The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales (Penguin Classics) (12 page)

There was once a man with three sons; two were clever and the third was foolish. He gave some flax to each of them and said: “Whoever spins the finest thread will inherit my house.” The two clever ones found spindles and a spinning wheel and set to work, spinning day and night. The foolish one took the flax and ran with the wind, back and forth and everywhere imaginable, through forests and swamps, until at last he found himself sinking into the mud.

Some toads started hopping toward him and one of them said: “Give me your flax, and we will set you free. But be sure to come back!” After returning home, the fellow came back. The toad gave him this order: “Take the thread with you. Then let everyone know that you are planning to marry. Be sure to put a bridal veil and dress on the altar.”

The thread brought home by the third son was much finer than what his brothers had produced, and the father gave him the house. Everyone was planning to come to his wedding, but there was no bride in sight when they arrived. The church bells were ringing, and the groom was standing at the altar when a toad appeared and slipped into the wedding dress. All at once she turned into the most beautiful woman ever seen. “You set me free!” she exclaimed. “I was put under a spell by an evil witch and the curse could only be lifted when a young man needed my help. After I finished spinning the thread for you, the spell was broken.” The young man married the beautiful woman, and they lived in harmony for many years.

There was once a poor girl named Barbara, whose mother was ill. She had to run over to the doctor and druggist for help. On the way, she jumped across a paving stone and slipped, almost flattening a dung beetle. When she realized that she had sprained her ankle, she felt terrible and cried out: “Now who is going to bring back the doctor? My mother is going to die!”

The beetle muttered: “Climb up on my back.” Startled by the strange voice, the girl began to sob uncontrollably. The beetle slid right under her, spread its wings, and lifted her up in the air, carrying her to the doctor and druggist in a flash and then back home to her mother.

“You must be sure to feed your little horse,” the mother said to her daughter while they were eating bread and sipping water.

“Yes, of course, but my little horse seems to have wandered away,” Barbara said. She searched every corner of the house and looked out all the windows. Suddenly one of the king’s horsemen appeared on the horizon, riding toward them.

“Oh, that must be the Blue Prince,” the mother called out, as if he were an old friend. The door flew open, and the prince marched right in, looking radiantly young and handsome. He greeted the mother warmly, and then he looked at the young woman, took her by the hand, and said: “You lifted the curse on me, and I want to thank you by giving you everything I own.” Barbara did not know what to do, and she looked first at the prince, then at her mother. She was afraid of the stranger.
But he explained what had happened to him: “For many years, more years than there are trees in the woods, I have been living as a beetle, crawling around in dust and refuse, beaten down, crushed, tortured, and in pain, all because I did the same things to animals when I was a boy. My punishment was to turn into a beast and to suffer as they do. You took pity on me, miserable beetle that I was, and that’s how you lifted the curse. I want to ask your mother for the hand of the angel who saved me!”

The girl turned pale, and both mother and daughter were deeply moved.

The prince threw open the shutters and blew on his horn. The mountains wafted the melody over the forests, and everything there awakened and came alive. Barbara and her mother began to realize that the many people who had suddenly appeared with horses and carts were the prince’s subjects, and they, too, had been rescued by the love of a simple young woman. The mother was soon healed, and her beautiful, rosy-cheeked daughter joyfully accepted the prince’s proposal.

At the wedding, the fleas played the fiddle, the birds whistled tunes, and all creatures with feet, large and small, danced and leaped through the
air.

A young farmer’s daughter got herself in trouble, and her parents threw her out of the house. She wandered around aimlessly until finally, in desperation, she sat down on a tree stump with three crosses carved into it. She began to weep. Suddenly a wood sprite raced toward her, pursued by a group of frenzied hunters. The girl jumped to her feet to make room for the sprite, for she knew that it would find safety there from what were known as the devil’s hunters, hordes of demons that rode in with the winter storms.

The girl herself was knocked down so hard that she fainted. When she came to, the wood sprite was still sitting on the stump and asked her why she had been crying. When the sprite learned what had happened, she said: “In exchange for helping me escape those hunters, you may come with me, and all will be well.”

Together they walked to a boulder with a door carved into it. When they entered, they found themselves in a clean, bright room with a little bed that looked mossy, but only a bit so. Two young wood sprites were sitting and spinning moss onto spindles. Every day one of the little women would spin a spindle full, and the older sprite would exchange the yarn for food. The farmer’s daughter was supposed to do some spinning as well, but the yarn she spun was never quite as fine.

