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Grimms' Fairy Tales
The
Singing Bone
In a certain country there was once great
lamentation over a wild boar that laid waste the farmer's
fields, killed the cattle, and ripped up people's bodies
with his tusks. The King promised a large reward to anyone
who would free the land from this plague; but the beast
was so big and strong that no one dared to go near the forest
in which it lived. At last the King gave notice that whosoever
should capture or kill the wild boar should have his only
daughter to wife.
Now there lived in the country two brothers, sons of a
poor man, who declared themselves willing to undertake the
hazardous enterprise; the elder, who was crafty and shrewd,
out of pride; the younger, who was innocent and simple,
from a kind heart. The King said, "In order that you
may be the more sure of finding the beast, you must go into
the forest from opposite sides." So the elder went
in on the west side, and the younger on the east.
When the younger had gone a short way, a little man stepped
up to him. He held in his hand a black spear and said, "I
give you this spear because your heart is pure and good;
with this you can boldly attack the wild boar, and it will
do you no harm."
He thanked the little man, shouldered the spear, and went
on fearlessly.
Before long he saw the beast, which rushed at him; but
he held the spear towards it, and in its blind fury it ran
so swiftly against it that its heart was cloven in twain.
Then he took the monster on his back and went homewards
with it to the King.
As he came out at the other side of the wood, there stood
at the entrance a house where people were making merry with
wine and dancing. His elder brother had gone in here, and,
thinking that after all the boar would not run away from
him, was going to drink until he felt brave. But when he
saw his young brother coming out of the wood laden with
his booty, his envious, evil heart gave him no peace. He
called out to him, "Come in, dear brother, rest and
refresh yourself with a cup of wine."
The youth, who suspected no evil, went in and told him
about the good little man who had given him the spear wherewith
he had slain the boar.
The elder brother kept him there until the evening, and
then they went away together, and when in the darkness they
came to a bridge over a brook, the elder brother let the
other go first; and when he was half-way across he gave
him such a blow from behind that he fell down dead. He buried
him beneath the bridge, took the boar, and carried it to
the King, pretending that he had killed it; whereupon he
obtained the King's daughter in marriage. And when his younger
brother did not come back he said, "The boar must have
killed him," and every one believed it.
But as nothing remains hidden from God, so this black deed
also was to come to light.
Years afterwards a shepherd was driving his herd across
the bridge, and saw lying in the sand beneath, a snow-white
little bone. He thought that it would make a good mouth-piece,
so he clambered down, picked it up, and cut out of it a
mouth-piece for his horn. But when he blew through it for
the first time, to his great astonishment, the bone began
of its own accord to sing:
"Ah, friend, thou blowest upon my bone!
Long have I lain beside the water;
My brother slew me for the boar,
And took for his wife the King's young daughter."
"What a wonderful horn!" said the shepherd; "it
sings by itself; I must take it to my lord the King."
And when he came with it to the King the horn again began
to sing its little song. The King understood it all, and
caused the ground below the bridge to be dug up, and then
the whole skeleton of the murdered man came to light. The
wicked brother could not deny the deed, and was sewn up
in a sack and drowned. But the bones of the murdered man
were laid to rest in a beautiful tomb in the churchyard.
From Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Household Tales, trans. Margaret
Hunt (London: George Bell, 1884), 1:117-119. |
