Another day Chanticleer and Partlet agreed to go again to the
mountains to eat nuts; and it was settled that all the nuts which they
found should be shared equally between them. Now Partlet found a very
large nut; but she said nothing about it to Chanticleer, and kept it
all to herself: however, it was so big that she could not swallow it,
and it stuck in her throat. Then she was in a great fright, and cried
out to Chanticleer, 'Pray run as fast as you can, and fetch me some
water, or I shall be choked.' Chanticleer ran as fast as he could to
the river, and said, 'River, give me some water, for Partlet lies in
the mountain, and will be choked by a great nut.' The river said, 'Run
first to the bride, and ask her for a silken cord to draw up the
water.' Chanticleer ran to the bride, and said, 'Bride, you must give
me a silken cord, for then the river will give me water, and the water
I will carry to Partlet, who lies on the mountain, and will be choked
by a great nut.' But the bride said, 'Run first, and bring me my
garland that is hanging on a willow in the garden.' Then Chanticleer
ran to the garden, and took the garland from the bough where it hung,
and brought it to the bride; and then the bride gave him the silken
cord, and he took the silken cord to the river, and the river gave him
water, and he carried the water to Partlet; but in the meantime she
was choked by the great nut, and lay quite dead, and never moved any
more.
Then Chanticleer was very sorry, and cried bitterly; and all the
beasts came and wept with him over poor Partlet. And six mice built a
little hearse to carry her to her grave; and when it was ready they
harnessed themselves before it, and Chanticleer drove them. On the way
they met the fox. 'Where are you going, Chanticleer?' said he. 'To
bury my Partlet,' said the other. 'May I go with you?' said the fox.
'Yes; but you must get up behind, or my horses will not be able to
draw you.' Then the fox got up behind; and presently the wolf, the
bear, the goat, and all the beasts of the wood, came and climbed upon
the hearse.
So on they went till they came to a rapid stream. 'How shall we get
over?' said Chanticleer. Then said a straw, 'I will lay myself across,
and you may pass over upon me.' But as the mice were going over, the
straw slipped away and fell into the water, and the six mice all fell
in and were drowned. What was to be done? Then a large log of wood
came and said, 'I am big enough; I will lay myself across the stream,
and you shall pass over upon me.' So he laid himself down; but they
managed so clumsily, that the log of wood fell in and was carried away
by the stream. Then a stone, who saw what had happened, came up and
kindly offered to help poor Chanticleer by laying himself across the
stream; and this time he got safely to the other side with the hearse,
and managed to get Partlet out of it; but the fox and the other
mourners, who were sitting behind, were too heavy, and fell back into
the water and were all carried away by the stream and drowned.
Thus Chanticleer was left alone with his dead Partlet; and having dug
a grave for her, he laid her in it, and made a little hillock over
her. Then he sat down by the grave, and wept and mourned, till at last
he died too; and so all were dead.
RAPUNZEL
There were once a man and a woman who had long in vain wished for a
child. At length the woman hoped that God was about to grant her
desire. These people had a little window at the back of their house
from which a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most
beautiful flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high
wall, and no one dared to go into it because it belonged to an
enchantress, who had great power and was dreaded by all the world. One
day the woman was standing by this window and looking down into the
garden, when she saw a bed which was planted with the most beautiful
rampion (rapunzel), and it looked so fresh and green that she longed
for it, she quite pined away, and began to look pale and miserable.
Then her husband was alarmed, and asked: 'What ails you, dear wife?'
