits the kingdom.

[SYNOPSIS] A King’s daughter dances twelve pairs of shoes into holes every night, and every morning a shoemaker has to come and measure her for twelve pairs of new ones, which are sent to her at night; and in order to do this, he has to keep twelve apprentices. No one knows how the shoes are worn into holes at night, but one evening, when the youngest apprentice is taking the shoes to her and the maiden happens not to be in her apartment, he thinks, “I will discover how the shoes are worn out,” and gets under her bed.

At eleven o’clock at night, the trap-door opens, and eleven princesses come up who kiss each other, put on the new shoes, and then descend together. The apprentice, who can make himself invisible, follows; they come to a lake where a boatman takes them into his boat. He complains that it is heavier than usual. The twelve maidens say, “Oh, indeed we have brought nothing with us: no handkerchief and no little parcel.” They land, and go into twelve different gardens, one of which belongs to each of them, and there they pluck the most beautiful flowers, with which they adorn themselves. And now they go to a castle where twelve princes receive them, and dance with them; all are merry but one princess, who is melancholy (it seems as if she had seen the handsome apprentice and had fallen in love with him). They go home again, because their shoes are worn out. When they are once more up above, they throw the shoes out of the window, where a whole heap of shoes are already lying.

The apprentice steals away, and next morning his master goes to measure the princess for new ones, but she is still in bed, and bids him come later. When he returns, she says she will have no more shoes; she only requires one pair, and he is to send them to her by his youngest apprentice. The latter, however, says, “I will not go; it is the turn of the eldest.” The eldest dresses himself smartly and goes, but she will not have him; but will have the youngest. Again he says, “I will not go until it is my turn.” So the second goes, and the third, and all of them one after the other until she has sent away the eleventh as well. Then the youngest says, “If I am to go, I will go just as I am, and will put on no better clothes.” When he gets there, she throws her arms round his neck, and says, “Thou hast delivered me from the eleven who have had me in their power, and have so tormented me; I love thee with all my heart, and thou shalt be my husband.”

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There was once a stupid youth who always did what his mother bade him, but always did it wrong. When he was hired, his master told him to go to the field and sow, and while he was doing it, to say, “May this bear fruit every year a hundred-fold.” He went thither, and at that very time some people came with a corpse, so he said, “May this bear fruit every year a hundred-fold.” When the people heard that, they gave him a good beating. He went home and said to his mother, “Oh, mother, what has happened to me, and I only did what my master bade me.” Then his mother said, “Thou shouldst have said, ‘May he rest in peace.’” He went back again, and then came a knacker with a dead horse, so he said, “May he rest in peace.” The knacker took that amiss, and gave him a beating. He went home again and complained to his mother, and she said, “Thou shouldst have said, ‘Away with the carrion.’” He once more went to the field just as a wedding party was coming by, so he said, “Away with the carrion.” They gave him a thorough beating. “Oh, mother,” said he again, “what has happened to me?” and told her. She replied, “Thou shouldst have said, “Here is mirth and gladness.’” He went back, and on his way saw a house burning, so he said, “Here is mirth and gladness!” He got another beating for it, and when he had complained to his mother, she said, “Thou shouldst have taken a bucketful of water, and have poured it on the fire.” He thought of this as he passed a bee-hive, and poured a bucketful of water over it. The owner of the bees took a stick, and beat him till he ran away. “Oh, mother, what bad luck I have had.” She said, “Thou shouldst have said, ‘Give me some of it away with me.’” Then he passed by a cow-byre which was just being cleaned out, and took off his cap and said, “Give me some of it away with me.”

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Three lazy apprentices laid a wager with each other as to which of them was the laziest. The first said, “If my dinner were set on the table, I would not care to eat.” The next said, “And if anyone put it into my mouth and chewed it for me, I should not care to swallow it.” The third was so idle he would hardly open his lips, but said, “How can you care to speak!” and this one, as was just, won the wager.

Abraham St. Clara has however written the story again, and quite differently, and much more like ours.

A sluggard had three sons, and in his last will declared, that the one who was the laziest should be his principal heir. After the early death of the father, they were summoned before the court and examined as to their idleness. The first confessed that, even if his foot were on red-hot coals, he would not so much as draw it back; the second declared that he would remain standing on the ladder which led to the gallows, and would not even cut the rope which was round his neck, simply because he was too idle to get a knife out of his pocket. The third said that he was too lazy to shut his eyes, much less to cover them with his hand, if it were raining needles, and he were lying on his back.

