Kitabı oku: «Страшные сказки / Scary stories», sayfa 5

Gretel said:

“I, too, will take something home with me”, and filled her pinafore full.

“But now we must go away”, said Hansel, “to get out of the witch’s forest”.

They walked for two hours, and they came to a great stretch of water.

“We cannot cross it”, said Hansel, “I see no plank, and no bridge”.

“And there is also no ferry”, answered Gretel, “but I see a white duck. I ask it, and it will help us”.

Then Gretel cried:

 
‘Little duck, little duck, do you see,
Hansel and Gretel are here?
There’s not a plank, or bridge in sight,
Take us across on your back so white.’
 

The duck came to them, and Hansel seated himself on its back, and told his sister to sit by him.

“No”, replied Gretel, “that will be too heavy for the little duck. The duck will take us across, one after the other”.

The good little duck did so, and when they were once safely across and walked for a short time, the forest was more and more familiar to them.At length⁹ they saw from afar their father’s house. Then they began to run, rushed into the parlour, and threw themselves round their father’s neck. The man was very happy to see them again. The stepwoman, however, was dead. Gretel emptied her pinafore until pearls and precious stones ran about the room. Hansel threw one handful after another out of his pocket to add to them. Then they lived together in perfect happiness.

The Girl without Hands
Brothers Grimm

A certain miller was very poor, and had nothing but his mill and a large apple-tree behind it. Once when he went into the forest to fetch wood, an old man stepped up to him, and said,

“Why do you plague yourself with this wood? I will make you rich, if you promise me what is behind your mill”.

“What can that be? It’s my apple-tree”, thought the miller, and said, “Yes”.

So he gave a promise to the stranger. The old man, however, laughed mockingly and said,

“When three years pass, I will come and carry away what belongs to me”, and then he went.

When the miller got home, his wife came to meet him and said,

“Tell me, miller, from whence comes this sudden wealth into our house? All at once every box and chest was filled! No one brought it in, and I don’t know how it happened”.

He answered,

“It comes from a stranger who met me in the forest, and promised me great treasure. I, in return, promised him what stands behind the mill. We can very well give him the big apple-tree for it”.

“Ah, husband,” said the terrified wife, “that was the devil! He did not mean the apple-tree, but our daughter, who is behind the mill!”

The miller’s daughter was a beautiful, pious girl, and lived through the three years in the fear of God and without sin. When therefore the time was over, and the day came, she washed herself clean, and made a circle round herself with chalk. The devil appeared quite early, but he could not come near to her. Angrily, he said to the miller,

“Take all water away from her, that she may no longer be able to wash herself. Otherwise I have no power over her”.

The miller was afraid, and did so. The next morning the devil came again, but the girl wept on her hands, and they were quite clean. Again he could not get near her, and furiously said to the miller,