Selected Tales of the Brothers Grimm(46)

When the princess saw that there was no more hope of bending her father’s will, she decided to escape. That night, while the palace slept, she got up and took three things from her treasure chest: a golden ring, a golden spinning wheel, and a little golden reel. The three dresses as golden as the sun, as silvery as the moon, and as sparkling as the stars she stuffed into a nutshell, and she donned the coat of all kinds of hides and blackened her face and hands with soot. Then she commended herself to God’s care, dashed out the door, and kept walking all night until she came to a great forest. And since she was tired, she crept inside a hollow tree trunk and fell asleep.

The sun rose, and she kept sleeping and went right on sleeping until broad daylight.

It so happened that another king to whom the forest belonged went hunting in it. When the dogs came to the tree, they sniffed about, ran around it, and barked. Whereupon the king said to his hunters, “Go have a look at what kind of game is hidden inside.”

The hunters obeyed his command, and upon their return they reported: “In the hollow of the tree lies a wondrous creature the like of which we have never seen – its skin is covered with a thousand kinds of hide. It lies there fast asleep.”

Said the king, “Go see if you can catch it alive, then bind it to your cart and bring it to me.”

When the hunters touched the girl, she awakened riddled with fear and cried out to them, “I am a poor child forsaken by father and mother. Have pity on me and take me with you.”

To which they replied, “All-Kind-of-Hide, we can use you in the kitchen. Just come with us and you can sweep the ashes.” So they put her in the cart and drove her back to the king’s castle. There they assigned her a little cubbyhole under the stairs where the sun never shone and said, “Little wild thing, you can sleep here.” Then they sent her to work in the kitchen, to carry wood and water, stoke the fire, pluck poultry feathers, tend to the vegetables, sweep the ashes, and to do all the lowliest tasks.

All-Kind-of-Hide lived quite miserably in this way for a long time. Oh, you lovely princess, what, pray tell, will become of you! But one day it so happened that they threw a party in the castle, so she said to the cook, “May I go up for a little while to watch? I’ll stay outside and just peek in through the open door.”

Said the cook, “Sure, go ahead, but in half an hour you must be back to gather up the ashes.”

Whereupon she took her little oil lamp, went to her little cubbyhole, took off the coat of many hides, and washed the soot off her face and hands, and there she stood again in all her loveliness. Then she opened her nutshell and pulled out her gown, the one that shone as golden as the sun. Once dressed, she went up to the party, and everyone made way for her, as no one recognized her, and they all thought she must surely be a princess. But the king came toward her, reached out his hand to dance with her, and thought to himself, Never have my eyes seen a creature so lovely. When the dance was done, she bowed, and no sooner did the king turn to look than she was gone, and no one knew where. The guards posted outside the castle gates were summoned and interrogated, but not a one had seen her.

She had rushed back to her little cubbyhole, swiftly slipped out of her dress, blackened her face and hands, donned the rough coat, and was again All-Kind-of-Hide. When she returned to the kitchen to resume her work, intending to sweep up the ashes, the cook said, “That can wait until tomorrow. Boil me up the king’s soup – I too would like to take a peek at the festivities – but don’t let a hair fall in, or else you’ll get nothing more to eat.”

So the cook headed to the party, and All-Kind-of-Hide boiled up the king’s soup, a bread soup, as tasty as can be, and when it was done she went to her little cubbyhole to fetch the golden ring and dropped it in the king’s soup bowl. When the ball was over the king called for his soup and ate it, and it tasted so good he thought he had never tasted a soup quite so delicious. But when he got to the bottom of the bowl he saw a golden ring and couldn’t fathom how it got there. So he commanded the cook to appear before him. The cook took fright and said to All-Kind-of-Hide, “I bet you let a hair drop in the soup. If you did I’ll skin your hide.”

When the cook appeared before the king, His Majesty asked who boiled up the soup.

Said the cook, “I did.”

But the king said, “It cannot be, for it’s not the soup I’m accustomed to. It’s boiled up much better than usual.”

Whereto the cook replied, “I must confess, it was not I who boiled it up but the wild child.”

Said the king, “Go and bid her appear before me.”