The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales (Penguin Classics) (20 page)

There once lived a couple, and they were both stupid is as stupid does. The wife ruled the roost, and one day she sent her husband to the marketplace to sell their cow. “Whatever you do, don’t sell it to a talker,” she shouted as he was going out the door. “Did you hear me? Don’t sell it to a talker.” Her husband promised to do as she had said.

Many buyers showed interest in the hale and hearty cow, but the farmer decided to follow his wife’s advice and declared each time: “I’m not going to sell you my cow. You are way too chatty.”

The market day was drawing to a close, and the farmer had not yet sold the cow. Out of sorts, he set out for home. On the way he had to cross a bridge, on which there was a life-size image of John of Nepomuk. It was carved from wood and painted. When the farmer saw it, he said: “Why don’t you buy my cow so that I won’t have to bother bringing it back home?” He waited a long time for an answer, but the man on the bridge remained silent. The farmer thought: “Well, he is certainly not a talker, and I can sell the cow to him.” He tied the cow to the railing on the bridge and said: “Time to pay up!” The saint did not say a word. “All right,” the man said, for he wanted to close the deal. “I’ll give you some time to pay up. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks for my money.” And he returned home.

Back at home his wife asked if he had sold the cow.

“Of course!”

“But you didn’t sell it to a talker, did you?”

“Of course not! The man who bought the cow hardly said a word.”

“What did you sell the cow for?”

“He bought the cow at the price I demanded, but he has not yet paid up. I told him that I would come and get the money in two weeks.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“How could I not? You know him too! I meet up with him every time I go across the bridge.”

“What does he do?”

“I didn’t ask. He was wearing a black hood, just like the priest, and he had five stars on his forehead.”

“Oh, you stupid idiot. You are right that he can’t talk. That is Saint John. Go back and find the cow; otherwise someone will steal it.”

The silly fellow had to return, but the cow was no longer there. He asked Saint John what he had done with the cow and told him that he was back to collect his money. When the holy man refused to speak, the farmer grew angry, took his walking stick, and began beating the statue so hard that its head broke off at the neck. A hundred guilders fell to the ground with it. Someone who knew that the head was hollow had hidden the money there.

The farmer picked up the money and said: “Well, why not? Now that you had your beating, you can pay me!” Elated, he returned home and reported to his wife how he had told off the buyer and then received in return even more than he had demanded.

A group of hardworking farmers settled down in a certain region to work the land. They had plenty of money and never needed to beg for anything. They were also never idle. One day a young woman came to visit the farmers with her son, a handsome fellow who was almost fully grown. He didn’t like to work, for his father was a powerful man who provided generous support, enough for him and his mother to live in comfort. The farmers in that area were not keen to have the two living with them, and they were secretly hoping that they would settle elsewhere.

But kindness did not go far toward dislodging the unwelcome guests. And so the farmers decided to kill the boy in the dark of night. But the boy uncovered the plan and traded places with his mother. The bloodthirsty group murdered her instead. The boy dragged her corpse out of bed, took it to the house of the priest, and leaned it up against the door. When the priest opened the door that morning as he was about to go to church, the corpse fell at his feet. The boy was nearby, and he began hollering, accusing the priest of killing his mother. The priest was terrified and paid the boy a tidy sum to keep his mouth shut.

The mother was buried, and the son lived a carefree life with the money he had been given.

The farmers were at a loss about what to do. Finally, they decided to put the young man into a barrel. “Even if he survives, he won’t have any idea where he is and won’t ever come back here,” they figured. They carried out their plan. The barrel was rolled up onto a clearing, where there was a chapel.
The farmers left it there and then went into the chapel to thank the Lord for ridding them of that scoundrel.

The farmers departed. The fellow was still in the barrel and began shouting: “I won’t, and I can’t!”

A shepherd was tending some pigs nearby, and he went over to ask: “What’s going on and why are you shouting, ‘I won’t, and I can’t’?”

“Well,” a voice said from within, “I’m supposed to marry a princess, and I don’t want to.”

“Here’s a thought,” the shepherd said. “Let me take your place, and I’ll be happy to marry her.” He opened up the barrel and climbed in. The young man locked the barrel back up and shoved it into a pond nearby. Then he took the pigs back home and sold them to the farmers.

The farmers were up in arms. Indignant and angry, they wanted to know how he had managed to round up all those pigs.

