Page:Grimm's household tales, volume 2 (1884).djvu/446

432 land, and go into twelve different gardens, one of which belongs to each of them, and there they pluck the most beautiful flowers, with which they adorn themselves. And now they go to a castle where twelve princes receive them, and dance with them; all are merry but one princess, who is melancholy (it seems as if she had seen the handsome apprentice and had fallen in love with him). They go home again, because their shoes are worn out. When they are once more up above, they throw the shoes out of the window, where a whole heap of shoes are already lying. The apprentice steals away, and next morning his master goes to measure the princess for new ones, but she is still in bed, and bids him come later. When he returns, she says she will have no more shoes; she only requires one pair, and he is to send them to her by his youngest apprentice. The latter, however, says, "I will not go; it is the turn of the eldest." The eldest dresses himself smartly and goes, but she will not have him; but will have the youngest. Again he says, "I will not go until it is my turn." So the second goes, and the third, and all of them one after the other until she has sent away the eleventh as well. Then the youngest says, "If I am to so, I will go just as I am, and will put on no better clothes." When he gets there, she throws her arms round his neck, and says, "Thou hast delivered me from the eleven who have had me in their power, and have so tormented me; I love thee with all my heart, and thou shalt be my husband." Compare the note to The Golden Mountain (No. 92) for the dispute about the magic possessions. For failure in the performance of the appointed tasks being followed by the punishment of death, see The Riddle, (No. 22) and The Six Servants (No. 134). This story is also known in Poland (see further on). In Hungarian, see Stier, p. 51.

From Paderborn. See the note to How seven Apprentices got through the world, No. 71.

In connection with the servant whose eyes shatter all he looks on, see a remarkable passage in the Hymisquida of the Edda, (St. 12), "the pillars were rent asunder by Joten's glance." In Villemarqué's Contes Bretons, 2. 120, there is a man who can hear the grass growing.

From Mecklenburg and Paderborn. According to one of the stories, the brother is not only thrown among the snakes, but actually killed by them and buried in the stable among the horses.