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

And he seized the cats by their necks, lifted them up to the woodcarver’s bench, and tightened the vice around their paws.

‘I don’t like the look of these at all,’ he said. ‘They’ve put me right off the idea of playing cards.’

And he struck them both dead, and threw them into the moat.

He had just sat down again when from every corner of the room there came black cats and black dogs, each of them wearing a red-hot collar with a red-hot chain. They piled in from every direction until he couldn’t move. They howled, they barked, they shrieked horribly, they jumped into the fire and scattered the burning logs in all directions.

He watched curiously for a minute or two, but finally he lost patience. Seizing his knife, he cried, ‘Out with you, you scoundrels!’

And he hacked away merrily. Some of them he killed, and the others ran away. When all the live ones had fled, he threw the dead ones into the moat, and came back inside to warm up.

But his eyes wouldn’t stay open, so he went to the large bed in the corner of the room.

‘This looks comfortable,’ he thought. ‘Just the job!’

But as soon as he lay down, the bed began to move. It trundled to the door, which flew open, and then rolled all the way through the castle, gathering speed as it went.

‘Not bad,’ he said, ‘but let’s go faster still.’

And on it rolled as though drawn by six fine horses, along the corridors, up the stairs and down again, until suddenly — hop! It turned upside down, trapping him underneath. It lay on him like a mountain.

But he threw off the blankets and the pillows and clambered out.

‘I’ve finished with the bed now,’ he called out. ‘If anyone else wants it, they can have it.’

And he lay down by his fire, and went peacefully to sleep.

When the king came in the morning he found him lying there, and said, ‘Oh, that’s a pity. The ghosts have killed him. Such a handsome young man, too!’

The boy heard him, and got up at once. ‘They haven’t killed me yet, your majesty,’ he said.

‘Oh! You’re alive!’ said the king. ‘Well, I’m glad to see you. How did you get on?’

‘Very well, thanks,’ said the boy. ‘One night down, two more to go.’

He went back to the inn. The innkeeper was astonished.

‘You’re alive! I never thought I’d see you again. Did you get the shivers?’

‘No, not once. I hope someone can give me the shivers tonight.’

The second night he went up to the castle, lit his fire, and sat down again.

‘Oh!’ he said. ‘I wish someone could give me the shivers.’

As midnight approached he heard a commotion up in the chimney. Banging and shouting, scuffling, screaming, and finally, with a loud yell, the lower half of a man fell down into the fireplace.

‘What are you doing?’ said the boy. ‘Where’s your other half?’

But the half-man, not having eyes or ears, couldn’t hear him or see where anything was, and it ran around the room knocking into things and falling over and scrambling up again.

Then there was more noise from the chimney, and in a cloud of soot the missing top half fell down, and scrambled away from the fire.

‘Not hot enough for you?’ said the boy.

‘Legs! Legs! This way! Over here!’ called the top half, but the bottom half couldn’t hear and kept on blundering around till the boy grabbed him around the knees and hung on. The top half leaped on board, and they became one man again at once. He was hideous. He sat down on the boy’s bench next to the fire, and wouldn’t give way, so the boy knocked him off and sat down himself.

Then there was yet more commotion, and half a dozen dead men fell down the chimney, one after the other. They had nine thigh-bones and two skulls with them, and set them up to play skittles.

‘Can I play too?’ asked the boy.

‘Well, have you got any money?’

‘Plenty,’ he said. ‘But your bowling balls aren’t round enough.’

He took the skulls, put them on the lathe, and turned them till they were round.

‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Now they’ll roll properly. This will be fun!’

He played with the dead men for a while and lost some of his money. Finally, at midnight, the clock struck twelve and they all vanished, every one of them. The boy lay down peacefully and went to sleep.

Next morning the king came in again to see how he’d got on.

‘How did you do this time?’ he said.

‘I had a game of skittles,’ said the boy. ‘I lost some money, too.’

‘And did you get the shivers?’

‘Not a bit of it,’ he replied. ‘I enjoyed the game, but that was it. If only I could get the shivers!’

On the third night he sat down again on his bench by the fire and sighed. ‘Only one night left,’ he said. ‘I hope this is the night I’ll get the shivers.’

When it was nearly midnight, he heard a heavy tread coming slowly towards the room, and in came six huge men carrying a coffin.

‘Oh, so someone’s dead?’ the boy said. ‘I expect it’s my cousin. He died a few days ago.’

He whistled and beckoned, saying, ‘Come on out, cousin! Come and say hello!’

The six men put the coffin down and walked out. The boy opened the lid and looked at the dead man lying inside. He felt the dead face, but of course it was as cold as ice.

‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘I’ll warm you up.’

He warmed his hands by the fire and held them to the dead man’s cheeks, but the face stayed cold.

Then he took the body out, laid it by the fire with the dead man’s head on his lap, and rubbed his arms to get the circulation going. That didn’t work either.

‘I know!’ he said. ‘When two people lie together, they warm each other up. I’ll take you to bed with me, that’s what I’ll do.’

So he put the dead man in his bed and got in beside him, pulling the covers over them both. After a few minutes the dead man began to move.

‘That’s it!’ said the boy, to encourage him. ‘Come on, cousin! You’re nearly alive again.’

But the dead man suddenly sat up and roared out, ‘Who are you? Eh? I’ll strangle you, you dirty devil!’

And he reached for the boy’s neck, but the boy was too quick for him, and after a struggle he soon had him back in his coffin.

‘Fine thanks I get from you,’ he said, banging in the nails to keep the lid down.

As soon as the lid was fixed, the six men appeared again. They picked up the coffin and carried it slowly out.

‘Oh, it’s no good,’ said the boy, in despair. ‘I’m never going to learn about the shivers here.’

As he said that, an old man stepped out of the darkness in the corner of the room. He was even bigger than the men who carried the coffin, and he had a long white beard and eyes that glowed with evil.

‘You miserable worm,’ he said. ‘You shall soon learn what the shivers are. Tonight you’re going to die.’

‘You think so? You’ll have to catch me first,’ said the boy.

‘You won’t get away from me, no matter how fast you run!’

‘I’m as strong as you are, and probably stronger,’ said the boy.

‘We’ll see about that,’ said the old man. ‘If you turn out to be stronger than me, I’ll let you go. But you won’t. Now come along this way.’

The old man led the boy through the castle, along dark corridors and down dark stairways, till they came to a smithy deep in the bowels of the earth.

‘Now let’s see who’s stronger,’ he said, and he took an axe and with one blow drove an anvil into the ground.

‘I can do better than that,’ said the boy. He took the axe and struck the other anvil in such a way that it split wide open for a moment, and in that moment the boy seized the old man’s beard and wedged it in the anvil. The anvil closed up, and there was the old man, caught.