Array The Brothers Grimm - Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm - A New English Version

And then the ravens flew away. Faithful Johannes had understood every word, and from then on he grew silent and sorrowful. If he didn’t do what the ravens had said, his master would die, and yet if he explained to the king why he’d done these strange things, he would be turned to stone.

But finally he said to himself, ‘Well, he’s my master, and I’ll save his life even if I have to give up my life in doing so.’

When they landed, it happened exactly as the raven had said it would. A magnificent chestnut horse came galloping up, saddled and bridled in gold.

‘A good omen!’ said the king. ‘He can carry me to the palace.’

And he was about to climb into the saddle when Faithful Johannes pushed him aside and leaped up himself. A moment later he’d pulled out the pistol from the saddle holster and shot the horse dead.

The king’s other servants didn’t care much for Johannes, and they said, ‘What a shame to kill such a beautiful horse! And to shove the king aside like that, what’s more, just as it was going to carry him to the palace.’

‘Hold your tongues,’ said the king. ‘This is Faithful Johannes you’re talking about. I’m sure he had a good reason for it.’

They went into the palace, and there in the hall was a beautiful robe laid out on a golden tray, just as the raven had said. Faithful Johannes was watching closely, and as soon as the king moved to pick it up, Johannes pulled his gloves on, snatched the robe away, and threw it on the fire. It blazed up fiercely.

The other servants whispered together again: ‘See that? See what he did? He burned the king’s wedding robe!’

But the young king said, ‘Enough of that! I’m sure Johannes had a good reason. Leave him alone.’

Then the wedding took place. After the service the dancing began, and Faithful Johannes stood at the edge of the ballroom, never taking his eyes off the queen. Suddenly she turned pale and fell to the floor. At once Johannes ran to her, picked her up, and carried her to the royal bedchamber. He laid her down, and then knelt and first bit her right breast and then sucked out three drops of blood, and spat them out. Instantly she opened her eyes and looked around, and then sat up, breathing easily, perfectly well again.

The king had seen everything, and not understanding why Johannes had behaved like that, became angry and ordered the guards to take him to prison at once.

Next morning Faithful Johannes was condemned to death and led to the gallows. As he stood on the scaffold with the noose around his neck he said, ‘Everyone condemned to die is allowed to say one last thing. Do I also have the right?’

‘Yes,’ said the king. ‘You have that right.’

‘I’ve been unjustly condemned,’ said Faithful Johannes. ‘I’ve always been loyal to you, your majesty, just as I was to your father.’ And he told all about the conversation between the ravens on the bowsprit, and how he had to do these strange things in order to save the king and queen from death.

Hearing that, the king cried out, ‘Oh, my Faithful Johannes! A pardon! A pardon for you! Bring him down at once!’

But something strange was happening to Johannes: as he spoke the very last word, his feet and then his legs and then his trunk and his arms and finally his head changed into stone.

The king and the queen were grief-stricken.

‘Oh, what a terrible reward for his loyalty to us!’ the king said, and he ordered the stone figure to be carried to his bedchamber and placed next to his bed. Every time he looked at it, the tears flowed down his cheeks, and he’d say, ‘Oh, if only I could bring you back to life, my dear, most faithful Johannes!’

Time went by, and the queen gave birth to twin boys, who were healthy and happy and became her greatest delight. One day when the queen was at church, the two boys were playing in their father’s bedroom, and their father the king looked at the stone figure and said, as he always did, ‘Oh, my dear faithful Johannes, if only I could bring you back to life!’

And then to his astonishment the stone began to speak and said, ‘You can bring me back to life, if you sacrifice what you love most.’

The king said, ‘For you I’ll give up everything I have!’

The stone went on, ‘If you cut off your children’s heads with your own hand and sprinkle their blood on me, I shall come back to life.’

The king was horrified. To kill his own beloved children! What a terrible price to pay! But he remembered how Faithful Johannes had been ready to give his own life for those he served, and he steeled himself, drew his sword, and lopped off his two children’s heads in a moment. And when he had sprinkled the stone figure with their blood, the stone changed into flesh again, starting at the head and going all the way down to the toes, and there was Faithful Johannes, healthy and well.

He said to the king, ‘You were faithful to me, your majesty, and you won’t go unrewarded.’

And Johannes took the children’s heads and put them on again, rubbing their necks with their own blood, and they sat up and blinked and came alive once more, and went on jumping around and playing as if nothing had happened.

The king was overjoyed. And then he heard the queen coming back from church, and he made Johannes and the children hide in the wardrobe. When she came in, he said, ‘My dear, have you been praying?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but my mind was always on Faithful Johannes and what a dreadful thing happened to him because of us.’

‘Well,’ said the king, ‘we can bring him back to life, but it’ll be at a heavy cost. We shall have to sacrifice our two little boys.’

The queen turned pale, and horror nearly stopped her heart. But she said, ‘We owe him that much, for his great loyalty.’

The king rejoiced to hear that her response was the same as his, and he opened the wardrobe and out came Faithful Johannes and the two little boys.

‘God be praised!’ said the king. ‘Faithful Johannes has been saved, and our two sons are alive as well!’

He told the queen how everything had come about. And after that they lived together happily till the end of their lives.

Tale type:ATU 516, ‘Faithful John’

Source:a story told to the Grimm brothers by Dorothea Viehmann

Similar stories:Alexander Afanasyev: ‘Koshchey the Deathless’ ( Russian Fairy Tales )

There are several intriguing motifs in this story: the portrait that must be hidden, the fatal knowledge acquired by overhearing what the birds say, the dreadful fate of poor Johannes and the appalling dilemma faced by the king.

The story in Afanasyev is not as tight and well contructed as the Grimms’ version, which moves with great swiftness and skill from event to event. As elsewhere in their tales, we can see the organizing hand of Dorothea Viehmann (see the note to ‘The Riddle’).

Once there were a king and queen who lived together happily and ruled their kingdom well. They had twelve children, and every single one was a boy.

One day the king said to his wife, ‘You’re carrying our thirteenth child in your womb. If she turns out to be a girl, then the other twelve must die. I want her to inherit the kingdom and all my wealth.’

And to show her that he meant it, he had twelve coffins made. Each one was filled with wood shavings, and at the head of each one there was a feather pillow and a folded shroud. He had them put in a locked room and gave the key to the queen.

‘Tell no one about this,’ he said.

The mother sat weeping all day long, until her youngest son, who was called Benjamin after the boy in the Bible, asked, ‘Mother, why are you so sad?’