“Just go over to where I was, and you will find as many animals there as I did. Be sure to take all your pigs with you,” he added. He led the animals over to a nearby dam. The farmers looked into the water and saw the pigs reflected in it. Eager to take possession of the creatures, they asked how to round them up. “It’s not hard,” the young man replied. “All you have to do is jump into the water. The waters will part, and you will be standing on ground. Watch how I do it. Once I’m in the water, jump in after me, and you’ll have your pigs.” The fellow was a good swimmer, and he jumped right in. The farmers jumped in after him, and they all drowned, for not one of them could swim. The young man swam over to the dam and drove the pigs back home. The womenfolk asked after their husbands. “Too bad,” he answered. “They all drowned.” And the women broke into tears and lamentations.

The young man was worried about staying on, for he had a hunch that the women would take their revenge. He was heating up an iron to press his clothes (he had since become a tailor) when he realized that the women in the village were outside, getting ready to storm his house. Since there was no way of escaping, he decided to lie down on a bench near the
oven, cover himself up with a white cloth, and play dead. He took the iron, which was still hot, in one hand. The women stormed the house and discovered him. They fell for his trick, and one of them said: “Lucky for you that you’re already dead or else we would have beaten you to death.”

They left, but one of them returned with the idea of honoring the fellow one last time. She walked over to him, took the cloth off his face, hiked up her skirts, and was about to moon the dead man. The young man was not at all slow to respond, and he took the iron and applied it to her behind. The woman shrieked like a child who has been burned and ran to catch up with her neighbors. She was in pain, but she managed to tell them that the scoundrel must be in hell, for he was already wielding a fiery poker.

Once the women had left, the young man decided that it was time to move on. He packed his worldly belongings and left the region to seek his fortune as a tailor elsewhere.

A farmer had a son named Klaus, who refused to learn how to do anything at all. And so he sent him on the road, hoping that he would learn, at the very least, how to steal. That trick didn’t require knowing how to read or write. When Klaus finished his apprenticeship, he returned home. But his father was still angry with him, and so Klaus went back on the road. But first he had to renew his traveling papers, and he was asked what he did for a living. He declared to the authorities that he had mastered theft. The officials there mocked him, and the judge was sure that he had not developed theft into a fine art. “You won’t be able to move my horse from the stable, even if I give you permission.” Klaus took up the challenge, and he could barely contain himself as he was leaving. The judge ordered two men to guard his horse, each using one side of the harness to keep the horse’s legs from moving.

That night an old man appeared and asked for shelter. “I would be perfectly happy with a little corner in the stable.” He had a bottle of the finest wine with him. It turned out to have a sleeping potion in it, and he used it to put the guards to sleep. The old man cut the harness, mounted the horse, and trotted off. Who else was it but Klaus the thief?

The next day Klaus returned, and the judge gave him a second task: The lad was now supposed to remove his wife’s wedding ring without her noticing it and to take the sheet out from under her while she was sleeping. That evening someone put a ladder up against the house right by the judge’s bedroom window. The judge, who was keeping watch, took a shot, and the figure fell to the ground. In a panic, the judge raced out of
the bedroom to hide the corpse. Just then the thief walked into the bedroom and, mimicking the judge’s voice, told the wife he needed the sheet to wrap up the dead body. While taking the sheet, he removed the woman’s wedding ring. The next morning the thief appeared with both sheet and ring. The “corpse” turned out to be a skeleton wearing clothes.

The judge had a third task for the thief. “Bring me the schoolteacher wrapped up in a bedsheet!” That night the thief let some crabs loose in the church. He fastened candles on their backs. Then he called the teacher to tell him that some poor souls were wandering around in the church. The teacher was cautious, but he was also curious. That’s how the thief persuaded him to wrap himself up in a sheet before coming to the church. The schoolteacher put the sheet on himself, fastened it at the top, and then made his way to the courthouse and the judge.

Once the master thief had carried out all three tasks, he was given his papers and went on his way.

A farmer had three sons. The eldest said to him: “Father, I’d like to have my inheritance now so that I can travel.” The farmer gave his son the inheritance, one hundred guilders in all, and the son left home. A priest gave him a job as a farmhand. When the priest noticed that the boy had money on him, he said: “Let’s have a contest, and I’ll stake as much money as you now have. Whoever loses his temper first also loses the bet.” The boy agreed to the wager.

The next day the boy was supposed to go out and plow. The priest gave him two oxen, and they were so stupid and useless that he wasn’t able to plow a single straight furrow. The boy began to swear a blue streak. The priest came running up and asked: “Have you lost your temper?”

“Yes, of course I have,” the boy said. “Who wouldn’t be furious?”

“Well done,” the priest said. “Hand me your money.”

The boy was down in the dumps, and not much later he put down the plow and returned home to his father empty-handed. He told his father how it had come to pass that he lost his entire inheritance.

