|
Grimms' Fairy Tales
Frau
Trude
There was once a little girl who was obstinate
and inquisitive, and when her parents told her to do anything,
she did not obey them, so how could she fare well? One day
she said to her parents, "I have heard so much of Frau
Trude, I will go to her some day. People say that everything
about her does look so strange, and that there are such
odd things in her house, that I have become quite curious!"
Her parents absolutely forbade her, and said, "Frau
Trude is a bad woman, who does wicked things, and if thou
goest to her; thou art no longer our child." But the
maiden did not let herself be turned aside by her parent's
prohibition, and still went to Frau Trude. And when she
got to her, Frau Trude said, "Why art thou so pale?"
"Ah," she replied, and her whole body trembled,
"I have been so terrified at what I have seen."
"What hast thou seen?" "I saw a black man
on your steps." "That was a collier." "Then
I saw a green man." "That was a huntsman."
"After that I saw a blood-red man." "That
was a butcher." "Ah, Frau Trude, I was terrified;
I looked through the window and saw not you, but, as I verily
believe, the devil himself with a head of fire." "Oho!"
said she, "then thou hast seen the witch in her proper
costume. I have been waiting for thee, and wanting thee
a long time already; thou shalt give me some light."
Then she changed the girl into a block of wood, and threw
it into the fire. And when it was in full blaze she sat
down close to it, and warmed herself by it, and said, "That
shines bright for once in a way."
From Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Household Tales, trans. Margaret
Hunt (London: George Bell, 1884), 1:11-20. |