In Keller’s Fastnachtspiele, p. 86, the one is to be the heir who tells the most lies, and is the idlest. When he is lying under a spout, he lets the drops run in at one ear and out by the other.

There was a certain man to whom work had become so distasteful that at last he could not bring himself to raise his arm. He lay in the street, let the sun shine on him, and hungered. As he was poor, and had no slave to put a morsel of food in his mouth for him, he saw that he must perish miserably from hunger, but he preferred death to work. Through the street where he was lying the executioner came every day on his way to the place of execution. More than once the sluggard wished to speak to him, but he was too idle even for that; at length he made an effort, and said, “Dear executioner, I do not like to work, and would rather die; do take me with you to the place of execution and execute me.” So the executioner had pity on him, and took him with him. When they came to the gate, they met the Kapudan Pasha. “Executioner,” said he, “what has this man whom thou art conducting to the place of execution done?” “He has done nothing,” answered the executioner, “but he is too idle to work, and as he must die of hunger, he has entreated me to take him away and execute him. I am doing it to please him, for I am acquainted with his family.” “Release him!” said the Kapudan Pasha. “At home I have a great magazine full of biscuits, take him in there, and let him eat as much as he likes.” “Yes, but are the biscuits already softened?” said the sluggard. “No,” replied the Pasha. “Then let us go on,” said the sluggard to the executioner.

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There are questions of the same kind in Strieker’s Old-German poem, Pfaffe Amis:

[SYNOPSIS] The bishop asks, (1.) “How much water is there in the sea?” “A tun.” “How can you prove that?” “Just order all the streams which flow into the sea to stand still, and then I will measure it and tell you.” (2.) “How many days have passed by, since Adam lived?” “Seven, and when they come to an end, they begin again, and thus it will go on as long as the world lasts.” (3.) “Where is the centre of the earth?” “Where my church stands; let your men-servants measure with a cord, and if there is the breadth of a blade of grass more on one side than on the other, I have lost my church.” (4.) “How far is it from earth to heaven?” “Heaven is just so far from earth as a man’s voice can be easily heard; climb up, and if you do not hear me calling, come down again and take my church back.” (5.) “What is the breadth of Heaven?” “A thousand fathoms and a thousand ells, then take away the sun, and moon, and all the stars in heaven and press all together, and it will be no broader.”

The old English ballad of King John and the Abbot of Canterbury is allied to this:

[SYNOPSIS] The King puts three questions to the Abbot which he has to answer in three weeks, or lose his life and land. (1.) The exact value, within a penny, of himself the King with his golden crown on his head? (2.) How long a time it would take him to ride round the whole world? (3.) What he is thinking of at that moment? The Abbot does not know what to do, but a shepherd promises his aid, dresses himself like the Abbot, goes to the King, and gives these answers. (1.) As the Lord Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver, the King is only worth nine-and-twenty. (2.) If he sets out with the sun and rides with him he will get round the whole world in four-and-twenty hours. (3.) The King thinks he is the Abbot of Canterbury, and he is only a poor shepherd.

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One day I went out walking and came to a great forest, and a great big thing met me that had a long long tail hanging quite ten ells behind him, and I was bold enough to lay hold of a thick tuft of his hair and let him drag me along after him. It was not long before we came to a great castle and the thing went inside it. I said nothing, and stayed where I was, and it went through a great number of rooms dragging me into every corner behind it, until I was covered with cobwebs. All at once I stuck fast in one of these corners, and when I looked I had a great tuft of hair in my hand which I had torn out of the creature; so I put it down beside me, and stayed where I was, and suddenly all the doors were shut, and I did not know what had become of the thing.

Then all at once I saw a little dwarf standing before me, who said, “I wish you good evening;” so I said, “I am much obliged to you.” “Why have you come here?” I said, “For my own pleasure.” Then the dwarf said, “What have you done; you have taken away our master’s strength?” “I!” said I, “and I will not give it back; I have torn out a bit of his tail.” “That will cause a great misfortune, he is lying there struggling for life, and is perishing before one’s very eyes!” “What do I care for that; all that I care for is to get out of this place again.” Then the dwarf said, “I am king over sixteen dwarfs, what will you give me if I have you taken out again? They have all been at school, and have learnt everything.” So I said, “My mother has a cow and I have a goat, you shall have one of them.”

So eight dwarfs went with me, and as we got outside the door a great dog was lying there, and they made a stick of frog’s teeth, and struck it on the mouth and made it go back. Then we went a long way onwards and came to a great piece of water, and the dwarfs made a rope of womens’ beards, and fishes’ hair, and with that they drew me over. We walked for a long time through the great forest, and they exactly knew the way along which the creature had dragged me. We went along the same road until we came to my mother’s door, and I told her where I had been. She gave me the goat, and I set the dwarfs on in turn, the biggest first, and the smallest last; there they sat in a row like the pipes of an organ, and then I gave a push to the goat and it ran away, and as long as I have lived I have never seen them again.