'Ah,' she replied, 'if I can't eat some of the rampion, which is in
the garden behind our house, I shall die.' The man, who loved her,
thought: 'Sooner than let your wife die, bring her some of the rampion
yourself, let it cost what it will.' At twilight, he clambered down
over the wall into the garden of the enchantress, hastily clutched a
handful of rampion, and took it to his wife. She at once made herself
a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It tasted so good to her--so very
good, that the next day she longed for it three times as much as
before. If he was to have any rest, her husband must once more descend
into the garden. In the gloom of evening therefore, he let himself
down again; but when he had clambered down the wall he was terribly
afraid, for he saw the enchantress standing before him. 'How can you
dare,' said she with angry look, 'descend into my garden and steal my
rampion like a thief? You shall suffer for it!' 'Ah,' answered he,
'let mercy take the place of justice, I only made up my mind to do it
out of necessity. My wife saw your rampion from the window, and felt
such a longing for it that she would have died if she had not got some
to eat.' Then the enchantress allowed her anger to be softened, and
said to him: 'If the case be as you say, I will allow you to take away
with you as much rampion as you will, only I make one condition, you
must give me the child which your wife will bring into the world; it
shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a mother.' The man
in his terror consented to everything, and when the woman was brought
to bed, the enchantress appeared at once, gave the child the name of
Rapunzel, and took it away with her.
Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When she
was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which lay
in a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was
a little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed
herself beneath it and cried:
'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she
heard the voice of the enchantress she unfastened her braided tresses,
wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the
hair fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it.
After a year or two, it came to pass that the king's son rode through
the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a song, which was so
charming that he stood still and listened. This was Rapunzel, who in
her solitude passed her time in letting her sweet voice resound. The
king's son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the door of the
tower, but none was to be found. He rode home, but the singing had so
deeply touched his heart, that every day he went out into the forest
and listened to it. Once when he was thus standing behind a tree, he
saw that an enchantress came there, and he heard how she cried:
'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress
climbed up to her. 'If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I too
will try my fortune,' said he, and the next day when it began to grow
dark, he went to the tower and cried:
'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
Immediately the hair fell down and the king's son climbed up.
At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man, such as her eyes
had never yet beheld, came to her; but the king's son began to talk to
her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been so
stirred that it had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to
see her. Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her if she
would take him for her husband, and she saw that he was young and
handsome, she thought: 'He will love me more than old Dame Gothel
does'; and she said yes, and laid her hand in his. She said: 'I will
willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring
with you a skein of silk every time that you come, and I will weave a
ladder with it, and when that is ready I will descend, and you will
take me on your horse.' They agreed that until that time he should
come to her every evening, for the old woman came by day. The
enchantress remarked nothing of this, until once Rapunzel said to her:
'Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it happens that you are so much heavier for
me to draw up than the young king's son--he is with me in a moment.'
'Ah! you wicked child,' cried the enchantress. 'What do I hear you
say! I thought I had separated you from all the world, and yet you
have deceived me!' In her anger she clutched Rapunzel's beautiful
tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand, seized a pair of
scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut off, and the
lovely braids lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless that she took
poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great grief and
misery.
On the same day that she cast out Rapunzel, however, the enchantress
fastened the braids of hair, which she had cut off, to the hook of the
window, and when the king's son came and cried:
'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
she let the hair down. The king's son ascended, but instead of finding
his dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who gazed at him with
wicked and venomous looks. 'Aha!' she cried mockingly, 'you would
fetch your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in
the nest; the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well.
Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never see her again.' The king's son
was beside himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from
the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell
pierced his eyes. Then he wandered quite blind about the forest, ate
nothing but roots and berries, and did naught but lament and weep over
the loss of his dearest wife. Thus he roamed about in misery for some
years, and at length came to the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins
to which she had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness.
He heard a voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that he went
towards it, and when he approached, Rapunzel knew him and fell on his
neck and wept. Two of her tears wetted his eyes and they grew clear
again, and he could see with them as before. He led her to his kingdom
where he was joyfully received, and they lived for a long time
afterwards, happy and contented.
FUNDEVOGEL
There was once a forester who went into the forest to hunt, and as he
entered it he heard a sound of screaming as if a little child were
there. He followed the sound, and at last came to a high tree, and at
the top of this a little child was sitting, for the mother had fallen
asleep under the tree with the child, and a bird of prey had seen it
in her arms, had flown down, snatched it away, and set it on the high
tree.
