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

‘Please can you tell me if my bridegroom lives here?’ said the girl.

‘Oh, you poor child,’ replied the old woman, ‘why ever did you come to this house? It’s a den of murderers. You talk of a bridegroom — the only bridegroom you’ll be marrying is Death. See this big pot of water on the fire? They made me set it there to boil. When they turn up, they’re going to chop you in pieces and throw you in the pot, cook you till you’re tender, and eat you all up. They’re a pack of cannibals. Now I’ve taken pity on you, because you’re a poor innocent thing, and besides, you’ve got a pretty face. Come over here.’

The old woman led her behind a large barrel, where she was out of sight from the rest of the cellar.

‘Stay there and don’t make a sound,’ she said. ‘If they hear you, that’s the end of you. When they’re asleep later on, we’ll escape.’

No sooner had she said this than the band of murderers came home, dragging with them another girl whom they’d captured. She screamed and sobbed, but they were drunk and took no notice of her pleas for mercy. They forced her to drink a glass of red wine, then one of white, and then one of yellow, and the third one was too much for her; her heart burst apart.

Then they tore off her fine clothes and laid her on the table before chopping her in pieces and sprinkling her with salt. The poor bride-to-be behind the barrel trembled in every limb, seeing what fate the murderers had in mind for her.

Then one of them saw a gold ring on the dead girl’s finger. He took an axe and chopped the finger off, but it flew in the air and right over the barrel and into the bride’s lap. He couldn’t see where it had gone, so he took a light and looked for it.

Another murderer said, ‘Look behind the big barrel — I think it went over there.’

But the old woman called out, ‘Come and eat your supper. The finger won’t run away — you can find it in the morning.’

‘She’s right,’ said the others, and they pulled up chairs and sat down to eat. The old woman poured a sleeping-draught in their wine, so that before they’d even finished eating they all slumped to the floor and fell asleep.

When the bride heard them snoring, she crept out from behind the barrel. She had to step over the sleeping murderers where they all lay on the cellar floor. She was terribly afraid she’d step on one and wake him up.

‘Dear God, help me!’ she whispered, and she got to the cellar steps safely, where the old woman was waiting. They crept upstairs, opened the door, and hurried out as fast as they could.

It was as well that the girl had brought peas to throw on the ground, because the ashes that showed the path had all blown away. The peas had sprouted, though, and in the moonlight they could see them, and followed the trail all the way to the mill, where they arrived just as the sun was rising. The girl told her father everything that had happened, from beginning to end, and the old woman confirmed it.

When the wedding day arrived, the bridegroom appeared, smiling all round and being pleasant to everyone. The miller had invited all his relations and all his friends, and they were impressed by this handsome friendly man. As they sat down to eat, each guest was asked to tell a story. The bride said nothing at all as they listened to the stories going round the table, and finally the bridegroom said, ‘Come on, my darling, haven’t you got a story to tell? Just tell us something.’

So she said, ‘All right. I’ll tell you about a dream I had. I was walking in the forest, when I came to a dark house. There wasn’t a soul in sight — there was only a little bird in a cage that said, “Turn back! Get out! Go home! Take care! This is a murderer’s house! Beware!”

‘It said that twice, but my dear heart, it was only a dream. I went through all the rooms, and although there was no one there, something was uncanny about the place. Finally I went down to the cellar, where I found an old woman shaking her head. I said to her, “Does my bridegroom live in this house?”

‘She said, “Alas, poor child, you’re in the house of a murderer. Your bridegroom does live here, but he’s going to chop you into pieces and cook you and eat you.”’

‘That isn’t so!’ said the bridegroom.

‘Dear heart, don’t worry — it was only a dream. The old woman hid me behind a great big barrel, and as soon as I was there the robbers came back, dragging a poor girl with them screaming and pleading for mercy. They forced her to drink three glasses of wine, one red, one white and one yellow, and that made her heart burst apart so she died.’

‘That isn’t so, and it wasn’t so!’ cried the bridegroom.

‘Dear heart, sit still — it was only a dream. They took off her fine clothes, laid her on the table, and chopped her to pieces and sprinkled salt on them.’

‘That isn’t so, and it wasn’t so, and God forbid it should be so!’ shouted the bridegroom.

‘Dear heart, stay where you are — it was only a dream. Then one of the robbers saw a gold ring on the poor girl’s finger. He took an axe and chopped it off, and the finger flew through the air and landed in my lap. And here is that finger, with the ring.’

With those words she held up the finger and the ring so that everyone could see.

The bridegroom, who had become as white as chalk, leaped up and tried to escape, but the guests seized him and held him tight and then marched him to the court. Soldiers were sent out to capture the rest of the band, and they were all put to death for their wicked deeds.

Tale type:ATU 955, ‘The Robber Bridegroom’

Source:a story told to the Grimm brothers by Marie Hassenpflug

Similar stories:Katharine M. Briggs: ‘The Cellar of Blood’, ‘Dr Forster’, ‘Mr Fox’ ( Folk Tales of Britain ); Italo Calvino: ‘The Marriage of a Queen and a Bandit’ ( Italian Folktales )

There’s nothing in the least supernatural in this tale: it’s a good gory shocker, and firmly enough set in our own world for it not to be entirely surprising that in one of the variants, Katherine M. Briggs’s ‘The Cellar of Blood’, the brave girl’s parents phone Scotland Yard and ask them to send some detectives to the storytelling party.

Britain is particularly rich in variants of this story, for some reason. I borrowed the robber bridegroom’s interjections to the bride’s tale of her dream from another of them, ‘Mr Fox’. Shakespeare borrowed them too:

BENEDICK: Like the old tale, my lord: ‘it is not so, nor ’twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.’

( Much Ado About Nothing , Act I, Scene 1)

A poor man had twelve children, and had to work day and night just to get them a little food to eat. So when his wife gave birth to a thirteenth, he didn’t know what to do, and he ran out into the road, thinking he might as well ask the first person he met to stand godfather.

The first person who came along was God himself. Since he knew everything, he didn’t have to ask what was in the man’s mind.

‘My poor man,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry for you. I’d be glad to hold your child at his baptism. I’ll look after him, don’t you worry about that.’

‘Who are you?’ said the man.

‘I am God.’

‘Well, be on your way. I don’t want you for a godfather. You give to the rich who don’t need it, and you let the poor starve.’

Of course, he only said that because he didn’t know God’s purpose in being so kind to the rich and so cruel to the poor.

He went on his way, and the next person he met was a gentleman dressed in the finest clothes.