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The horse, the bullock, and the dog, trembling with the frost, come to the man’s house. He opens his door, and lets them warm themselves by his fire. He gives barley to the horse, pulse to the bullock, and food from his own table to the dog. Grateful for the kindness which has been shown to them, they make a present to the man, by giving up to him a portion of the time allotted to themselves to live. The horse does it at once, and this is why man is so extremely gay in his youth; then the bullock, and that is why in the middle of his life man labours so hard to accumulate wealth. The dog gives the last years, and for that reason old people are always cross, only pleased with those who give them their food, and have little regard for hospitality.

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Long ago there was a waggoner called Hans Pfriem, who was a very extraordinary old fellow, proud of his head, and thought everyone was to take advice from him, but that he was to take it from no one. But as Hans Pfriem was so entirely unbearable and fidgety, and so desperately over-wise, he was not wanted in Paradise, and orders were given not to let him in if he should die. He did die, and slipped in as best he could before anyone was aware. When they were about to drive him out he spoke them fair, and promised to behave well, so they let him stay. But in a very short time, when he saw all kinds of things, and the way people managed them in Paradise, where everything was done in a peculiar heavenly way which he did not understand, and could not bring his mind to grasp, he was secretly exasperated, and on the point of wishing that he had never got in at all. For such people are enraged when things are not done in their own way. However he stifled much of what he felt, and let nothing of it be seen, but could not help being secretly astonished when he saw the maidens drawing water in the rooms; some carried it in old casks full of holes, which always remained full though the water ran out of them. This he could not comprehend, and it seemed most strange to him. He saw much more of the same kind, and yet dared not criticise it. Once he saw them trying to go through a narrow alley with a long squared beam laid athwart their shoulders. It nearly killed him, but he dared not let a word slip. At length he came across a waggoner who, having stuck fast in the deepest mire with horses and cart in a pool, and being unable to move either backwards or forwards, harnessed two horses behind, and two in front, and urged them on. This Hans Pfriem could not endure, because driving was his own occupation; so in a fury he cried to the waggoner, and reproved him for his foolish project, as it seemed to him, bade him harness the horses together and drive them on.

This was his ruin, for so soon as it became known that he had broken the agreement, and forgotten his promise, they sent directly and reminded him that he would have to quit Paradise. At first he was in despair, but speedily took heart again, and was rude and insolent to all the spirits of the saints who came to show him the way out. He upbraided them one and all with the sins for which they are decried in the world. He twitted the two thieves who had been crucified by the side of Christ, with the gallows; Mary Magdalene with unchastity, and with the seven devils; Zacharius with his falseness, thieving, and skill in finance; St. Peter with his denial of Christ, his oath, perjury, and other things; St. Paul with persecutions and blasphemy; Moses with the want of faith and doubt, by which he forfeited the promised land, and even with the fact that God would not allow the place of his grave to be known. In this way did Hans Pfriem protect himself, and cover all the saints with shame until no one ventured to drive him out, inasmuch as they all felt that they had been quite as great sinners as he. What then did they do? They sent to him the innocent children whom Herod had murdered, and as they had died in child-like innocence, and were without any former sins, Hans Pfriem was unable to accuse them of anything; but he very soon thought of a trick by which he could protect himself from them too, and divided among them gingerbread and apples with which people do pacify children, and then took them out for a walk and shook down apples, pears, and other fruit for them, played with them, and amused them until they too forgot to turn him out.

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A fox came to a pond and was about to drink. A frog croaked at him, and the fox said menacingly, “Go away, or I will swallow thee!” “Don’t be so arrogant,” replied the frog, “I am nimbler than thou.” The fox laughed at him, and said, “We will run into the town, and then we shall soon see.” The fox turned round, and the frog jumped on his tail. Reynard then began to run, but when he was near the gate, he turned round to see if the frog were following, and in an instant the frog leaped down from his tail, and went in by the gate. When the fox had turned round again and came to the gate, the frog was already at the goal, and cried to him, “Art thou here at last? I am just on my way back home, I thought thou wouldst never come at all.”

