[First published in the edition of 1843. Wilhelm Grimm obtained the basic text of this tale from a printed source, volume 3 of the Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum, p. 292 seqq, which was a tale from Thüringen collected by one Georg Friedrich Stertzing. Making only a few editorial changes in it to please himself, Wilhelm for the most part just reprinted Stertzing’s previously published text. About the Grimm Collection.]
One day an old man and his wife were sitting outside their rather poor house wishing to rest a bit from their labors. All at once a magnificent coach and four black horses drove up and a richly dressed gentleman stepped out. The farmer got up, went to the gentleman, and asked what his desire might be and how he might serve him. The stranger gave the old man his hand and said, “I desire nothing but for once to enjoy a country dish. Prepare me potatoes as you usually eat them, then I’ll sit down at your table and consume them with pleasure.” The farmer smiled and said, “You are a count or a prince or even a duke; high-born gentlemen sometimes have cravings of that sort. However, your wish will be fulfilled.” His wife went into the kitchen and began to wash and grate the potatoes, planning to make dumplings of them farmer style.
While she was at work, the farmer said to the stranger, “Come with me for a bit into my garden, where I still have something to do.” He had been digging holes in the garden and was now going to set out trees in them. “Have you no children who could help you with the work?” asked the stranger. “No,” answered the farmer. “I had, to be sure, a son,” and added “but he went out in the world long ago. He was a wild boy, clever and artful, but he wouldn’t learn anything and was up to nothing but bad pranks. Finally he ran away, and since then I have seen nothing of him.” The old man took a sapling, set it in a hole, and stuck a stake in beside it. When he had shoveled in the earth and stamped it down hard, he tied the trunk firmly to the stake at the bottom, top and middle with a wisp of straw. “But tell me,” said the gentleman, “why don’t you tie that crooked, gnarled tree that is bent almost to the ground over there in the corner to a stake, too, as you are tying this one, so that it will grow straight?”
“Sir,” said the old man and smiled, “you speak as you see it: it’s plain that you haven’t had much to do with gardening. The tree over there is old and gnarled; no one can make it straight now. One must train trees when they’re still young.” “It’s as with your son,” said the stranger. “If you had trained him while he was still young, he wouldn’t have run away. Now he has probably become old and gnarled, too.” “It’s certainly a long time since he ran away,” answered the old man. “He has surely changed.” “Would you still recognize him if he appeared before you?” asked the stranger. “Hardly by his face,” answered the farmer, “but he has a mark on him, a mole on his shoulder that looks like a bean.” As he said that, the stranger took off his coat, bared his shoulder, and showed the farmer the mole. “Good Lord!” cried the old man, “you are really my son,” and love for his child stirred his heart. “But,” he added, “how can you be my son? You’ve become a great lord and live in wealth and abundance. How did you attain this?”
“Alas, father,” replied the son, “the young tree wasn’t tied to a stake and grew crooked. Now it’s too old; it won’t get straight again. How have I acquired all this? I have become a thief. But don’t get frightened, I’m a master thief; for me neither lock nor bolt exists; whatever I crave is mine. Don’t imagine that I steal like a common thief; I take only from the surplus of the rich. Poor people are safe; I give to them rather than take anything from them. Similarly, whatever I can have without trouble, craft, or skill, I don’t touch.” “Alas, my son,” said the father, “just the same I don’t like it. A thief’s a thief. I tell you, it leads to no good end.” He took him to his mother, and when she heard that he was her son, she wept for joy. But when he told her that he had become a master thief, then two streams flowed down her face. Finally she said, “Even if he has become a thief, still he’s my son, and my eyes have beheld him once again.”
They sat down to table, and once again he ate with his parents the mean fare that he had not eaten for a long time. “If our lord, the count up there in the manor, learns who you are and what you are doing,” said his father, “he won’t take you in his arms and rock you in them the way he used to when he stood sponsor for you; rather he will let you swing on the gallows.” “Don’t worry, father, he won’t do anything to me, for I understand my business. I’ll go and see him myself this very day.”
As evening drew near, the master thief got into his coach and drove to the manor. The count received him courteously because he thought he was a high-born gentleman, but when the stranger made himself known, he turned pale and was silent for quite a time. Finally he said, “You are my godson, therefore I shall temper justice with mercy and deal with you considerately. Because you boast of being a master thief, I shall put your skill to the test. If, however, you fail to pass it, you will have to celebrate a marriage with the roper’s daughter, and your wedding music will be the cawing of ravens.” “Count,” answered the master, “think up three things as hard as you want and if I don’t carry out your task, do with me as you like.” The count thought for some minutes, then said, “All right. First you’re to steal my favorite mount from the stable; secondly, without our noticing it, you’re to steal my wife’s sheet and mine from under us while we’re asleep, also my wife’s wedding ring from her finger; as the third and last task, you’re to abduct my rector and my verger from the church. Take careful note of all this, for your neck is at stake.”
The master betook himself to the nearest town, where he bought the clothes of an old farmer’s wife and put them on. Then he stained his face brown and even painted in wrinkles, so that no human being would have recognized him. Finally he filled a small keg with old Hungarian wine in which a strong sleeping-potion was mixed. He put the keg in a sling which he took on his back and with slow, faltering steps went to the count’s manor.
