Classic Fairy Tales

Once on a time the fox was talking to the wolf of the strength of man; how no animal could withstand him, and how all were obliged to employ cunning in order to preserve themselves from him. Then the wolf answered, “If I had but the chance of seeing a man for once, I would set on him notwithstanding.” – “I can help thee to do that,” said the fox. “Come to me early to-morrow morning, and I will show thee one.” The wolf presented himself betimes, and the fox took him out on the road by which the huntsmen went daily. First came an old discharged soldier. “Is that a man?” inquired the wolf. “No,” answered the fox, “that was one.” Afterwards came a little boy who was going to school. “Is that a man?” – “No, that is going to be one.” At length came a hunter with his double-barrelled gun at his back, and hanger by his side. Said the fox to the wolf, “Look, there comes a man, thou must attack him, but I will take myself off to my hole.” The wolf then rushed on the man. When the huntsman saw him he said, “It is a pity that I have not loaded with a bullet,” aimed, and fired his small shot in his face. The wolf pulled a very wry face, but did not let himself be frightened, and attacked him again, on which the huntsman gave him the second barrel. The wolf swallowed his pain, and rushed on the huntsman, but he drew out his bright hanger, and gave him a few cuts with it right and left, so that, bleeding everywhere, he ran howling back to the fox. “Well, brother wolf,” said the fox, “how hast thou got on with man?” – “Ah!” replied the wolf, “I never imagined the strength of man to be what it is! First, he took a stick from his shoulder, and blew into it, and then something flew into my face which tickled me terribly; then he breathed once more into the stick, and it flew into my nose like lightning and hail; when I was quite close, he drew a white rib out of his side, and he beat me so with it that I was all but left lying dead.” – “See what a braggart thou art!” said the fox. “Thou throwest thy hatchet so far that thou canst not fetch it back again!”

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There was once a woman who was a witch, and she had two daughters, one ugly and wicked, whom she loved the best, because she was her very own daughter, and one pretty and good, whom she hated because she was her step-daughter.

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There was once a miller who had a beautiful daughter, and when she was grown up he became anxious that she should be well married and taken care of; so he thought, “If a decent sort of man comes and asks her in marriage, I will give her to him.” Soon after a suitor came forward who seemed very well to do, and as the miller knew nothing to his disadvantage, he promised him his daughter. But the girl did not seem to love him as a bride should love her bridegroom; she had no confidence in him; as often as she saw him or thought about him, she felt a chill at her heart. One day he said to her, “You are to be my bride, and yet you have never been to see me.” The girl answered, “I do not know where your house is.” Then he said, “My house is a long way in the wood.” She began to make excuses, and said she could not find the way to it; but the bridegroom said, “You must come and pay me a visit next Sunday; I have already invited company, and I will strew ashes on the path through the wood, so that you will be sure to find it.”

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A widow had two daughters; one was pretty and industrious, the other was ugly and lazy. And as the ugly one was her own daughter, she loved her much the best, and the pretty one was made to do all the work, and be the drudge of the house. Every day the poor girl had to sit by a well on the high road and spin until her fingers bled. Now it happened once that as the spindle was bloody, she dipped it into the well to wash it; but it slipped out of her hand and fell in. Then she began to cry, and ran to her step-mother, and told her of her misfortune; and her stepmother scolded her without mercy, and said in her rage: “As you have let the spindle fall in, you must go and fetch it out again!” Then the girl went back again to the well, not knowing what to do, and in the despair of her heart she jumped down into the well the same way the spindle had gone. After that she knew nothing; and when she came to herself she was in a beautiful meadow, and the sun was shining on the flowers that grew round her. And she walked on through the meadow until she came to a baker’s oven that was full of bread; and the bread called out to her: “Oh, take me out, take me out, or I shall burn; I am baked enough already!” Then she drew near, and with the baker’s peel she took out all the loaves one after the other. And she went farther on till she came to a tree weighed down with apples, and it called out to her: “Oh, shake me, shake me, we apples are all of us ripe!” Then she shook the tree until the apples fell like rain, and she shook until there were no more to fall; and when she had gathered them together in a heap, she went on farther. At last she came to a little house, and an old woman was peeping out of it, but she had such great teeth that the girl was terrified and about to run away, only the old woman called her back. “What are you afraid of, my dear child? Come and live with me, and if you do the house-work well and orderly, things shall go well with you. You must take great pains to make my bed well, and shake it up thoroughly, so that the feathers fly about, and then in the world it snows, for I am Mother Hulda.” As the old woman spoke so kindly, the girl took courage, consented, and went to her work. She did everything to the old woman’s satisfaction, and shook the bed with such a will that the feathers flew about like snow-flakes: and so she led a good life, had never a cross word, but boiled and roast meat every day. When she had lived a long time with Mother Hulda, she began to feel sad, not knowing herself what ailed her; at last she began to think she must be home-sick; and although she was a thousand times better off than at home where she was, yet she had a great longing to go home. At last she said to her mistress: “I am homesick, and although I am very well off here, I cannot stay any longer; I must go back to my own home.” Mother Hulda answered: “It pleases me well that you should wish to go home, and, as you have served me faithfully, I will undertake to send you there!” She took her by the hand and led her to a large door standing open, and as she was passing through it there fell upon her a heavy shower of gold, and the gold hung all about her, so that she was covered with it. “All this is yours, because you have been so industrious,” said Mother Hulda; and, besides that, she returned to her her spindle, the very same that she had dropped in the well. And then the door was shut again, and the girl found herself back again in the world, not far from her mother’s house; and as she passed through the yard the cock stood on the top of the well and cried:

“Cock-a-doodle doo!
Our golden girl has come home too!”

Then she went in to her mother, and as she had returned covered with gold she was well received.

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