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

Soon afterwards there came a soft knock on the door, and the woman answered it with her finger to her lips. Farmerkin opened his eyes wide enough to see the priest come in.

‘My husband’s out,’ he heard her say, ‘so we can have a feast!’

Farmerkin thought: ‘A feast, eh? Then why did she fob me off with bread and cheese?’

He watched through half-closed eyes as the miller’s wife sat the priest down at the table, fluttering her eyelashes and talking sweetly, and proceeded to serve him a joint of roast pork, a big dish of salad, a fruit cake just out of the oven, and a bottle of wine.

But the priest was just tucking in the napkin over his clerical collar when there was a noise outside.

‘Oh, good grief!’ the woman cried. ‘It’s my husband! In the cupboard, quick!’

The priest scuttled into the cupboard as quick as a cockroach, and the woman shoved the meat into the oven, the wine under the pillow, the salad under the bedclothes, and the cake on the floor under the bed.

Then she ran to the front door.

‘Oh, thank God you’re back!’ she said. ‘I was getting frightened. What a storm! You’d think it was the end of the world!’

The miller came in shaking the water off his clothes, and straight away he saw Farmerkin lying in the straw.

‘What’s he doing here?’ he said.

‘Oh, poor fellow,’ said his wife, ‘he knocked on the door just as the rain was beginning to come down. He asked for shelter, so I gave him some bread and cheese and let him lie down there.’

‘Well, I don’t mind,’ said the miller. ‘But I tell you what, I’m bloody starving. Get me something to eat, will you?’

‘There’s only bread and cheese, honey-bunch.’

‘Whatever you’ve got in the larder will do me fine,’ said the miller, and then he looked at Farmerkin and called: ‘Hey, mate, get up and have another bite with me.’

Farmerkin didn’t have to be asked twice. He jumped up, introduced himself, sat down at the table with the miller and tucked in.

After a minute or so, the miller saw the hide with the raven in it still lying on the straw.

‘What you got over there?’ he said.

‘Ah, now that’s something special, that is,’ said Farmerkin. ‘I’ve got a fortune-teller in there.’

‘Really?’ said the miller. ‘Could he predict my future?’

‘Certainly,’ said Farmerkin. ‘But he only predicts four things, and the fifth he keeps to himself.’

‘Go on then, get him to predict something.’

Farmerkin picked up the hide very carefully and put it on his lap. Then he squeezed the raven’s head gently till the bird croaked: ‘ Krr, krr .’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘Well,’ said Farmerkin, ‘he says there’s a bottle of wine under the pillow.’

‘Get away!’ said the miller, but he got up to look, and found the wine. ‘That’s amazing! What else can he predict?’

Farmerkin squeezed the raven’s head again: ‘ Krr, krr. ’

‘What’s he say now?’

‘In the second place,’ said Farmerkin, ‘he says there’s a joint of roast pork in the oven.’

‘Roast pork? I don’t believe it… Well, I’m damned! There is and all! Lovely bit of meat, look at that! What else does he say?’

Farmerkin made the raven prophesy again. ‘This time,’ he said, ‘he predicts that there’ll be a salad under the bedclothes.’

The miller found that too. ‘This is incredible,’ he said. ‘I never seen anything like this in all me life.’

‘ Krr, krr, ’ said the raven for the fourth time, and Farmerkin interpreted: ‘There’s a cake under the bed.’

The miller brought it out. ‘Well, I’m flabbergasted!’ he said. ‘And all we was going to eat was bread and cheese. Wife, what you doing over there? Come and sit down with us!’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache. I think I’ll go to bed.’

Of course, really she was terrified. She got in the bed and tucked the bedclothes right over her, and made sure she had the keys to the cupboard.

The miller carved the joint of pork and poured some wine for himself and Farmerkin, and they began to eat.

‘So this fortune-teller,’ said the miller, ‘he keeps the fifth thing to himself, does he?’

‘That’s right, yeah,’ said Farmerkin.

‘What sort of thing might it be, usually?’

‘Could be anything really. But let’s eat first, because I got a feeling that the fifth thing is something bad.’

So they ate their fill, and then the miller said, ‘This fifth prediction… How bad might it be?’

‘Well, the thing about the fifth prediction,’ said Farmerkin, ‘is that it’s very valuable. He never gives it free.’

‘Oh. What sort of price does he ask, then?’

‘Four hundred talers.’

‘Good God!’

‘Well, like I told you, it’s very valuable. But since you been a generous host, I reckon I can persuade him to let you have it for three hundred.’

‘Three hundred, eh?’

‘That’s right.’

‘He won’t go lower than that?’

‘Well, you seen how accurate he’s been already. You can’t fault what he’s told you so far.’

‘That’s true. I can’t deny that. Three hundred talers, eh?’

‘Three hundred.’

The miller went and fetched his purse, and counted out the money. Then he sat down again and said, ‘Let’s have it, then, let’s hear what he’s got to say.’

Farmerkin squeezed the raven’s head. ‘ Krr, krr, ’ said the raven.

‘Well?’ said the miller.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Farmerkin. ‘He says the Devil’s got into your cupboard.’

‘ What? ’ said the miller. ‘I’m not having that.’

And he hurried to unbolt the front door and wedge it open, and then said, ‘Where’s the key to the cupboard? Where’s it gone?’

‘I got it,’ said his wife, muffled under the blankets.

‘Well, give it here quick!’

He snatched the key, unlocked the cupboard, and the priest shot out as fast as he could and vanished through the front door.

The miller gaped, his hair standing on end. Then he hastened to bolt the front door again.

‘He was bloody right, your fortune-teller!’ he said. ‘That was the Devil, and no mistake! I seen the bastard with me own eyes!’

And he had to drink the rest of the wine to settle his nerves. Farmerkin went to bed on the straw, and slipped away early in the morning with his three hundred talers.

Once back in his village, Farmerkin began spending his money. He bought some land and built himself a fine house, and soon the villagers were saying, ‘He must have been where the golden snow falls. You can bring home money by the shovelful from there.’

What they meant was, they didn’t believe he’d got it honestly. Farmerkin was summoned to stand before the mayor and explain himself.

‘It’s quite easy,’ he said. ‘I took the hide of my cow and sold it in town. There’s a big demand for leather now. Prices have gone way up.’

As soon as they heard that, people all over the village began slaughtering their cows and tanning the hides, and got ready to go to town and sell them at this amazing price.

‘Me first,’ said the mayor.

He sent his maid off with the first hide. She got three talers for it, and the rest of the villagers didn’t even get offered that much.

‘Well, what d’you expect me to do with all them hides?’ said the leather merchant. ‘There’s no demand these days.’

Naturally, the villagers were furious with Farmerkin. They denounced him to the mayor as a swindler, and it didn’t take long for the village council to decide his fate.

‘You’ll have to die,’ said the mayor, ‘by means of being nailed into a leaky barrel and rolled into the pond.’