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A countryman one day said to his little puppies, “Come into the parlour and enjoy yourselves, and pick up the bread-crumbs on the table; your mistress has gone out to pay some visits.” Then the little dogs said, “No, no, we will not go. If the mistress gets to know it, she will beat us.” The countryman said, “She will know nothing about it. Do come; after all, she never gives you anything good.” Then the little dogs again said, “Nay, nay, we must let it alone; we must not go.” But the countryman let them have no peace until at last they went, and got on the table, and ate up the bread-crumbs with all their might. But at that very moment the mistress came, and seized the stick in great haste, and beat them and treated them very hardly. And when they were outside the house, the little dogs said to the countryman, “Dost, dost, dost, dost, dost thou see?” Then the countryman laughed and said, “Didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, you expect it?” So they just had to run away.

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Appendix C

HOUSEHOLD TALES;

THEIR ORIGIN, DIFFUSION,
AND RELATIONS TO THE HIGHER MYTHS.

By Andrew Lang

Till shortly before the time of the Brothers Grimm, the stories which they gathered (Kinder- und Hausmärchen) had been either neglected by men of learning or treated as mere curiosities. Many collections had been made in Sanskrit, Arabic, Italian, French, but they were made for literary, not scientific purposes. The volumes of the Brothers Grimm following on several other scientific collections, and the notes of the Grimms (now for the first time reproduced in English), showed that popular tales deserved scientific study. The book of the Grimms has been succeeded by researches made among all Aryan peoples. We have tales from the Norse, French, Breton, Gaelic, Welsh, Spanish, Scotch, Romaic, Finnish, Italian – in fact, the topic of Household Tales is almost obscured by the abundance of material. Now the least careful reader of these collections must notice certain facts which constitute the problem of this branch of mythology.

In the first place the incidents, plots, and characters of the tales are, in every Aryan country, almost identical. Everywhere we find the legends of the ill-treated, but ultimately successful younger daughter; of the triumph ant youngest son; of the false bride substituted for the true; of the giant’s wife or daughter who elopes with the adventurer, and of the giant’s pursuit; everywhere there is the story about the wife who is forced by some mysterious cause, to leave her husband, or of the husband driven from his wife, a story which sometimes ends in the reunion of the pair. The coincidences of this kind are very numerous, and it soon becomes plain that most Aryan Household Tales are the common possession of the peoples which speak an Aryan language. It is also manifest that the tales consist of but few incidents, grouped together in a kaleidoscopic variety of arrangements.

In the second place, it is remarked that the incidents of household tales are of a monstrous, irrational, and unnatural character, answering to nothing in our experience. All animate and inanimate nature is on an intellectual level with man. Not only do beasts, birds, and fishes talk, but they actually intermarry, or propose to intermarry, with human beings.

Queens are accused of giving births to puppies and the charge is believed. Men and women are changed into beasts. Inanimate objects, drops of blood, drops of spittle, trees, rocks, are capable of speech. Cannibals are as common in the role of the villain as solicitors and baronets are in modern novels. Everything yields to the spell of magical rhymes or incantations. People descend to a very unchristian Hades, or home of the dead. Familiar as these features of the Household Tale have been to us all from childhood, they do excite wonder when we reflect on the wide prevalence of ideas so monstrous and crazy.

Thirdly, the student of märchen soon notices that many of the Household Tales have their counterparts in the higher mythologies of the ancient civilised races, in medieval romance and saintly legend. The adventure of stealing the giant’s daughter, and of the flight, occurs in the myth of Jason and Medea, where the giant becomes a wizard king. The tale of the substituted bride appears in the romance of Berthe aux grans pies. The successful younger son was known to the Scythians. Peau d’Ane became a saint of the Irish Church, and the “supplanted bride” developed into St. Tryphine. The smith who made hell too hot for him is Sisyphus in Greek. The bride mysteriously severed from her lord in fairy tales, is Urvasi in the Big Veda. Thus it is clear that there is some connection, however it is to be explained, between Aryan household tales and the higher Aryan mythology. The same plots and incidents are common to both myth and märchen.

These three sets of obvious facts introduce us to the three-fold problem of “storyology,” of the science of nursery tales.

The first discovery-that these tales among the most widely severed Aryan peoples are the same in plot and incident-loads us to inquire into the cause of this community of fable. How are we to explain the Diffusion of Household Tales?

The second feature we observed, namely, the crazy “irrational,” monstrous character of the incidents leads us to ask, how did such incidents ever come to be invented, and almost exclusively selected for the purpose of popular fiction? What, in fact, is the Origin of Household Tales?

The third observation we made on the resemblances between household tales and Greek and Vedic myths, and medieval romances, compels us to examine into theRelations between märchen and the higher mythologies.

Appendix A

Appendix C