Selected Tales of the Brothers Grimm(37)

The following morning the king sent his servants out to follow the trail, but their effort was to no avail, since children sat on every street picking up peas. “Last night it rained peas,” they said, laughing.

“We have to think up something else,” said the king. “Keep your shoes on when you go to bed, and before you come back from wherever they take you, hide a shoe. I’ll find the culprit all right.”

Again the little black man overheard the king’s ruse, and when the soldier ordered him that night to once again carry off the princess, he counseled him against it, saying, “Against such stealth there’s nothing I can do. If they find the shoe at your place, things may go badly for you.”

“Do as I say,” replied the soldier, and for the third straight night the princess had to serve him hand and foot. But she hid a shoe under the bed when the little man carried her back.

The next morning the king had the entire city searched for his daughter’s shoe, and it was found at the soldier’s lodgings. Heeding the little man’s advice, the soldier had taken flight, but he was soon captured and thrown into jail. In his hasty departure, the soldier had left behind his most precious possessions, the blue light and the gold, and had only a ducat left in his pocket. Standing in chains at the window of his prison cell, he saw an old comrade strolling by. The soldier rapped on the window bars, and when his comrade came over, he said to him, “Please be so kind as to fetch me the little bundle I left back at the inn. I’ll give you a ducat if you do.” The comrade ran to the soldier’s old digs and brought him what he asked for. As soon as the prisoner was alone again, he lit his pipe and called forth the little man.

“Fear not,” the little man said to his master. “Go where they take you, and let them do what they will, just don’t forget the blue light.”

The next day the soldier was brought to trial, and although he hadn’t done anything evil, the judge condemned him to death. As he was led off to the gallows, he begged the king for one last kindness.

“What is it?” asked the king.

“That I may be permitted to smoke my pipe on the way to my execution.”

“You can smoke three, for all I care,” replied the king, “but don’t think I’ll grant you your life.”

Whereupon the soldier pulled out his pipe and lit it with the blue light, and as soon as a few smoke rings rose above him, the little man appeared before him with a little club in his hand, and said, “What does my master wish?”

“Go strike down the false judge and his henchmen, and don’t spare the king who treated me so badly.”

Then quick as lightning, the little man leapt forward and, slam-bam, went to work, and whomever he struck with the club fell down and never rose again. The king took fright and begged for his life, in exchange for which he gave the soldier his kingdom and his daughter for a wife.





TOM THUMB





There once was a poor plowman who sat in the evening by the hearth and stoked the fire, and his wife sat and spun. “It’s so sad that we have no children,” he said. “Our house is so quiet, and all the other houses around us are loud and gay.”

“Yes,” said his wife with a sigh, “if only we had but one child, and even if he were the size of a thumb I’d be happy. We’d love him with all our heart.”

It so happened that the woman fell ill and seven months later she gave birth to a child who was well proportioned in every way, but no taller than a thumb. Whereupon the couple remarked, “He’s just as we wished, and he will be our darling boy,” and because of his size they called him Tom Thumb. Every day they fed him his fill, yet the child grew no taller but stayed as small as he was at that first hour. Still he had a savvy look in his eyes and soon proved to be a quick-witted and nimble little fellow who succeeded at every task he undertook.

One day the plowman prepared to go into the woods to chop wood, and he muttered to himself, “If only I had someone to bring the cart to fetch the wood for me.”

“Oh, Father,” cried Tom Thumb, “I’ll bring the cart, you can count on that. It will be waiting for you in the woods when you’re done.”

The man laughed and said, “How in heaven’s name do you propose to do it? You’re too small to lead the horse by the leash.”

“Never mind, Father, if Mother will harness the horse I’ll sit myself in his ear and call out the right directions.”

“Very well,” said the father, “we’ll give it a try.”

At the appointed hour, his mother harnessed the horse and sat Tom Thumb in the horse’s ear, whereupon the little one called out directions: “Giddyap! On the double!” The horse advanced as if led by a master carter, and the cart rolled in the right direction toward the woods. Now it so happened that just as they rounded a bend and the little one cried out “Hut! Hut!,” two men approached.