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Frog King
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What
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Three Snake-Leaves
White Snake
Straw, Coal, and Bean
Fisherman and His Wife
Brave Little Tailor
Cinderella
Riddle
Mouse, Bird, Sausage
Frau Holle
Seven Ravens
Little Red-Cap
Bremen Town Musicians
Singing Bone
Devil with Three Golden Hairs
Little Louse and Little Flea
Girl without Hands
Clever Hans
Three Languages
Clever Elsie
Tailor in Heaven
Wishing-table
Thumbling
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In a village dwelt a poor old woman, who had gathered together a dish of beans
and wanted to cook them. So she made a fire on her hearth, and that it might
burn the quicker, she lighted it with a handful of straw. When she was emptying
the beans into the pan, one dropped without her observing it, and lay on the
ground beside a straw, and soon afterwards a burning coal from the fire leapt
down to the two. Then the straw began and said, "Dear friends, from whence do
you come here?" The coal replied, "I fortunately sprang out of the fire, and if
I had not escaped by main force, my death would have been certain, -- I should
have been burnt to ashes." The bean said, "I too have escaped with a whole skin,
but if the old woman had got me into the pan, I should have been made into broth
without any mercy, like my comrades." "And would a better fate have fallen to my
lot?" said the straw. "The old woman has destroyed all my brethren in fire and
smoke; she seized sixty of them at once, and took their lives. I luckily slipped
through her fingers."
"But what are we to do now?" said the coal.
"I think," answered the bean, "that as we have so fortunately escaped death, we
should keep together like good companions, and lest a new mischance should
overtake us here, we should go away together, and repair to a foreign country."
The proposition pleased the two others, and they set out on their way in
company. Soon, however, they came to a little brook, and as there was no bridge
or foot-plank, they did not know how they were to get over it. The straw hit on
a good idea, and said, "I will lay myself straight across, and then you can walk
over on me as on a bridge." The straw therefore stretched itself from one bank
to the other, and the coal, who was of an impetuous disposition, tripped quite
boldly on to the newly-built bridge. But when she had reached the middle, and
heard the water rushing beneath her, she was, after all, afraid, and stood
still, and ventured no farther. The straw, however, began to burn, broke in two
pieces, and fell into the stream. The coal slipped after her, hissed when she
got into the water, and breathed her last. The bean, who had prudently stayed
behind on the shore, could not but laugh at the event, was unable to stop, and
laughed so heartily that she burst. It would have been all over with her,
likewise, if, by good fortune, a tailor who was traveling in search of work, had
not sat down to rest by the brook. As he had a compassionate heart he pulled out
his needle and thread, and sewed her together. The bean thanked him most
prettily, but as the tailor used black thread, all beans since then have a black
seam.
Margaret Hunt (London, 1884) |