The forester climbed up, brought the child down, and thought to
himself: 'You will take him home with you, and bring him up with your
Lina.' He took it home, therefore, and the two children grew up
together. And the one, which he had found on a tree was called
Fundevogel, because a bird had carried it away. Fundevogel and Lina
loved each other so dearly that when they did not see each other they
were sad.
Now the forester had an old cook, who one evening took two pails and
began to fetch water, and did not go once only, but many times, out to
the spring. Lina saw this and said, 'Listen, old Sanna, why are you
fetching so much water?' 'If you will never repeat it to anyone, I
will tell you why.' So Lina said, no, she would never repeat it to
anyone, and then the cook said: 'Early tomorrow morning, when the
forester is out hunting, I will heat the water, and when it is boiling
in the kettle, I will throw in Fundevogel, and will boil him in it.'
Early next morning the forester got up and went out hunting, and when
he was gone the children were still in bed. Then Lina said to
Fundevogel: 'If you will never leave me, I too will never leave you.'
Fundevogel said: 'Neither now, nor ever will I leave you.' Then said
Lina: 'Then will I tell you. Last night, old Sanna carried so many
buckets of water into the house that I asked her why she was doing
that, and she said that if I would promise not to tell anyone, and she
said that early tomorrow morning when father was out hunting, she
would set the kettle full of water, throw you into it and boil you;
but we will get up quickly, dress ourselves, and go away together.'
The two children therefore got up, dressed themselves quickly, and
went away. When the water in the kettle was boiling, the cook went
into the bedroom to fetch Fundevogel and throw him into it. But when
she came in, and went to the beds, both the children were gone. Then
she was terribly alarmed, and she said to herself: 'What shall I say
now when the forester comes home and sees that the children are gone?
They must be followed instantly to get them back again.'
Then the cook sent three servants after them, who were to run and
overtake the children. The children, however, were sitting outside the
forest, and when they saw from afar the three servants running, Lina
said to Fundevogel: 'Never leave me, and I will never leave you.'
Fundevogel said: 'Neither now, nor ever.' Then said Lina: 'Do you
become a rose-tree, and I the rose upon it.' When the three servants
came to the forest, nothing was there but a rose-tree and one rose on
it, but the children were nowhere. Then said they: 'There is nothing
to be done here,' and they went home and told the cook that they had
seen nothing in the forest but a little rose-bush with one rose on it.
Then the old cook scolded and said: 'You simpletons, you should have
cut the rose-bush in two, and have broken off the rose and brought it
home with you; go, and do it at once.' They had therefore to go out
and look for the second time. The children, however, saw them coming
from a distance. Then Lina said: 'Fundevogel, never leave me, and I
will never leave you.' Fundevogel said: 'Neither now; nor ever.' Said
Lina: 'Then do you become a church, and I'll be the chandelier in it.'
So when the three servants came, nothing was there but a church, with
a chandelier in it. They said therefore to each other: 'What can we do
here, let us go home.' When they got home, the cook asked if they had
not found them; so they said no, they had found nothing but a church,
and there was a chandelier in it. And the cook scolded them and said:
'You fools! why did you not pull the church to pieces, and bring the
chandelier home with you?' And now the old cook herself got on her
legs, and went with the three servants in pursuit of the children. The
children, however, saw from afar that the three servants were coming,
and the cook waddling after them. Then said Lina: 'Fundevogel, never
leave me, and I will never leave you.' Then said Fundevogel: 'Neither
now, nor ever.' Said Lina: 'Be a fishpond, and I will be the duck upon
it.' The cook, however, came up to them, and when she saw the pond she
lay down by it, and was about to drink it up. But the duck swam
quickly to her, seized her head in its beak and drew her into the
water, and there the old witch had to drown. Then the children went
home together, and were heartily delighted, and if they have not died,
they are living still.
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