MISCELLANY 81
A TALE FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM
CLEVER GRETEL
There was
once a cook named Gretel, who wore shoes with red heels, and when she walked
out with them on, she turned herself this way and that, was quite happy and
thought: ‘You certainly are a pretty girl!’ And when she came home she drank,
in her gladness of heart, a draught of wine, and as wine excites a desire to
eat, she tasted the best of whatever she was cooking until she was satisfied,
and said: ‘The cook must know what the food is like.’
It came to
pass that the master one day said to her: ‘Gretel, there is a guest coming this
evening; prepare me two fowls very daintily.’ ‘I will see to it, master,’
answered Gretel. She killed two fowls, scalded them, plucked them, put them on
the spit, and towards evening set them before the fire, that they might roast.
The fowls began to turn brown, and were nearly ready, but the guest had not yet
arrived. Then Gretel called out to her master: ‘If the guest does not come, I
must take the fowls away from the fire, but it will be a sin and a shame if
they are not eaten the moment they are at their juiciest.’ The master said: ‘I
will run myself, and fetch the guest.’ When the master had turned his back,
Gretel laid the spit with the fowls on one side, and thought: ‘Standing so long
by the fire there, makes one sweat and thirsty; who knows when they will come?
Meanwhile, I will run into the cellar, and take a drink.’ She ran down, set a
jug, said: ‘God bless it for you, Gretel,’ and took a good drink, and thought
that wine should flow on, and should not be interrupted, and took yet another
hearty draught.
Then she
went and put the fowls down again to the fire, basted them, and drove the spit
merrily round. But as the roast meat smelt so good, Gretel thought: ‘Something
might be wrong, it ought to be tasted!’ She touched it with her finger, and
said: ‘Ah! how good fowls are! It certainly is a sin and a shame that they are
not eaten at the right time!’ She ran to the window, to see if the master was
not coming with his guest, but she saw no one, and went back to the fowls and
thought: ‘One of the wings is burning! I had better take it off and eat it.’ So
she cut it off, ate it, and enjoyed it, and when she had done, she thought:
‘The other must go down too, or else master will observe that something is
missing.’ When the two wings were eaten, she went and looked for her master,
and did not see him. It suddenly occurred to her: ‘Who knows? They are perhaps
not coming at all, and have turned in somewhere.’ Then she said: ‘Well, Gretel,
enjoy yourself, one fowl has been cut into, take another drink, and eat it up
entirely; when it is eaten you will have some peace, why should God’s good
gifts be spoilt?’ So she ran into the cellar again, took an enormous drink and
ate up the one chicken in great glee. When one of the chickens was swallowed
down, and still her master did not come, Gretel looked at the other and said:
‘What one is, the other should be likewise, the two go together; what’s right
for the one is right for the other; I think if I were to take another draught
it would do me no harm.’ So she took another hearty drink, and let the second
chicken follow the first.
While she
was making the most of it, her master came and cried: ‘Hurry up, Gretel, the
guest is coming directly after me!’ ‘Yes, sir, I will soon serve up,’ answered
Gretel. Meantime the master looked to see that the table was properly laid, and
took the great knife, wherewith he was going to carve the chickens, and
sharpened it on the steps. Presently the guest came, and knocked politely and
courteously at the house-door. Gretel ran, and looked to see who was there, and
when she saw the guest, she put her finger to her lips and said: ‘Hush! hush!
go away as quickly as you can, if my master catches you it will be the worse
for you; he certainly did ask you to supper, but his intention is to cut off
your two ears. Just listen how he is sharpening the knife for it!’ The guest
heard the sharpening, and hurried down the steps again as fast as he could.
Gretel was not idle; she ran screaming to her master, and cried: ‘You have
invited a fine guest!’ ‘Why, Gretel? What do you mean by that?’ ‘Yes,’ said
she, ‘he has taken the chickens which I was just going to serve up, off the
dish, and has run away with them!’ ‘That’s a nice trick!’ said her master, and
lamented the fine chickens. ‘If he had but left me one, so that something
remained for me to eat.’ He called to him to stop, but the guest pretended not
to hear. Then he ran after him with the knife still in his hand, crying: ‘Just
one, just one,’ meaning that the guest should leave him just one chicken, and
not take both. The guest, however, thought no otherwise than that he was to
give up one of his ears, and ran as if fire were burning under him, in order to
take them both with him.
