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

She filled the basket, and went to thank the little men. They all lined up to bow and shake her hand.

‘Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!’

She went home and gave the basket to her stepmother.

‘Where did you get these?’ the woman snapped.

‘I found a little house—’ she began, but a gold piece fell out of her mouth. As she continued to speak, more and more gold pieces fell to the floor, till they were heaped around her ankles.

‘Look at her showing off!’ said her stepsister. ‘I could do that if I wanted. It’s not that clever.’

Of course, the stepsister was really wild with envy, and as soon as they were alone she said to her mother: ‘Let me go to the woods and pick strawberries! I want to! I really want to!’

‘No, darling,’ said her mother, ‘it’s too cold. You could freeze to death.’

‘Oh, go on! Please! I’ll give you half the gold coins that fall out of my mouth! Go on !’

Finally the mother gave in. She took her best fur coat and altered it so it fitted the girl, and gave her chicken-liver pâté sandwiches and a big piece of chocolate cake for the journey.

The stepsister went into the woods and found the little house. The three little men were inside, looking through the window, but she didn’t see them, and she opened the door and went straight in.

‘Move out the way,’ she said. ‘I want to sit next to the fire.’

The three little men sat on their bench and watched as she took out her chicken-liver pâté sandwiches.

‘What’s that?’ they said.

‘My lunch,’ she said with her mouth full.

‘Can we have some?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘What about that cake? It’s a big piece. Do you want all of it?’

‘There’s hardly enough for me. Get your own cake.’

When she’d finished eating they said, ‘You can sweep the path now.’

‘I’m not sweeping any path,’ she said. ‘D’you think I’m your servant? What a nerve.’

They just smoked their pipes and looked at her, and since they obviously weren’t going to give her anything, she left and looked around for strawberries.

‘What a rude girl!’ said the first little man.

‘Selfish, too,’ said the second.

‘Not as good as the last one, by a long way,’ said the third. ‘What shall we give her?’

‘I’ll make sure that she gets uglier every day.’

‘I’ll make sure that every time she speaks, a toad jumps out of her mouth.’

‘I’ll make sure she dies an uncomfortable death.’

The girl couldn’t find any strawberries, so she went home to complain. Every time she opened her mouth a toad jumped out, and soon the floor was covered in the crawling, squatting, flopping things, and even her mother found her repellent.

After that the stepmother became obsessed. It was as if she had a worm gnawing in her brain. The only thing she thought about was how to make her stepdaughter’s life a misery, and to add to her torment, the girl was growing more and more beautiful each day.

Finally the woman boiled a skein of yarn and hung it over the girl’s shoulder.

‘Here,’ she said, ‘take the axe and go and chop a hole in the ice on the river. Rinse this yarn, and don’t take all day about it.’

She hoped the girl would fall in and drown, of course.

Her stepdaughter did what she was told. She took the axe and the yarn to the river, and she was just about to step on to the ice when a passing carriage drew to a halt. In the carriage there happened to be a king.

‘Stop! What are you doing?’ he called. ‘That ice isn’t safe!’

‘I’ve got to rinse this yarn,’ the girl explained.

The king saw how beautiful she was, and opened the carriage door.

‘Would you like to come with me?’ he said.

‘Yes, I would,’ she said, ‘gladly,’ because she was happy to get away from the woman and her daughter.

So she got in and the carriage drove away.

‘Now I happen to be looking for a wife,’ the king said. ‘My advisers have told me it’s time I got married. You’re not married, are you?’

‘No,’ said the girl, and neatly dropped the gold piece into her pocket.

The king was fascinated.

‘What a clever trick!’ he said. ‘Will you marry me?’

She agreed, and their wedding was celebrated as soon as possible. So it all came about as the little men had promised.

A year later the young queen gave birth to a baby boy. The whole country rejoiced, and it was reported in all the newspapers. The stepmother heard about it, and she and her daughter went to the palace, pretending to pay the queen a friendly visit. The king happened to be out, and when no one else was around, the woman and her daughter got hold of the queen and threw her out of the window into the stream running below, where she drowned at once. Her body sank to the bottom and was hidden by the water-weeds.

‘Now you lie down in her bed,’ the woman said to her daughter. ‘Don’t say anything, whatever you do.’

‘Why not?’

‘Toads,’ said the woman, picking up the one that had just jumped out, and throwing it out of the window after the queen. ‘Now just lie there. Do as I say.’

The woman covered her daughter’s head, because quite apart from the toads she had indeed grown even uglier every day. When the king came back, the woman explained that the queen had a fever. ‘She must be quiet,’ she said. ‘No conversation. Mustn’t speak at all. You must let her rest.’

The king murmured some tender words to the daughter under the blankets, and left. Next morning he came to see her again, and before the woman could stop her, the daughter answered him when he spoke. Out jumped a toad.

‘Good Lord,’ he said, ‘what’s that?’

‘I can’t help it,’ said the daughter, as another toad came out, ‘it’s not my fault,’ and another.

‘What’s going on?’ said the king. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

‘She’s got toad flu,’ said the woman. ‘It’s very infectious. But she’ll soon get over it, as long as she’s not disturbed.’

‘I do hope so,’ said the king.

That night, the kitchen boy was wiping the last of the pots and pans when he saw a white duck swimming up the drain that led out of the scullery into the stream.

The duck said:

‘The king’s asleep, and I must weep.’

The kitchen boy didn’t know what to say. Then the duck spoke again:

‘And what of my guests?’

‘They’re taking their rest,’ said the kitchen boy.

‘And my sweet little baby?’

‘He’s sleeping too,’ said the boy, ‘maybe.’

Then the duck shimmered and her form changed into that of the queen. She went upstairs to the baby’s cradle, and took him out and nursed him, and then she laid him down tenderly and tucked him in and kissed him. Finally she floated back to the kitchen, changed back into the form of the duck, and swam down the gutter and back to the stream.

The kitchen boy had followed her, and seen everything.

Next night she came again, and the same thing happened. On the third night, the ghost said to the boy: ‘Go and tell the king what you’ve seen. Tell him to bring his sword and pass it over my head three times, and then cut my head off.’

The kitchen boy ran to the king and told him everything. The king was horrified. He tiptoed into the queen’s bedchamber, lifted the blankets from her head, and gasped at the sight of the ugly daughter lying there snoring, with a toad for company.

‘Take me to the ghost!’ he said, strapping on his sword.

When they got to the kitchen the queen’s ghost stood in front of him, and the king waved his sword three times over her head. At once her form shimmered and changed into that of the white duck, and immediately the king swung his sword and cut her head off. A moment later the duck vanished, and in her place stood the real queen, alive again.