Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/479

Rh woman perceived that at this very moment a cart of hay was going to be driven away from the castle, and said, "If thou would'st save thy life, hide thyself in the hay, and then thou wilt be driven away with it." This she did, and got safely out. When the lord came home however, he asked for the girl. "O," said the old woman, "I had no more work, and as it had to be done to-morrow anyhow, I killed her at once; here is a lock of her hair and her heart, and there too is some blood which is still warm; the dogs have eaten all the rest of her, but I am still cleaning her intestines." So he was satisfied, and believed that the girl was dead. She had, however, arrived at a castle to whose owner the cart of hay had been sold. She sprang out, and told the lord of the castle all that had happened. He asked her to stay there, and after some time gave a feast to the noblemen of the neighbourhood, and the lord of the murder-castle was invited too. The girl was forced to seat herself at table, but her face and dress were so changed that she was not recognizable. When they were all sitting together every one was to tell a story, and when it was the maiden's turn, she related her own. During this the lord of the murder-castle became so very uneasy that he wished to force his way out, but the lord of the castle had him seized and bound. Then he was executed, his murder-castle was pulled down, and the maiden received his treasures. She married the son of the lord of the castle where she had taken refuge, and lived to an old age. In Swedish, compare a popular ballad in Geyer and Afzelius (3. 94.) In Asbjörnsen (p. 237) there is a Norwegian tale. In The Thousand and One Nights, in the Story of the third Kalender (Night 66), the prohibition against entering a certain room in a palace likewise appears, and disregard of it is punished.

Written down by Runge from oral tradition. According to a story from the Pfalz, communicated to us by Mone, the little sister is placed by the mother near the pan in which the murdered brother is to be cooked. She is strictly forbidden to look inside it, but as the pan is boiling so furiously she just uncovers it, on which the little brother stretches out his hand to her. Thereupon she is seized with terror and instantly covers it, but weeps over what she has seen. When her father's dinner is quite cooked, she has to carry it out into the vineyard to him. She collects the bones and buries them under a wild juniper. Others relate that she threaded them and hung them up in the loft. Then the little brother is changed into a bird, and pipes

My mother slew me, and I died,

My sister carried me outside,