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

‘ Oww! ’ yelled the Devil, waking up at once. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I had a dream,’ said his granny, carefully putting the golden hair down beside her where he couldn’t see.

‘What dream? What was it about?’

‘A fountain,’ she said. ‘It was in the market square. Years ago it ran with wine, and everyone could help themselves, but now it won’t even give water.’

‘Stupid people,’ muttered the Devil, settling his head on her lap again. ‘All they have to do is dig out the toad under the stone in the fountain. If they kill that, the wine will flow again.’

The grandmother went back to picking out the lice, and once again he began to snore. Searching through his tangled hairs, she found another golden one, and pulled it out.

‘ Ow! Why d’you keep doing that?’

‘Sorry, sweetie,’ she said. ‘I had another dream, and I didn’t know what I was doing.’

‘Another dream, eh? What was it about this time?’

‘There was a tree in the park, and it didn’t even produce leaves any more. Years ago it used to give golden apples.’

‘They don’t know anything in that town. They should dig around the roots, and they’ll find a mouse gnawing at them. Kill the mouse and they’ll get their golden apples again.’

‘There, there,’ she said. ‘If only I was as clever as you, I wouldn’t wake you up. Go back to sleep now, my pet.’

The Devil shifted about and put his head back in her lap. Presently the snoring began again. She waited a little longer this time, and then nipped out the third golden hair, putting it with the others.

‘ Yeow! You’re doing it again! What’s the matter with you, you stupid old woman?’

‘There, there,’ she said. ‘It was that cheese I had for supper. It’s making me dream again.’

‘You and your dreams. If you do that again I’ll thump you. What did you dream?’

‘I dreamed about a ferryman. He’s been ferrying people back and forth for years and years, and no one will relieve him.’

‘Huh. Do they know nothing, these people? All he has to do is hand his pole to the next person who wants to cross, and that person will have to take over.’

‘There, there,’ she said, ‘you go back to sleep, my pretty one. I won’t have any more dreams.’

Since she let him be for the rest of the night, the Devil slept well. When he woke up and went out to work the next morning, his grandmother waited till she was sure he was gone and then took out the ant from her skirts and turned him back into the boy.

‘Did you hear all that?’ she said.

‘Yes, every word,’ he said. ‘And did you manage to get the three hairs?’

‘Here you are,’ she said, and handed them over.

Being a polite young man he thanked her very much and went on his way, happy that he’d got everything he needed.

When he came to the river the ferryman said, ‘Well? Did you find out?’

‘Take me across first,’ replied the boy, and when they were at the other side he said, ‘All you have to do is put the pole into the hands of the next person who wants to cross, and you’ll be free.’

He walked on till he came to the city with the barren tree. The porter at the gate was expecting his answer too.

‘Kill the mouse that’s been chewing away at the roots, and it’ll bear golden apples again,’ the boy told him.

The mayor and corporation were so relieved that they rewarded him with two donkeys laden with gold. Leading his donkeys homewards, he stopped at the other city where the fountain had dried up.

‘Dig up the stone that’s in the fountain and kill the toad hiding beneath it,’ he told them.

They did so at once and sure enough the fountain began flowing with wine. They drank to the boy’s health, and rewarded him with another two donkeys laden with gold.

Leading his four donkeys, he travelled home. Everyone was very happy to see him again, especially his wife, and when the king saw the donkeys and their cargo he was delighted.

‘My dear boy!’ he said. ‘How wonderful to see you! And these hairs from the Devil’s head — splendid — put them on the sideboard. But where did you get all this gold?’

‘A ferryman took me across a river. Instead of sand, the bank on the other side is covered in gold — you can just pick up as much as you want. I should take several sacks if I were you.’

The king was intensely greedy, so he set off at once. He hurried all day till he came to the river, and then he beckoned the ferryman impatiently.

‘Steady now,’ said the ferryman as the king stepped on board. ‘Don’t rock the boat. Would you mind just holding this pole for me?’

Of course the king did so, and the ferryman jumped out at once. He laughed and sang and jumped for joy and ran away, and the king was compelled to stay in the boat for ever, ferrying people back and forth as a punishment for his sins.

Tale type:ATU 930, ‘The Prophecy’, continuing as ATU 461, ‘Three Hairs from the Devil’s Beard’

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

Similar stories:Alexander Afanasyev: ‘Marco the Rich and Vassily the Luckless’ ( Russian Fairy Tales ); Katharine M. Briggs: ‘Fairest of All Others’, ‘The Fish and the Ring’, ‘The Stepney Lady’ ( Folk Tales of Britain ); Italo Calvino: ‘The Feathered Ogre’, ‘The Ismailian Merchant’, ‘Mandorlinfiore’ ( Italian Folktales ); Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: ‘The Griffin’ ( Children’s and Household Tales )

Like ‘The Three Snake Leaves’, this story falls into two halves. In some of the related tales, the prophecy about the child (usually a girl) born to marry a rich man is followed by a test of a different sort: instead of acquiring three hairs from the Devil (or feathers from the ogre, or whatever), she has to find a ring that the unwilling bridegroom throws into the sea, and the wedding can’t take place till it turns up, which it duly does, in the stomach of a fish. I like the version here because the reward is for courage, not just for luck.

There was once a miller who sank little by little into poverty, until all he had left was his mill and a fine apple tree standing behind it. One day he’d just set off into the forest to gather some wood when an old man he’d never seen before appeared in front of him.

‘Why are you wearing yourself out chopping wood?’ said the old man. ‘Just promise to give me whatever’s standing behind your mill, and I’ll make you rich.’

‘What’s behind the mill?’ thought the miller. ‘It can only be the apple tree.’

‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll do it.’

The old man wrote out a contract, and the miller signed it. The old man took it with a strange kind of laugh.

‘I’ll come back for it,’ he said, ‘in three years. Don’t you forget now.’

The miller hurried home, and his wife came out to meet him.

‘Oh, husband,’ she said, ‘you’ll never guess what’s happened! Boxes and chests of treasure all over the house — all at once — full to the brim — gold coins, all sorts of money and jewels and so forth — where can it have come from? Is the good Lord blessing us at last?’

‘He’s kept his side of the bargain then,’ said the miller, and he told his wife about the old man in the forest. ‘All I had to do was sign over whatever is standing behind the mill. This treasure’s worth an apple tree, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, husband! You don’t know what you’ve done! That must have been the Devil! He didn’t mean the apple tree. He meant our daughter! She was out there sweeping the path!’