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

The wife ran out and found her husband groaning with the pain of a broken leg. She managed to carry him home, and then she ran screaming and yelling to the boy’s father.

‘Your fool of a son!’ she cried. ‘D’you know what he’s done? He threw my husband right from the top of the belfry! The poor man’s broken his leg and I shouldn’t wonder if half the rest of his bones are in pieces as well! Take the good-for-nothing wretch out of our house before he brings it down around our ears. I never want to see him again.’

The father was horrified. He ran to the sexton’s house and shook the boy out of his bed.

‘What the hell are you playing at?’ he said. ‘Desecrating the sexton? The Devil must have put you up to it!’

‘But father,’ said the boy, ‘I’m innocent. I had no idea it was the sexton. He was standing there by the sound hole with a white sheet over him. I couldn’t tell who it was, and I warned him three times.’

‘God in heaven!’ said the father. ‘You bring me nothing but trouble. Get out of my sight, go on. I don’t even want to look at you any more.’

‘I’d be glad to,’ said the boy. ‘Just let me wait till daylight, and I’ll go out into the world and leave you alone. I can look for the shivers, and then I’ll have a skill and I’ll be able to earn a living at last.’

‘Shivers, indeed! Do what you like, it’s all the same to me. Here you are — here’s fifty talers for you. Take them and go out into the wide world, but don’t you dare tell anyone where you come from or who your father is. I’d be ashamed.’

‘All right, father, yes, I’ll do as you wish. If that’s all you want me to do, I’ll easily remember it.’

And as soon as morning came, the boy put his fifty talers in his pocket and set off, saying to himself all the time, ‘I wish I could get the shivers! If only I could get the shivers!’

A man who happened to be going along the same way heard what the boy was saying. They hadn’t gone much further when a gallows came in sight.

‘Look,’ said the man, ‘here’s a tip for you. See that gallows? Seven men got married to the rope-maker’s daughter there, and now they’re learning to fly. If you sit down there beneath it and wait till night comes, then you’ll get the shivers all right.’

‘Really?’ said the boy. ‘It’s as easy as that? Well, I’ll soon learn in that case. If I get the shivers before morning, you can have my fifty talers. Just come back here and see me then.’

He went to the gallows, sat himself down beneath it, and waited for night to fall. He felt cold, so he made himself a fire, but by midnight a wind arose and he couldn’t get warm in spite of the blazing logs. The wind pushed the hanged men to and fro so that the bodies jostled against one another, and the boy thought, ‘If I’m freezing down here by the fire, those poor fellows up there must be even colder.’ He put up a ladder, climbed up and untied them, one after the other, and brought all seven of them down.

Then he put another couple of logs on the fire, and arranged the dead men around it to warm themselves; but all they did was sit there quite still, even when their clothes caught fire.

‘Hey, watch out,’ he said. ‘I’ll hang you up again if you’re not careful.’

Of course, the dead men took no notice. They just continued to stare at nothing while their clothes blazed up.

This made the boy angry. ‘I told you to be careful!’ he said. ‘I don’t want to catch fire just because you’re too lazy to pull your legs out of the flames.’

And he hung them all up again in a row, and lay down by his fire and fell asleep.

Next morning, he woke up to find the man demanding his fifty talers.

‘You got the shivers last night all right, didn’t you?’ he said.

‘No,’ said the boy. ‘How could I learn anything from those stupid fellows? They didn’t say a word, and they just sat there quite still while their trousers caught fire.’

The man saw there was no chance of getting his fifty talers, so he threw his hands in the air and left. ‘What a fool!’ he said to himself. ‘I’ve never met such a dimwit in all my life.’

The boy went on his way, still muttering to himself, ‘If only I could get the shivers! If only I could get the shivers!’

A carter was walking along behind him, and hearing what he said, caught up with him and asked: ‘Who are you?’

‘Dunno,’ said the boy.

‘Where d’you come from, eh?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Who’s your father, then?’

‘I’m not allowed to say.’

‘And what are you muttering to yourself all the time?’

‘Oh,’ said the boy, ‘I want to get the shivers, but no one can teach me how.’

‘You’re a poor simpleton,’ said the carter. ‘Step along with me and I’ll see that you find a place to stay, at least.’

The boy went along with him, and that evening they came to an inn where they decided to stay the night. As they went into the parlour the boy said again, ‘If only I could get the shivers! Oh, if only I could get the shivers!’

The innkeeper heard what he said, and laughed, saying, ‘If that’s what you want, you’re in luck. There’s a chance for you very close to here.’

‘Sshh,’ said the innkeeper’s wife, ‘don’t talk about that. Think of all those poor fellows who lost their lives. It would be such a pity if this young man’s lovely eyes never saw the light of day again!’

‘But I want to get the shivers,’ said the boy. ‘That’s why I left home. What did you mean? What’s the chance you talked about? Where is it?’

He wouldn’t stop pestering till the innkeeper told him that there was a haunted castle nearby, where anyone who wanted to learn about the shivers could do so easily if only he managed to keep watch there for three nights.

‘The king promised that whoever does that can have his daughter in marriage,’ he said, ‘and I swear the princess is the most beautiful girl who ever lived. What’s more there are great heaps of treasure in the castle, guarded by evil spirits. You can have the treasure too, if you stay there for three nights — there’s enough to make anyone rich. Plenty of young men have gone up there and tried, but no one’s come out again.’

Next morning the boy went to the king and said, ‘If you let me, I’ll stay three nights in the haunted castle.’

The king eyed him, and liked the look of him. So he said, ‘I’ll let you take three things into the castle with you, but they must be things that aren’t alive.’

The boy said, ‘In that case, I’d like things to make a fire with, a lathe and a woodcarver’s bench with a knife.’

The king ordered that all these things should be taken to the castle during daylight. When night fell the boy went inside and lit a bright fire in one of the rooms, dragged the woodcarver’s bench and knife beside it, and sat down at the lathe.

‘Oh, if only I could get the shivers!’ he said. ‘But this place doesn’t look very promising either.’

When it was nearly midnight he stirred the fire up. He was just blowing on it when he heard voices from a corner of the room.

‘ Miaow, miaow! We’re so cold!’ they said.

‘What are you yelling about?’ he said over his shoulder. ‘If you’re cold, come and sit down by the fire.’

Next moment two huge black cats leaped out of the shadows and sat on either side of him, staring at him with their coal-red eyes.

‘Fancy a game of cards?’ they said.

‘Why not?’ he replied. ‘But let me see your claws first.’

So they stretched out their paws.

‘Good God,’ he said, ‘what long nails you’ve got. I’ll have to trim them before we start to play.’