Selected Tales of the Brothers Grimm(51)
The bride agreed, intending to trick her as she had the previous night. But when the prince went to bed he asked his valet what all the muttering and murmuring was about last night. The valet told him everything, that he had been told to slip him a sleeping potion because a poor girl spent the night in secret in his chamber, and tonight he was told to do the same.
The prince said, “Pour the potion out beside my bed.”
That night the girl was let in again, and as soon as she started to tell how badly things had gone for her, he immediately recognized the voice of his beloved wife, leapt up, and cried, “Only now am I truly released from the spell. It was like in a dream, for the strange princess held me in her thrall and made me forget all about you, but God delivered me from my delusion in the nick of time.” Together they snuck out of the castle in the dark of night, for they feared the princess’s father, an evil sorcerer, and sat themselves on the griffin, who carried them across the Red Sea. And when they reached the middle of the sea, she let a walnut fall. And instantly a tall walnut tree grew out of the water, on which the griffin rested and then flew them home, where they found their child, who had since grown big and beautiful, and from then on they lived happily together until their dying day.
THE GIRL WITH NO HANDS
A miller fell little by little into poverty and soon had nothing left but his mill and the big apple tree that stood behind it. One day he went walking in the forest to gather wood, and an old man he had never seen before approached him and said, “Why break your back cutting wood? I can make you rich, if only you promise to give me what’s standing behind the mill.” What else could it be than the apple tree? the miller thought, so he said yes and signed it over to the stranger. Whereupon the latter cackled and said, “In three years’ time I’ll be back to pick up what’s mine,” and walked away.
When the miller got home, his wife came running to him and said, “Tell me, husband, where does all our wondrous wealth come from? All of a sudden our trunks and cabinets are full to bursting. Nobody brought it in, and I have no idea where it came from.”
To which he replied, “It comes from the stranger I met in the forest who promised me great wealth in exchange for which I signed over possession to what’s standing behind the mill – the big apple tree is small recompense for such a windfall.”
“Oh, husband,” replied his horrified wife, “that was the Devil – he didn’t mean the apple tree but our daughter, who happened to be standing behind the mill sweeping up the yard.”
The miller’s daughter was a beautiful and God-fearing girl, who whiled away the three years in piety and without sin. When the time was up and the day came on which the Evil One wanted to fetch her, she washed herself clean from head to toe and drew a circle around herself with chalk. The Devil came acalling early, but he could not draw near her. In a fury he said to the miller, “Take all the water away from her so she can’t wash herself anymore, or else I can’t make her mine.”
The miller was terrified and did what he was told. The next morning the Devil returned, but the girl had cried on her hands, washing them clean with her tears. Again he could not draw near. In a rage he said to the miller, “Hack off her hands, or else I can’t make her mine.”
Appalled, the miller replied, “How can I hack off my own child’s hands!”
But the Evil One threatened him in a menacing voice: “If you don’t do it, you’re done for, and I will come and fetch you myself.”
Terror-struck, the father promised to obey. Then he went to his daughter and said, “My child, if I don’t hack off your hands the Devil will take me away, and in a fit of fear I promised I would. Help me in my need and forgive me for what I must do to you.”
To which she replied, “Dear Father, do with me what you will, I’m your child.” Whereupon she stretched both her hands before her and let them be hacked off. Now the Devil came a third time, but she had wept so long and so much on her stumps that they were washed clean. So he had to relent and lost all claim to her.
The miller said to her, “You have brought me such great gain. I will care for you and keep you in the lap of luxury your whole life.”
But she replied, “I can’t stay here. I have to go away – kindhearted people will surely give me what I need.”
Whereupon after having the stumps of her mutilated arms tied to her back, she set out at dawn and walked the whole day until nightfall. She found herself at the edge of a royal garden and saw in the moonlight that the trees were ripe with luscious fruit, but she could not enter, as the garden was ringed by a moat. And because she had walked the whole day without a bite to eat and hunger gnawed at her gut, she thought to herself, If only I could get into the garden to eat of the fruit, or else I will surely die. So she knelt down, called out, and prayed to God the Father. All at once an angel appeared and built a sluice in the moat so that the water drained off, the bed went dry, and she could walk across. Then she entered the garden and the angel went with her. She saw a fruit tree full with luscious-looking pears, but they all belonged to the king. She stepped forward and bit into one, only one, straight off the tree to still her hunger. The gardener was watching, but because the angel stood by her, he was afraid, and thinking the girl must be a ghost, he kept still and dared not address her. Once she’d eaten the pear and her hunger was stilled, she went and hid behind a bush.