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

When the servants heard that, they were so terrified that they turned and ran as if the Wild Hunt was after them. None of them ever dared to go near him again.

So the little tailor was a king, and he stayed a king for the rest of his days.

Tale type:ATU 1640, ‘The Brave Little Tailor’

Source:a story in Martinus Montanus’s Wegkürtzer ( c. 1557)

Similar stories:Alexander Afanasyev: ‘Foma Berennikov’, ‘Ivan the Simpleton’ ( Russian Fairy Tales ); Katharine M. Briggs: ‘John Glaick, the Brave Tailor’ ( Folk Tales of Britain ); Italo Calvino: ‘Jack Strong, Slayer of Five Hundred’, ‘John Balento’ ( Italian Folktales )

A popular story, with cousins in many languages. The small, nimble, quick-witted character is always the audience’s favourite when pitted against the big blundering giant: David and Goliath are the best-known example. This version of the Grimms’ is one of the liveliest.

‘Nine tailors make a man’, says the proverb, but it’s not easy to see why.

There was once a rich man whose wife became ill. When she felt she was near to death, she called her only daughter to her bedside.

‘My dear child,’ she said, ‘be as good as gold and as meek as a lamb, and then the blessed Lord will always protect you. What’s more I shall look down from heaven myself and be close to you.’

When she had said these words, she closed her eyes and died.

Every day the girl went to her mother’s grave near the dovecote and wept, and she was as good as gold and as meek as a lamb. When winter came the snow lay like a white cloth over the grave; and when the spring sun came and took the snow away, the man married another wife.

His new wife had two daughters. They were beautiful, but they had hard, selfish, arrogant hearts. After the wedding all three moved into the house, and then things began to go badly for the poor stepdaughter.

‘Why should that stupid goose sit in the parlour with us?’ the sisters would say. ‘If she wants to eat bread, she must earn it. The kitchen’s the place for her.’

They took away the beautiful clothes her mother had made for her and gave her a shabby grey dress and wooden shoes.

‘Look at Princess Perfect now! Dressed to kill!’ they jeered as they led her to the kitchen.

She was made to work like a slave from morning till night. She had to get up at daybreak, carry water from the well, clean the fireplaces and make the fires, cook all the food and wash all the dishes. But that wasn’t all, because the sisters did everything they could to make things worse for the poor girl. They mocked her, they made fun of her to their silly friends, and they had a special torment that never failed to amuse them: they would scatter dried peas or lentils in among the ashes, so she had to sit on the floor and pick them all out again. And when she was worn out at the end of the day, could she look forward to a comfortable bed? Not a bit of it. She had to sleep on the hearth, in among the ashes and the cinders. And she never had a chance to wash and clean herself, so she always looked dusty and grubby.

Because of that, they found a special name for her.

‘What shall we call her — Ashy-face?’

‘Sootybottom?’

‘Cinderina?’

‘Cinderella — that’s it!’

One day their father had to go to the town on business, and he asked his stepdaughters what they’d like him to bring back for them.

‘Clothes!’ said one. ‘Lots of lovely dresses.’

‘Jewels for me,’ said the other. ‘Pearls and rubies and things.’

‘And what about you, Cinderella?’ he said.

‘Father, just bring me back the first branch that brushes against your hat on the way home.’

So he came back from town with beautiful dresses for the one, and costly jewels for the other. And he’d ridden through a thicket on the way home, and a hazel branch had brushed his hat, so he’d broken it off the tree and brought it home for Cinderella.

She thanked him and planted it at once on her mother’s grave. Her tears watered it, and it grew into a lovely tree. She tended it three times a day, and it was a favourite of the birds, too, for doves and pigeons used to perch in it.

One day an invitation came from the royal palace. The king was holding a great festival that was to last for three days, and all the young ladies in the kingdom were invited, so that the prince could choose a bride. When the two stepsisters heard about it, they were thrilled, and started getting ready at once.

‘Cinderella! Come here. Hurry up, girl! Brush my hair. Don’t pull ! Be careful ! Now polish the buckles on our shoes. Let my dress out under the arms. Give me that necklace of your mother’s. Put my hair up like the girl’s in this picture. No, not that tight, you fool,’ and so on, and so on.

Cinderella did everything they asked, but she wept, because she would have liked to go to the ball as well. She pleaded with her stepmother.

‘ You ? Go to the ball? Who do you think you are? You’re a dirty little slattern, that’s all you are. And how do you think you’re going to manage at a high society ball, with no charm, no looks and no conversation to speak of? Back to the kitchen, child.’

But Cinderella persisted, and her stepmother finally lost her patience, and threw a bowl of lentils into the ashes.

‘Pick those out in two hours,’ she said, ‘and sort them out, good from bad, and you can come to the ball.’

Cinderella went out through the back door and into the garden. She stood under the hazel tree and said:

Two turtledoves flew down through the door and into the kitchen, and started to pick at the lentils in the ashes. They nodded their heads and went pick, pick, pick, pick . And then some wood pigeons came, and laughing doves and collared doves and stock doves and rock doves, and joined them in the ashes, going pick, pick, pick, pick . In less than an hour they were finished, and they all flew out of the door and away.

The girl took the bowl to her stepmother, thinking that now she’d be allowed to come to the ball.

‘That’s no good,’ said the woman. ‘You’ve got nothing to wear, and you don’t know how to dance. Do you want them all to laugh at you?’ And she threw two bowls of lentils into the ashes, and said, ‘Sort those out, go on. If you can do it in under an hour you can go to the ball.’

And she thought, ‘She’ll never manage to do that.’

Cinderella went out through the back door again. She stood under the hazel tree and said:

So down flew two white doves, and they flew straight into the kitchen and started, pick, pick, pick, pick . Then came a pair of robins, and then a pair of blackbirds, and then a pair of wagtails, and then a pair of song thrushes, and then a pair of mistle thrushes, and then a pair of wrens, and they all went pick, pick, pick, pick .

Before half an hour had passed, Cinderella took the bowls to her stepmother. The poor girl was innocent enough to think that this time the woman would say yes.

‘It’s no use,’ her stepmother said. ‘You haven’t got any shoes worth being seen in. Do you think you can come to a ball wearing a pair of wooden clogs? What sort of a simpleton will people think you are? We’d be ashamed to be seen in your company.’