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

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

Similar stories:Alexander Afanasyev: ‘The Seven Semyons’ ( Russian Fairy Tales ); Italo Calvino: ‘The Five Scapegraces’ ( Italian Folktales ); Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: ‘The Six Servants’ ( Children’s and Household Tales )

The story of the gifted companions lends itself to many variations. The version in Calvino is particularly lively.

The story also works very well in the cinema, where plots involving the recruiting of a team of specialists for some impossible task have often been popular. Ocean’s Eleven (Steven Soderbergh, 2001) was one successful version. So, in a different way, was The Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich, 1967). The French film Micmacs (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2009) is more inventive and charming than either.

Once there was a man called Hans, who was crazy about gambling, so much so that everyone who knew him called him Gambling Hans. He just couldn’t stop playing at cards or dice, and in the end he lost all his possessions, his pots and pans and tables and chairs, his bed and all the rest of his furniture, and finally his house itself.

On the evening before his creditors were going to take possession of the house, the Lord and St Peter turned up at the door and asked him to put them up for the night.

‘You’re welcome,’ said Gambling Hans, ‘but you’ll have to sleep on the floor. I haven’t got a bed left.’

The Lord said they didn’t mind that, and they’d provide their own food, what’s more. St Peter gave Hans three groschen and asked him to go to the baker’s and buy a loaf of bread. He set off willingly, but on the way he had to pass the house where he used to gamble with the bunch of scoundrels who’d won most of his possessions, and when they saw him passing they called out, ‘Hey! Hans! We’re playing! Want to come and join in?’

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve got nothing left. And these three groschen aren’t mine.’

‘Doesn’t matter. They’re as good as anyone else’s. Come on!’

Of course he couldn’t resist. All that time the Lord and St Peter had been waiting, and when Hans didn’t come back they went to look for him. The money was gone by that time, and when he saw them coming he pretended to be looking for the coins in a puddle, and stood there bending over and poking at the water with a stick. It was no good, though: the Lord knew he’d lost it at the gaming table.

St Peter gave him another three groschen, and since he knew they were watching, he didn’t gamble it this time but bought the bread as they’d told him. Then they went back to his house and sat on the floor to eat their dry bread supper.

‘Hans, do you happen to have any wine in the house?’ said the Lord.

‘No, Lord, I’m sorry to say. That was one of the first things I gambled away. The barrels in my cellar are bone dry.’

‘Well, go and have a look,’ said the Lord. ‘I think you’ll find some wine down there.’

‘No, honest, many a time I’ve tipped those barrels on end, and believe me, there isn’t a drop.’

‘I think it would be worth looking,’ said the Lord.

Out of politeness, Hans went down and did as the Lord said, and he was flabbergasted to find that not only was there some wine left, it was wine of the highest quality. He looked around for something to carry it up in, flushed the cobwebs out of an old enamel jug, and filled it to the top. The three of them sat there passing the jug around and talking till they felt sleepy, and then they went to bed on the bare floorboards.

In the morning the Lord said, ‘Now, Hans, I’d like to give you three gifts as a reward for your hospitality. What would you like?’

The Lord had been thinking that Hans would ask for a guaranteed place in heaven, but he soon found out he was wrong about that.

‘Well, that’s very handsome of you, Lord. I’d like a pack of cards that’ll always win, I’d like a pair of dice that’ll always win, and I’d like a… a… a… let me see: I’d like a tree that grows all kinds of fruit, right, and one other thing about this tree: if anybody climbs it, they can’t get down till I give them permission.’

‘Oh, very well,’ said the Lord, and produced the cards and the dice with a flick of his fingers.

‘And the tree?’ said Hans.

‘It’s outside in a pot.’

So the Lord and St Peter went on their way.

After that, Hans began to gamble as he’d never gambled before. He won every bet he made, and before long he owned half the world. St Peter was keeping an eye on him, and he said to the Lord: ‘Lord, we can’t have this. Any day now he’ll own the whole world. We’ve got to send Death to fetch him.’

So they did. When Death turned up, Hans was at the gaming table as usual.

‘Hans,’ said Death, ‘it’s time to stop gambling. In fact time’s up for you altogether. Come along.’

Hans just happened to have a royal flush in his hand, and when he felt bony fingers grasping his shoulder and looked up and saw Death, he said, ‘Oh, it’s you. I’ll be along in a minute. Do us a favour, would you? There’s a tree outside with some nice fruit on it. Climb up and pick a bit of that, and we can eat it on the way.’

So Death climbed the tree, and of course he couldn’t get down. Hans just left him there for seven years and in all that time nobody died.

Finally St Peter said to the Lord, ‘Lord, this has gone on for long enough. We’ll have to do something about it.’

The Lord agreed, and he told Hans to let Death down from the tree. Hans had to do that, of course, and Death went up to him at once and strangled him.

So off they went into the other world. When they got there, Hans went straight up to the gate of heaven and knocked.

‘Who’s there?’ said St Peter.

‘It’s me, Gambling Hans.’

‘Well, go on, clear off. You needn’t think you’re coming in here.’

Next he went to the gate of Purgatory and knocked there.

‘Who is it?’

‘Gambling Hans.’

‘Go away. We’ve got enough misery here — we don’t want gambling as well to make it worse.’

So Hans had nowhere to go but hell, and when he knocked on the gate there, they let him in at once. There was no one at home but the Devil himself and all the ugly devils, because the handsome devils had gone to earth on business. The second Hans got there he sat down to play. The Devil had nothing to stake but his ugly devils, and soon they all belonged to Hans, because he was playing with the cards that couldn’t lose.

Once he’d won the ugly devils he took them all off to Hohenfurt, where they grow hops. They pulled out all the hop poles and climbed up to heaven, and then they began to lever up the walls.

The stonework was beginning to give way, so St Peter said, ‘Lord, we’ll have to let him in. We haven’t got a choice.’

So they let him in. But as soon as he was inside, Hans set about gambling again, and very soon there was such a noise of shouting and arguing among the citizens that the angels couldn’t hear themselves think.

St Peter went to the Lord once more.

‘Lord, I’ve had enough,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to chuck him out. He’s driving everyone mad.’

So they got hold of him and hurled him out of the gate and all the way down to earth. His soul was smashed to pieces, and the little splinters went everywhere; in fact there’s one of them in the soul of every gambler who’s alive today.

Tale type:ATU 330A, ‘The Smith’s Three Wishes’

Source: a story written and sent to the Grimms by Simon Sechter