Read Online Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version by Philip Pullman - Free Book Online Page B

said in her heart: ‘I
can
do it! I
know
I can do it! I’ll redeem my brothers, see if I don’t.’
    She chose a tall tree and climbed up high among the branches, where she sat spinning some thread, and thinking: ‘Don’t speak! Don’t laugh!’
    Now it happened that sometimes a king came hunting in that part of the forest. This king had a favourite greyhound, and as they were making their way along a path the hound suddenly ran to a tree and started barking and jumping up at it. The king followed, and when he saw the princess with the gold star on her forehead, he was so struck by her beauty that he fell in love at once. He called up and asked if she would be his wife.
    She didn’t say a word, but she nodded, and he knew she’d understood. He climbed up the tree to help her down, put her on his horse, and they went home together.
    The wedding was celebrated with great joy and festivity, but people remarked on the bride’s strange silence. Not only did she not speak, she didn’t laugh either.
    However, the marriage was a happy one. But after they had spent some years together, the king’s mother began to speak evil of the young queen. She would say to the king, ‘That wretch you brought home with you – she’s no better than a common beggar. Who can tell what wicked things she’s thinking of? And she might be a mute, but any decent person can laugh from time to time. Anyone who doesn’t laugh has something on their conscience, you can be sure of that.’
    At first the king didn’t want to listen to that sort of talk, but as time went by the old woman kept on and on, inventing all kinds of evil things to accuse the young queen of, and the king finally began to believe she must be right. The young queen was arraigned before a court packed with the old woman’s favourites, and they didn’t hesitate to sentence her to death.
    A great fire was built in the courtyard where she was to be burned to death. The king watched from an upstairs window, tears flowing down his cheeks, for he still loved her dearly. She was tied to the stake, and the red fire was already rising higher and licking at her dress, when the last moment of the seven years passed.
    And then twelve ravens flew down, the sound of their wingbeats filling the courtyard. As soon as their feet touched the ground they became her brothers again, and they rushed to the fire, kicking the burning logs this way and that, and untied their sister’s bonds and brushed off the sparks that were beginning to set her dress alight. They kissed and embraced her, carrying her away from the stake.
    And as for the young queen, she was laughing and talking as well as ever. The king was amazed. Now that she could speak, she told him why she had been silent so long. He rejoiced to hear she was innocent of all the terrible things his mother had accused her of.
    But then it was the old woman’s turn to be accused, and the court had no difficulty in finding her guilty. She was put into a barrel filled with poisonous snakes and boiling oil, and she didn’t last long after that.
    ***
    Tale type: ATU 451, ‘The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers’
    Source: a story told to the Grimm brothers by Julia and Charlotte Ramus
    Similar stories: Alexander Afanasyev: ‘The Magic Swan Geese’ (
Russian Fairy Tales
); Katharine M. Briggs: ‘The Seven Brothers’ (
Folk Tales of Britain
); Italo Calvino: ‘The Calf with the Golden Horns’, ‘The Twelve Oxen’ (
Italian Folktales
); Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: ‘The Seven Ravens’ (
Children’s and Household Tales
)
    This tale has many cousins and it’s easy to see why. The charm of the chorus of nearly identical brothers, who are turned into birds; of the sister who unwittingly causes the transformation, and who is placed under a nearly impossible prohibition; of her fidelity and courage, and the terrible fate that seems about to engulf her, and the perfect timing of the brothers’ return and the sound of their wingbeats – it all