Page:Grimm's household tales, volume 2 (1884).djvu/421

Rh the two elder princes bring coarse linen and ugly women. Another story from Paderborn contains much that is special. The miller sends out his three sons, and the one who brings back the best horse is to have the mill. The youngest—the simpleton—meets a little gray man, serves him faithfully and honourably as a wood-cutter for one year, and for this receives the most beautiful horse. The brothers meet him on his way home, and as one of them has a blind horse and the other a lame one, they seize Dummling's, and thrust him into a lime pit. But the little gray man comes and pulls him out and anoints him with salve, so that he returns to life and health; his horse too is given back to him. He goes with it to his father; the latter, however, does not give him the mill, but says that it shall belong to the one who brings him the best shirt. Dummling procures the shirt, but the brothers bind him to a tree, and shoot him dead. The little gray man brings him back to life again, but when he arrives at home with the shirt, his brothers have told his father that he is in league with the Devil. The father maintains that they must go forth once more, and the one who brings home the best loaf of bread shall have the mill, for the Devil has no power over bread. Dummling meets an aged woman in the forest, and shares his food with her, and in return for this she gives him a wishing-rod. Next day when he is standing on a bridge, and feeling very hungry, he holds the wishing-rod over the water, and a little tortoise comes out to him. "What is the use of that to me?" thinks he, but puts the little creature on the wall of the bridge. When he is going away, it cries after him, "Take me with you! Take me with you!" He thrusts it in his pocket, and the next time he puts his hand into it, he finds great piles of money. And now all goes well with him, he treats the tortoise with great respect, hires the best room in an inn for himself, puts it in the bed there, and travels onwards to seek the best bread. When a year has gone by, he returns without having found it; but when he looks at the tortoise, it has got two pretty white feet. "Hallo! What's that?" thinks he, and covers it up warmly. One night when he is lying in bed and trying to think how he is to obtain the bread, he sees something in the shade which looks like some one standing kneading bread in a dish. At night he dreams that this has become the best bread, and next morning when he awakes the most beautiful bread really is lying before him. He takes it home, and every one is forced to own that he has gained the victory. Then he returns to his tortoise and sees a wonderfully beautiful princess lying in the bed with the tortoise by her side. She tells him that she has been bewitched by her mother, but that he has delivered her. Then she promises to be his wife, but must first go home to her father. "Just go home," says she. "When thou hearest the first cannon fired, I shall be