The second son also wanted to have his inheritance in advance. And his father gave him a hundred guilders. The boy went to work for the very same priest, and he fell into the exact same trap. He turned his money over to the crafty priest and returned home.

The youngest of the three sons, whose name was Hans, now
also wanted his inheritance. His father told him: “If your brothers, who have more brains than you do, could not succeed, how can you possibly make something of yourself? Just stay here at home!” Hans would not stop pleading with his father, and finally he, too, had his inheritance.

The boy went to the same priest and was hired as a farmhand. The priest then made him the offer he had made the other two. Hans asked if the priest was interested in quadrupling the wager. After all, he had to win back what his brothers had lost. And so the two agreed to a contest with higher stakes.

The next day Hans was given the same stupid oxen, but he let them do as they pleased and just whistled cheerfully as he walked behind the plow. When the priest went outside and saw what was going on, he said: “Well, my boy, how do you feel about your team?”

“The oxen have no idea what they are doing, and so I’m just letting them go wherever they want. Does that make you mad?”

“Not at all,” the priest lied. “You can take their harnesses off now!”

The next day Hans had to tend the cows. It was hot outdoors, and the animals were running in circles to avoid beestings. A cattle dealer came along. Hans sold him all the cows except for the very weakest one, which he herded between two trees right next to each other in the woods. The weak cow got caught between the trees and couldn’t move. Hans decided to lie down in the grass, and he began whistling a tune. The priest came by and asked about his cows. “They’re all lost,” Hans answered, “except for that skinny one over there, which is stuck between the trees.” The priest made a face when he heard this tale. The farmhand asked coyly: “Any chance that you are annoyed?”

“Not at all; I can always buy others.” The priest was sure that cows were not worth four hundred guilders.

On the third day, Hans was supposed to tend the pigs. He herded them over to a swampy spot. A hog dealer happened to be passing by, and Hans told him that the pigs were for sale, and a deal was struck. All he wanted was the tail of one of the
animals. He stuck it into a spot on the meadow and took a little nap.

When the priest came by to see how the pigs were faring, he found the farmhand fast asleep and the pigs had vanished. He demanded to know what had happened to his livestock. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Hans told him that the pigs had sunk down into the meadow and all that was left was the one tail sticking up in the air. He went over to the tail as if he were going to pull the pig up by it, but the tail stayed in his hand. “Look,” he said, “the tail has already come off. The pigs must all be dead. Are you by any chance angry?”

“Not at all,” the priest replied, and he scratched himself behind the ears. He had no idea what to do with Hans, who was doing his best to make him lose all his worldly goods.

In the evening the priest called the farmhand over: “Hans! I’m going to have to put a watchman in the garden because some thieves have been sneaking into it at night. Can you stay in there tonight and make sure that nothing is taken? Here’s a nice, heavy stick. If the intruder doesn’t speak up after three warnings, you can go ahead and beat him as hard as you can. If anything is stolen, you lose our contest.”

The clever priest sent his cook into the garden to fetch something for him. She tiptoed in, but Hans heard her anyway. He shouted, “Who’s there?” three times in a row, so quickly that the cook didn’t have a chance to answer. The boy jumped up and beat her up so badly that she couldn’t move an inch. The priest heard the screaming and asked what was going on. “I was just following your orders,” Hans said. “The cook was about to steal something, and I beat her up so badly that she’s half-dead. Are you upset with me?” The priest did not reply and just walked the cook back to the house.

The next day was a holiday, and many guests were expected at the priest’s home. The cook was in bed, recovering from her injuries, and a new cook was not so easy to find. The priest told Hans to make a fire at the hearth and to cook up some kind of stew. And he mustn’t forget to include potatoes and to throw parsley on top. Hans followed every order to the letter, and while the meat was cooking up in the pot, he took the priest’s dog, whose name was Potatoes, and his cat, whose name was Parsley, and put them both in the concoction.

The priest returned from church, looked around in the kitchen, and then asked Hans whether he had been sure to include potatoes and parsley. Hans replied: “Oh, yes, for sure, but I had trouble catching Parsley.” The priest nearly fainted. He lifted the lid of the pot, and his faithful cat was right in there, baring its teeth at him. All that remained of his dog was a bushy tail.

The priest could no longer keep quiet, and he called Hans an idiot.

“Are you angry, by any chance?” Hans asked calmly.

“How could I not be angry? I have nothing to serve my guests!” the priest shouted.

Hans won his bet. He took the priest’s money and left him high and dry—no livestock, no money, no supper, and no cook. He raced back home and told everyone the story of his cleverness.