Household Tales by Jacob Grimm (classic books for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

and growling; she was terrified, and she cried, “Ah, the bear is behind us and wants to get thee!”

The tailor was quick and stood on his head, stuck his legs out of the window, and cried, “Dost thou see the vise? If thou dost not be off thou shalt be put into it again.” When the bear saw that, he turned round and ran away. The tailor drove quietly to church, and the princess was married to him at once, and he lived with her as happy as a woodlark. Whosoever does not believe this, must pay a thaler.

The Bright Sun Brings It to Light

A tailor’s apprentice was travelling about the world in search of work, and at one time he could find none, and his poverty was so great that he had not a farthing to live on. Presently he met a Jew on the road, and as he thought he would have a great deal of money about him, the tailor thrust God out of his heart, fell on the Jew, and said, “Give me thy money, or I will strike thee dead.”

Then said the Jew, “Grant me my life, I have no money but eight farthings.”

But the tailor said, “Money thou hast; and it shall be produced,” and used violence and beat him until he was near death.

And when the Jew was dying, the last words he said were, “The bright sun will bring it to light,” and thereupon he died. The tailor’s apprentice felt in his pockets and sought for money, but he found nothing but eight farthings, as the Jew had said. Then he took him up and carried him behind a clump of trees, and went onwards to seek work. After he had traveled about a long while, he got work in a town with a master who had a pretty daughter, with whom he fell in love, and he married her, and lived in good and happy wedlock.

After a long time when he and his wife had two children, the wife’s father and mother died, and the young people kept house alone. One morning, when the husband was sitting on the table before the window, his wife brought him his coffee, and when he had poured it out into the saucer, and was just going to drink, the sun shone on it and the reflection gleamed hither and thither on the wall above, and made circles on it. Then the tailor looked up and said, “Yes, it would like very much to bring it to light, and cannot!”

The woman said, “Oh, dear husband, and what is that, then? What dost thou mean by that?”

He answered, “I must not tell thee.”

But she said, “If thou lovest me, thou must tell me,” and used her most affectionate words, and said that no one should ever know it, and left him no rest.

Then he told her how years ago, when he was travelling about seeking work and quite worn out and penniless, he had killed a Jew, and that in the last agonies of death, the Jew had spoken the words, “The bright sun will bring it to light.” And now, the sun had just wanted to bring it to light, and had gleamed and made circles on the wall, but had not been able to do it. After this, he again charged her particularly never to tell this, or he would lose his life, and she did promise. When however, he had sat down to work again, she went to her great friend and confided the story to her, but she was never to repeat it to any human being, but before two days were over, the whole town knew it, and the tailor was brought to trial, and condemned. And thus, after all, the bright sun did bring it to light.

The Blue Light

There was once on a time a soldier who for many years had served the King faithfully, but when the war came to an end could serve no longer because of the many wounds which he had received. The King said to him, “Thou mayst return to thy home, I need thee no longer, and thou wilt not receive any more money, for he only receives wages who renders me service for them.” Then the soldier did not know how to earn a living, went away greatly troubled, and walked the whole day, until in the evening he entered a forest. When darkness came on, he saw a light, which he went up to, and came to a house wherein lived a witch.

“Do give me one night’s lodging, and a little to eat and drink,” said he to her, “or I shall starve.”

“Oho!” she answered, “who gives anything to a runaway soldier? Yet will I be compassionate, and take you in, if you will do what I wish.”

“What do you wish?” said the soldier.

“That you should dig all round my garden for me, tomorrow.” The soldier consented, and next day labored with all his strength, but could not finish it by the evening. “I see well enough,” said the witch, “that you can do no more today, but I will keep you yet another night, in payment for which you must tomorrow chop me a load of wood, and make it small.” The soldier spent the whole day in doing it, and in the evening the witch proposed that he should stay one night more. “Tomorrow, you shall only do me a very trifling piece of work. Behind my house, there is an old dry well, into which my light has fallen, it burns blue, and never goes out, and you shall bring it up again for me.” Next day the old woman took him to the well, and let him down in a basket. He found the blue light, and made her a signal to draw him up again. She did draw him up, but when he came near the edge,