The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales (Penguin Classics) (21 page)

Once there was a pastor who was living on a farm with his mother. Her name was Oferla. They had a servant who prepared their meals. There was also a schoolteacher named Fink, and he had a hard time of it, for he had too many children and too little money to take care of them.

Fink learned that the pastor had slaughtered two pigs and that their meat was hanging on hooks by the chimney. The teacher stole into the pastor’s house and went into the kitchen while everyone was asleep. Then he took every bit of the meat in the kitchen and returned home.

The next morning the cook discovered the theft and reported it to the pastor and to Oferla. “Who could have done that?” they asked.

“The only person around yesterday was Fink. He must have stolen the pork.”

“That can’t possibly be true,” the pastor said. “Our schoolteacher is an honest man.”

But the cook was sure that the teacher was the culprit.

“I have an idea,” Oferla said. “We’ll let the teacher know that the pork was stolen.” She turned to the pastor and added: “Then you can tell him that you’re planning a trip and are worried about leaving your valuables at home. After all, they might be stolen, like the pork. And so you’re hoping to leave some things with him. Then I’ll climb into the big trunk over there. We’ll put some bread in there so that I won’t get hungry, and then you can take the locked trunk, with me in it, over to the teacher. That’s how I’ll find out whether they’re cooking
pork. You can pick me up in the evening—just tell him that you didn’t manage to get away.”

The pastor found the idea appealing. He took out the trunk, and Oferla climbed into it, taking a couple of loaves of bread with her. The pastor then carried the trunk over to the teacher named Fink and asked if he would hold on to the chest full of valuable items. The teacher was happy to help out, and they put the trunk, with Oferla and her two loaves of bread in it, into a corner.

At noon, the teacher’s children shouted: “Father, give us some of the pastor’s pork. We want more of it!”

When Oferla heard those words, she could not keep quiet and shouted: “You’re the pork thief after all! Now that we know, we’ll have you locked up!”

Everyone was terrified when they heard Oferla’s words. The teacher lifted the lid of the trunk and saw her in there. He was in such a panic that he strangled her to death and stuck some bread in her mouth. Then he shut the lid of the trunk. That evening the pastor returned and said that he wanted to bring the trunk back home. He had decided not to take the trip after all. The teacher helped him carry it home and went back to his house.

When the pastor lifted the lid, what do you think he saw? The corpse of his mother! The cook shouted: “God has punished us! We were wrong to suspect the teacher, and now she’s suffocated. What are we going to do? People will think that we killed her for her money. We have to get her out of here! Run over to the teacher, and he can help us figure out what to do!” The teacher happened to be strolling by, just as if by chance. The pastor confessed everything and begged him to get rid of Oferla’s body so that no one would suspect him of anything. He gave him a reward of two hundred kreuzers.

Fink took the money as well as the corpse, along with a pitcher that Oferla had used for beer. He went over to the inn, climbed the stairs, and leaned the corpse against the doorframe. Then he put the pitcher in Oferla’s hand, rang the bell, and hid.

Every Sunday Oferla would go to the inn to buy beer. When the bell rang, the girl who worked at the inn opened the door and took the pitcher from Oferla as usual and went to fill it. When she turned around, the woman had fallen down the stairs. The girl wanted to help her get up, but then she realized that Oferla was dead and thought it was all her fault. “Run over to the teacher’s house,” the innkeeper said, “and confess everything to him! Let’s hope that he can come over and help us find a way out of this fix. If not, we’ll end up in jail. Tell him we’ll pay him three hundred kreuzers to help us out.”

The girl went over to the teacher’s house and told him the whole story. He went over to the inn, collected his three hundred kreuzers, and told the innkeeper not to worry and that he should not say a word about what happened. The teacher would keep quiet too.

A grumpy old farmer, whose harvest had been stolen more than once, lived in the neighborhood. The teacher carried Oferla’s corpse, along with her basket, to his field and put them down near a furrow, with Oferla bending down over the plants. When the farmer went out to work in the morning, he saw Oferla right there in his field next to her basket. He picked up a big stick, made his way over to the thief, and hit her as hard as she could until she fell over. “Oh my dear God,” he said. “What have I done? That’s just Oferla. She would never have stolen from me. She was probably just picking a few leaves for her pet rabbit. What should I do? If anyone finds out, I will end up in jail.”

The farmer went over to talk with the teacher, spilled the beans, and promised to give him one hundred kreuzers if he could remove Oferla from his property. Then no one would suspect anything. The teacher took the hundred kreuzers, put the corpse into a sack, and carried it out into the woods that evening.

Now it was completely dark, and the teacher heard some noise. It turned out that three brothers were there, all robbers, and they were returning from a job with three sacks of smoked meat. The teacher hid behind a tree, and when they passed by, he shouted: “Stop right there, you scoundrels!” The thieves
were terrified, dropped their sacks, and ran off. The teacher replaced one of the sacks with the one containing the dead woman and returned home. He now had six hundred kreuzers and a sack filled with meat and could live high on the hog.

When the thieves returned, they found their sacks, picked them up, and returned home. Their mother emptied the sacks and took out the meat. When she opened the third one and pulled out Oferla’s hair, she said: “Looks like you brought home some flax.”

“Oh, no,” they said. “It’s just meat.” She turned the sack inside out, and to her surprise the corpse of an old woman fell to the ground. They buried her as quickly as possible and no one was the wiser. Then they devoured with gusto the meat they had
stolen.