At last the day arrived when the young woman gave birth to a little boy, much to the joy of the wood sprites. They took good care of mother and child. Their only wish was that the
child could stay with them forever, and the young woman decided to grant them that wish. The wood sprites gave the young mother cakes that looked as if they were made of moss but tasted like honey, along with water that tasted like wine.

After some time had passed, the wood sprite took the young mother back to the tree, right to the stump where they had first met. She took leave of her and gave her three spindles of yarn. She warned her to take good care of the spindles, for as long as they were in her home, she would want for nothing. “But if you are ever in real need, unspool some yarn—as much as you need—and you will still have as much as you started with. After that, put the spindles behind the beams of the hut, and don’t let anyone see you.” The wood sprite disappeared and was never seen again.

When the young woman returned home, her parents hardly recognized her, for she was covered all over with moss. Once their daughter was back home, fortune began to favor them. The daughter married and became a wealthy farmer’s wife. But she never forgot her promise, and every Saturday she would bake a cake made with flour, milk, and eggs and put it down with great care on the stump in the woods.

There were once two young women, one pretty, the other plain, and they spent their days in the fields sowing flaxseeds. The pretty one worked in the hills; the plain one, in the valley. One day, while they were walking behind a plow, the pretty one began to sing:

“I’m searching for a love so true,

As pure as linen through and through,

With bright red cheeks so very dear,

Glowing like violet and gold so clear,

With beautiful eyes ever so blue,

Like little flax blossoms in their hue.

Whoever chooses me to wed,

Will win as well both cloth and thread.”

The other girl didn’t sing but kept quiet. Every once in a while she would distract herself by playfully tossing a few seeds aside for the Lady of the Woods. She looked timidly up at the pretty, tall farm girl, who was as graceful as a doe and who managed to land only a small number of seeds in the furrows.

When the harvest had matured into a velvety yield, the two girls reappeared in the fields and began weeding. The pretty girl was like a purple rose. She spent much of her time standing up and gazing into the distance to see if her looks had succeeded in attracting a suitor. The bad-looking one worked hard, and she was so quick about her work that before long she had cleared the whole area of thistles and weeds. She did
not forget to take a few stalks of flax for a little hut that she had built at the edge of the field. She called out:

“Lady of the Woods, the Woods, the Woods,

Here I’ve placed your share of the goods!

Give the flax a nice good start,

And let’s dress up so we look smart.”

The two girls went about their work in different ways, one up in the hills looking for suitors, the other with her eyes trained on the flax and the field. Hot weather and weeds killed off the flax in the higher regions, while the flax in the valley flourished and grew tall.

In the spring, after the young women had spun and woven the flax, they both took the linen out to the fields to bleach it in the sun. You could see right away that the pretty girl’s linen—and there was little of it—was rough, coarse, and uneven, while the plain girl had plenty of exquisite fabric, fine as silk. The pretty girl was upset, and she scolded the other one, saying: “I know just how you did this, you little night owl! You’re a witch and you were in cahoots with the Lady of the Woods. You’re just as plain as she is, and just like that forest spinster, you’ll never marry.”

Just then a golden carriage with four horses flew like the wind across a path in the woods. A handsome young man was riding in it, dressed like a prince. He stopped to greet the girls and took the hand of the pretty one and said: “I would like to marry you, but first I’d like to take a look at your handiwork. Is your linen bright?”

“No, it’s not!” a voice called out from the woods.

The prince let go of her hand and turned to the plain one. “I would like to marry you. Is this your work here?”

The voice in the woods called out: “Yes, it is!”

The prince hugged her and kissed her and told her he wanted to marry her. And just then the aroma of flowers enveloped the two of them, and the young woman became pretty and charming. And all at once she was wearing a dress with jewels, and
the enthralled prince knelt before her. Voices whispered in the woods and carried the news up hill and down dale.

The pretty girl was overcome with envy, and she was suddenly as hideous and as unsightly as a toad.

A shining horse and carriage dashed off with the couple. The girl who had once been pretty returned to her village, weighed down by her own grief as well as by the scorn and contempt of the villagers.

Since then the young women who work in the fields no longer sing songs. And not a one forgets to bind together some of the flax stalks from the fields and make a little hut for the Lady of the Woods. They remain faithful to the customs from times past.

After a successful hunting expedition, a wealthy young count found an angelic-looking boy on his way back home. He was glad to have rescued the lost boy and decided to raise him at home, where he was put to work as a servant.

The boy grew up to be tall and strong, but he was also lazy, with no interest in doing any work at all. While the other servants were plowing, mowing, and threshing, he would be strolling in the woods or fields, singing and whistling like a bird. And that’s why everyone called him Woodpecker or, just for laughs, Prince Woodpecker.

