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

She turned to tell her brother — but it was too late. He was so thirsty that he’d thrown himself full length and plunged his face into the water. And at once his face changed, and lengthened, and became covered in fine hairs, and his limbs changed into a deer’s legs and he stood up, tottering uncertainly — and there he was, a young deer, a fawn.

Little Sister saw him looking around nervously, about to flee, and she flung her arms around his neck.

‘Brother, it’s me! Your sister! Don’t flee away, or we’ll both be lost for ever! Oh, what have you done, my poor brother? What have you done?’

She wept, and the fawn wept too. Finally Little Sister gathered herself and said, ‘Stop crying, my sweet little deer. I’ll never leave you, never. Come on, let’s make the best of this.’

She took off the golden garter that she wore and put it around the fawn’s neck, and then she wove some rushes into a cord and tied it to the garter. Leading him along with this, she walked onwards, further and deeper into the forest.

After they’d walked a long way they came to a clearing, and in the clearing there was a little house.

Little Sister stopped and looked all around. It was very quiet. The garden was neatly kept, and the door of the house was open.

‘Is anyone at home?’ she called.

There was no reply. She and the fawn went inside, and found the neatest and cleanest little home they’d ever seen. Their stepmother the witch didn’t care for housekeeping, and her house was always cold and dirty. But this one was delightful.

‘What we’ll do,’ she said to the fawn, ‘is we’ll look after this house really well and keep it nice and clean for whoever it belongs to. Then they won’t mind us staying here.’

She spoke to the fawn all the time. He understood her well enough, and obeyed her when she said, ‘Don’t eat the plants in the garden, and when you want to do pee-pee or the other thing, you go outside.’

She made him a bed on the hearth from soft moss and leaves. Every morning she went out and gathered food for herself: wild berries, or nuts, or sweet-tasting roots. There were carrots and beans and cabbages in the vegetable garden, and she always gathered plenty of fresh sweet grass for the deer, who ate it from her hand. He was happy to play around her, and in the evening, when Little Sister had washed and said her prayers, she lay down with her head on the deer’s back for a pillow. If only Little Brother had still been human, their life would have been perfect.

They lived like that for some time. But one day it happened that the king held a great hunt in the forest. The trees resounded with the notes of the horn, the barking of the hounds, the joyful shouts of the huntsmen. The fawn pricked up his ears and longed to be outside with the hunt.

‘Let me go with them, Sister!’ he begged. ‘I’d give anything to join them in the hunt!’

He pleaded so passionately that she gave in.

‘But,’ she said as she opened the door, ‘make sure you come back by evening. I’m going to lock the door in case the wild huntsmen come by, so to let me know it’s you, knock and say, “Sister dear, your brother’s here.” If you don’t say that, I shan’t open the door.’

The young deer was out through the door in a flash, bounding away into the trees. He had never felt so good, so happy, or so free as when the huntsmen saw him and started after him, and failed to catch him; whenever they came near and thought they’d surely caught him this time, he leaped away into the bushes and disappeared.

When it was getting dark he ran to the little house and knocked on the door.

‘Sister dear, your brother’s here!’

Little Sister opened the door, and he trotted in happily and told her all about the hunt. He slept deeply all night.

When morning came and he heard the distant music of the horn and the hounds once more, he couldn’t resist.

‘Sister, please! Open the door, I beg you! I must go and join in, or I’ll die of longing!’

Unhappily Little Sister opened the door, and said, ‘Don’t forget the password when you come back.’

He didn’t reply, but bounded away towards the hunt. When the king and his huntsmen saw the deer with the golden collar, they gave chase at once. Through brakes and briars, through thickets and across clearings the little deer ran all day long, and he led the hunt on a wild chase. Several times they nearly caught him, and when the sun was setting, a shot from a gun wounded him in the leg. He couldn’t run fast any more, and one of the huntsmen managed to follow him home, and saw him knock, and heard the words, ‘Sister dear, your brother’s here!’

And the huntsman saw the door open, and the girl let in the deer and shut the door again. He went and told the king.

‘Is that so?’ said the king. ‘Well, we shall hunt him all the harder tomorrow.’

Little Sister was frightened when she saw that her deer was wounded. She washed the blood off his leg, and bound a poultice of herbs there to help it heal. In fact the wound wasn’t a serious one, and when he woke up in the morning the little deer had forgotten all about it. He begged to go out for a third time.

‘Sister, I can’t tell you the passion in my breast for the hunt! I must go and join in, or I shall go mad!’

Little Sister began to weep. ‘Yesterday they wounded you,’ she sobbed, ‘and today they’ll kill you. And I’ll be left alone in the wild woods — think of that! I’ll have no one left! I can’t let you out, I can’t!’

‘Then I’ll die here in front of you. When I hear the notes of the horn, I feel every atom of my body leaping with joy. My longing is too much for me, Sister! I beg you, let me go!’

She couldn’t resist his pleas, and with a heavy heart she unlocked the door. Without a backward glance the deer leaped out and bounded away into the forest.

The king had given orders to his huntsmen that they should do the deer with the golden collar no harm. ‘If you see him, put your guns up, and hold the hounds back. Ten golden talers to the man who sees him first!’

They hunted the deer through every part of the forest all day long, and finally as the sun was setting the king called the huntsman to him.

‘Show me where that cottage is. If we can’t catch him one way, we’ll trap him another. What was the little rhyme he said?’

The huntsman repeated it for him. When they reached the cottage, the king knocked on the door and said: ‘Sister dear, your brother’s here!’

The door opened at once. The king walked in, and found standing there a girl more beautiful than any he had seen. She was frightened to see a man and not her little deer, but the man was wearing a golden crown, and he smiled kindly. He reached out his hand and took hers.

‘Will you come to my palace with me,’ he said, ‘and be my wife?’

‘Why, yes,’ said Little Sister. ‘But my little deer must come too. I won’t go without him.’

‘He can come by all means,’ said the king. ‘He shall live as long as you do, and he shall want for nothing.’

And as he said that, the deer himself came bounding in. Little Sister caught his golden collar and tied the cord of rushes to it. The king lifted the girl on to his horse, and they went home to the palace, the deer trotting proudly behind his sister and the king.

Soon afterwards the wedding was celebrated, and Little Sister became the queen. As for Little Brother the deer, he had the whole palace garden to play in, and a team of servants to look after him: the Groom of the Grass, the Valet of the Horns and the Hooves, and the Maid of the Golden Curry Comb, whose job it was to groom him thoroughly every day before he went to bed and deal with any ticks or fleas or lice he might have picked up. So they were all very happy.