Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jakob Grimm

Author:Jakob Grimm
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781402776335
Publisher: Sterling
Published: 2020-07-02T16:00:00+00:00

28

MOTHER HULDA

A WIDOW HAD TWO DAUGHTERS. ONE WAS PRETTY AND industrious, the other was ugly and lazy. And as the ugly one was her own daughter, she loved her much the best, and the pretty one was made to do all the work, and be the drudge of the house. Every day the poor girl had to sit by a well on the high road and spin until her fingers bled. Now, it happened once that as the spindle was bloody, she dipped it into the well to wash it, but it slipped out of her hand and fell in. Then she began to cry, and she ran to her stepmother and told her of her misfortune; and her stepmother scolded her without mercy and said in her rage:

“As you have let the spindle fall in, you must go and fetch it out again!”

Then the girl went back again to the well, not knowing what to do, and in the despair of her heart she jumped down into the well the same way the spindle had gone. After that she knew nothing. When she came to herself she was in a beautiful meadow, and the sun was shining on the flowers that grew round her. And she walked on through the meadow until she came to a baker’s oven that was full of bread. And the bread called out to her:

“Oh, take me out, take me out, or I shall burn. I am baked enough already!”

Then she drew near, and with the baker’s peel she took out all the loaves one after the other. And she went farther on till she came to a tree weighed down with apples, and it called out to her:

“Oh, shake me, shake me. We apples are all of us ripe!”

Then she shook the tree until the apples fell like rain, and she shook until there were no more to fall. And when she had gathered them together in a heap, she went on farther. At last she came to a little house, and an old woman was peeping out of it, but she had such great teeth that the girl was terrified and about to run away, only the old woman called her back.

“What are you afraid of, my dear child? Come and live with me, and if you do the housework well and orderly, things shall go well with you. You must take great pains to make my bed well, and shake it up thoroughly, so that the feathers fly about, and then in the world it snows, for I am Mother Hulda.” As the old woman spoke so kindly, the girl took courage, consented, and went to her work. She did everything to the old woman’s satisfaction, and shook the bed with such a will that the feathers flew about like snowflakes. And so she led a good life, had never a cross word, but boiled and roast meat every day. When she had lived a long time with Mother Hulda, she began to feel sad, not knowing herself what ailed her.

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