The count was well disposed toward the boy, and one day he asked him what he hoped to do later in life. The answer was:

Woodpecker is my given name,

I chew things up, tasty and tame;

The hard stuff’s not at all my game.

I whistle like a little bird,

The hardest work you’ve ever heard!

The nobleman replied: “I’d like to have some proof of that hard work. See that pile of wood over there in the courtyard? Chop it up into small pieces before the month is over. If you don’t finish by then, I’m going to chase you off my land!” The Woodpecker was in a panic. He was a master in the art of laziness, and he was also just like the lilies of the field when it came to work. Those flowers just grew and grew, even though they could not spin or weave. It didn’t take him long to figure out that he would never be able to chop up all that wood in so
short a time. And the count was not about to go back on his promise to kick him off his property. And so he sat for days on end by the mountain of wood, the ax at his feet. His head was hanging like a bird in a cage. He planned and plotted, but he could not figure out how to get out of this fix.

All at once a window in the castle opened, and there was the beautiful child of the count. She had been quietly observing the tall handsome servant and was impressed by how calm he was. She called down to him to tell him that he should start working; otherwise he wouldn’t be around for long. He jumped up, grabbed the ax, and began chopping the wood eagerly. But by the time he took a second swing at the wood, the ax had swung out of his hands and cut into his leg. The girl was alarmed, and she took her maid with her down to the courtyard and bandaged up the wound, using a salve. She asked: “Why were you so intent on defying the orders and doing nothing? The count will be here soon and he’ll be so upset that he’ll make good on his threat to banish you. And how in the world are you going to be able to walk around with that injured leg?”

“Well,” he replied, “your hands have a healing power. But who is going to bring me all the beautiful flowers and birds and pieces of gold from the crevasses that are too treacherous even for birds?”

“He’s too far gone for my help,” the girl decided, and she walked away with a mournful look on her face, for she had always enjoyed spending time with the strange boy when the two were young.

It soon dawned on the young man that the count’s daughter was in love with him. He was so distraught about failing to carry out the task assigned to him and, on top of that, losing the girl forever that he began rubbing together two sticks of wood to light the wood on fire. He was planning to die in the flames.

Just as the first sparks began flying from the smoking wood, a tiny little woman crawled out of the woodpile and began giggling and chirping like a cricket. She said: “Now that you have summoned me, tell me what you want.” He liked the mysterious little person so much that he tried to grab her and catch
her. She would make a perfect gift for the princess, just like a dormouse in a cage. But the creature was like a will-o’-the-wisp, and just about as easy to catch as a shadow. The little woman cried out: “Just stop it, Ralf, my boy, and tell me what you need!”

He laughed and said: “I need to chop all the wood in this pile.”

“I will take care of that, Ralf, my boy,” the little woman said. “But under one condition: You must build a little fire using twigs on that stone over there, and then just stand there and wait.” Since it was already late in the evening, the young man was overcome by fatigue and fell asleep.

That evening everyone in the castle heard a lot of noise down in the courtyard. In the morning, they told the count that the woodpile had disappeared and in its place was a huge stack of chopped wood. The count went down to the courtyard with his entire entourage and found Woodpecker sleeping peacefully next to the pile of wood, which had been chopped up into fine little pieces. He decided to wake up the sleeping Woodpecker, for he was beginning to suspect that there was more to the young man than had at first seemed. Woodpecker asked if he could start a little fire over by the stone and burn his ax. He rubbed two sticks of wood together, and they began to make a flame. Just then the little woman reappeared and leaped into the fire on the stone.

And that was the moment when a beautiful young woman appeared before the eyes of the count. It was the Lady of the Woods, whom he had married long ago. “Count Hermann! Do you recognize me and my son Ralf? Woodpecker is our son!” she cried out, to the astonishment of everyone gathered round. And then she disappeared.

“That was Hilda’s voice,” the count said. “Yes, dear Woodpecker, you are our son. The veil has been lifted, and now I know who you are.” And he embraced Ralf, the Woodpecker, and there was a great celebration at the castle. Ralf sat sorrowfully by the side of the young woman who was now something of a sister, and for whom the lavish feast was also not a happy occasion.

Count Hermann had his son trained as a knight, and when he returned home victorious after perilous battles—he was wearing a golden locket given to him by the emperor—there was another, even more festive celebration, this time the wedding of Ralf, outfitted in gleaming silver armor, and the charming young woman who was the count’s foster child, as it turned out.