The wind and his wife were both present at the creation of the world. The two were overweight, and on top of that, Sir Wind had a long beard that wrapped around his body three times. Still, both were able to pass easily through a mere crack in a wall, or any opening at all, for that matter.

There once lived a count who detested the wind and was forever speaking ill of it. One day he was passing through the forest on his lands when he met a woman of some heft. The count asked: “Who are you, where are you from, where are you heading, and why are you so fat?”

The woman replied: “I am known as Madame Wind, and I know that you don’t like me.”

“Where is your husband?” the nobleman asked.

“You will see him in a moment!” she replied. And Madame Wind began to blow and carried the count to a glass mountain, where she set him down to wait. Then she slipped into a crack in the mountain. Before long a man of huge girth appeared. His beard was wrapped three times around his gigantic body. “You may have guessed that I’m Sir Wind, the man you’ve scorned for so long.” And he beat the count with a whip. All at once the count turned to stone, and although he had become a statue, he could still see and hear everything that was going on in the glass mountain. Every day more people were turned to stone, and he learned, to his dismay, that in ten years all the nobles would be roasted and the common folk would be boiled.

Two years went by, and the count was aching to see his faithful wife. He was sure that she would be able to free him.
Before long, a strange bird appeared, one he had never before seen. It landed on his head and dropped a ring—his wife’s wedding ring—along with a little note, to the ground. Just then, the count returned to his human form. He read the note, and it instructed him to follow the bird wherever it might fly.

The bird flew straight ahead, and the count followed it. He reached a castle that was in flames. The bird flew right into the fire, but the count did not dare follow and stayed outside. After a while a prince in full regalia came out of the castle, took the count by the hand, and led him through the flames into a splendid hall filled with statues. The bird said: “I lifted the curse that had you under the spell of the wind. Otherwise you would have suffered the fate of all those statues made of stone, still waiting at the glass mountain. I was also turned to stone, but the flames liberated me. Take a look at this figure made of stone.” And the bird pointed to a statue. “He was once a king, and now the bird that is the spirit of water will free him.” As soon as he spoke those words, another bird flew into the hall with a little note in its beak and landed on the statue’s head. Suddenly the statue came to life: It was the king. On the note were written words declaring that each of the three—the count, the prince, and the king—could make a wish that would correspond to the size of the pieces in which they tore the note. The count wanted to be as fat as possible, the prince as wide as possible, and the king as tall as possible, so tall that he would be able to touch the stars.

The prince, who had the sharpest vision, led the trio out of the castle by way of an underground tunnel. Scores of armed figures were lined up at the glass castle, with Sir Wind right up front, and his wife holding up the rear. When the prince looked up, he saw legions of armed birds in the sky. The king made himself as tall as he could, and as soon as he pulled the birds down to earth, the other two slew them.

Sir Wind left the glass mountain with his army and began menacing his three adversaries. Once the clock struck eleven, he would have power over them. The count made himself as fat as possible, opened his mouth wide, and Sir Wind and Madame Wind moved in. “Close your mouth!” the prince shouted,
and the count swallowed them both up. They landed in his stomach, which began to ache painfully. The count spit the heavy weight of the two into the sea, and Sir Wind and Madame Wind sank deep down into the waters.

Ever since then the seas have been restless, and the wind blows from the direction of the ocean.

Once there was a woman with three daughters, and they had nothing to eat. The woman left home and was planning to end her misery by drowning herself. But a voice called out to her: “Stop what you’re doing and go over to the mountains. Your luck will turn!” The message was repeated twice, and so the good woman walked toward the mountains.

Once she had made her way across the mountains, she saw a man standing at the door of his house. She asked for alms and received them, along with the promise that her misery would be at an end once she returned home. As she made her way back, night fell, and she lost her way. In the morning, she discovered that she was near a body of water that had frozen, a sea of ice. Three giants were gathered there, wearing hats made of gold and playing with golden apples. All at once a blast of cold air sent the protective hats in the direction of the woman, and all three hats landed at her feet. The giants offered her their golden apples in return for the hats, for they were not able to leave the frozen expanse and go on land. The woman was more than happy to oblige, and she returned home with three golden apples. She sold the apples along with the silver leaves on their stems, but she kept the stems themselves. If she wanted to make a wish, all she had to do was knock three times with the stem, and any wish would be granted.

The woman grew rich and lived in peace, until her daughters came of age and were ready to marry. She left home in search of the man who had given her the alms. She offered him her eldest
daughter in marriage, along with one of the stems from the apples as a dowry. One stem was not enough for the man, and so she returned home to fetch a second one. Once again she passed the sea of ice. The three giants were waiting for her. They wanted her daughters to become their wives, and they offered seven golden apples in the bargain. The woman found this offer much more appealing than the exchange with the man. She traveled with her daughters to the giants. The giants welcomed them into their underground palaces, and they all lived happily together. The children all became, like their fathers, ice giants.

After God had finished creating the meadows and giving plants and flowers all their beautiful colors, he turned to the snow on the ground and said: “You can choose whatever color you want. You end up covering everything up anyway.”

The snow looked at the grass and said: “Give me your green color!” It went to the roses, to the violets, and to the sunflowers, for it was vain and wanted to have a beautiful skirt. But the grass and the flowers made fun of the snow and gave it the cold shoulder.

The snow turned to the flowers known as snowdrops and said in despair: “If no one is willing to give me a color, then I will be like the moon—always upset that no one can see it.”

The little flower replied: “If you like my shabby little coat, you can have it.” The snow took it, and from then on it was always white, and it became the enemy of all other flowers.