Page:Grimm's household tales, volume 2 (1884).djvu/415

Rh Danish one in Etlar, p. 1; a Servian in Wuk, No. 2; and a Swedish in Cavallius, p. 191, all belong to this group.

From Zwehrn. A very good story like this is current among the people, but in Low German, and no one could repeat it to us quite perfectly. In the Abendzeitung, 1819, No. 171, there is a story in rhyme from another and more meagre version. A hungry charcoal-burner hears that a treasure has been stolen from the King, and comes forward to offer to find out the thief. The charcoal-burner is to be fed for three days, but if by that time he has not discovered him he is to be hanged. So when the first day is over, and his last draught for that day is brought to him, he says, "This is one of them," and so on, on the second and third days. The servants, who are the thieves, believe that he is speaking of them, and reveal the deed. There is a story which again is different in the Zeitschrift der Casseler Bote, 1822, No. 51, in which the Know-all is called Felix Gritte. In Mannhardt's Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie, 3, 36-46, there is a version with some amplifications and additions. It is in the Wetterau patois, and was picked up by Weigand. A fisherman disguised as a monk brings a stolen ring to light. An Italian story in Straparola is allied to this, and so is a Persian in Kisseh-Khun, p. 44. Achmed the Cobbler pretends to be an astronomer, and discovers who has stolen the ruby out of the King's crown.

From Paderborn. It is very well told in the Morgenblatt (1817, p. 231), as a popular story of Appenzell applied to Doctor Paracelsus. Paracelsus one day goes into a forest, and hears his name called. The voice comes from a fir-tree in which the Devil is imprisoned by means of a little plug marked with three crosses. Paracelsus promises to liberate him if he will procure him a medicine which will cure all sick people, and a tincture which will turn everything into gold. The Devil agrees to do this, and Paracelsus takes his pen-knife, gets hold of the plug with it, and with some difficulty takes it out. A hideous black spider crawls out, which runs down the trunk of the tree, but hardly has it touched the ground before it disappears, and a tall thin man with squinting red eyes, who is dressed in a red cloak, rises as if from the earth. He conducts the doctor to a high towering rock, and strikes it with a hazel-rod which he has broken off on the way. The rock splits into two pieces with a loud crack, and the Devil disappears but soon comes out again, and gives Paracelsus two small glasses—a yellow one, containing the gold tincture, and a white one the medicine. Then