It was already dark when he got there. He sat down in the courtyard on a stone, began to cough like a consumptive old woman, and rubbed his hands as though he were freezing. Outside the stable door soldiers were lying around a fire. One of them noticed the old woman and called to her, “Come nearer, granny, and warm yourself here with us. You surely have no regular night’s lodging and take it where you find it.” The old woman tottered up, asked them to take the sling from her back, and sat down with them by the fire. “What have you got there in your keg, granny,” asked one. “A good swallow of wine,” she answered. “I support myself by this trade; for money and kind words I’ll gladly give you a glass.” “Just pass it here,” said the soldier, and when he had tasted it, cried, “When the wine’s good, I prefer to drink a second glass,” had another poured out for him, while the others followed his example.
“I say, comrades,” cried one to those who were sitting in the stable, “there’s an old woman here who has wine that’s as old as herself. Have a swallow, too; it’ll warm your stomachs better than our fire.” The old woman carried her keg into the stable. One man had seated himself on the count’s favorite mount that had its saddle on, another was holding the bridle in his hand, a third had hold of the tail. She poured out drinks, as many as were called for, until the source dried up. Before long the bridle fell from the hand of the man who was holding it: he dropped to the ground and began to snore. The second let go of the tail, lay down, and snored even louder. The man who was sitting in the saddle remained seated, to be sure, but bent his head almost to the horse’s neck, fell asleep and breathed out of his mouth like a smith’s bellows. The soldiers outside had long since fallen asleep and were lying on the ground as motionless as if made of stone.
When the master-thief saw that he had succeeded, he put a rope in the man’s hand instead of the bridle, and in the hand of the other, who had been holding the tail, a wisp of straw instead of the tail. What was he to do with the man who was sitting on the horse’s back? He didn’t want to throw him off: he might have awakened and raise a hue and cry. But he had a good plan. He unbuckled the surcingle, tied fast to the saddle a couple of ropes that were hanging in rings on the wall, and pulled the sleeping rider, saddle and all, up in the air. Then he wound the ropes around the post and made them fast. He had already unchained the horse, but had he ridden over the stone pavement of the stable yard, the noise would have been heard in the manor. So he first wrapped its hoofs in old rags, then led it cautiously out, swung up on it, and made off.
When day had broken, the master galloped up to the manor on the stolen horse. The count had just got up and was looking out the window. “Good morning, count,” he called to him, “here’s the horse I was lucky enough to get out of the stable. Just see how nicely your soldiers are lying there asleep, and if you care to go into the stable, you will see how comfortable your watchmen have made themselves.” The count couldn’t help laughing, then said, “You’ve succeeded once, but you won’t be so lucky the second time. And I warn you, if I meet you as a thief, I’ll treat you as a thief, too.”
That evening when the countess went to bed, she closed tight the hand on which she wore her wedding ring, and the count said, “All doors are locked and bolted. I shall stay awake and wait for the thief, and if he climbs in the window, I’ll shoot him down.” But the master-thief went out in the dark to the gallows, cut from the noose a poor sinner who was hanging there, and carried him on his back to the palace. There he set a ladder up against the bedroom, put the dead man on his shoulder, and began to mount. When he got high enough so that the dead man’s head appeared in the window, the count, who was on the watch in his bed, fired a pistol at him. Immediately the master let the poor sinner drop, himself jumped down from the ladder, and hid in a corner.
The moon that night was so bright that the master could distinctly see the count climb out the window onto the ladder, come down, and carry the dead man into the garden. There he began to dig a hole in which he was going to bury him. “Now,” thought the thief, “the lucky moment has come,” crept nimbly out of his hiding-place and climbed up the ladder right into the countess’ bedroom. “Dear wife,” he began in the count’s voice, “the thief is dead but, nevertheless, he is my godson and was more a rascal than a miscreant. I don’t want to expose him to public disgrace; besides, I am sorry for his parents. I shall bury him myself in the garden before daybreak, so that the affair will not become notorious. Give me the sheet, too; I want to wrap him in it and not bury him like a dog.” The countess gave him the sheet. “Do you know what?” continued the thief, “I am having a fit of magnanimity. Give me your ring, too; the unhappy man risked his life for it, so let him take it with him to the grave.” She was loath to oppose the count, and though she didn’t want to do so, nevertheless she drew it from her finger and handed it to him. The thief made off with both objects and got safely home before the count had finished his grave-digging in the garden.
What a long face the count pulled when next morning the master came bringing him the sheet and the ring! “Are you a wizard?” he said to him. “Who fetched you out of the grave in which I myself laid you? And who brought you back to life again?” “It was not I whom you buried,” said the thief, “but the poor sinner on the gallows,” and related in detail what had happened. The count had to admit that he was a skillful and clever thief. “But you’re not through yet,” he added. “You have still the third problem to solve, and if you don’t succeed in that, nothing will help you.” The master smiled and made no answer.
When night fell, he went to the village church with a long sack on his back, a bundle under his arm, and a lantern in his hand. In the sack he had crawfish and in the bundle short wax tapers. He sat down in the graveyard, took out a crawfish, and stuck a taper on its back. Then he lighted it, set the crawfish on the ground, and let it crawl. He took a second out of the sack, did the same with it, and kept on until the last crawfish was out of the sack. Then he put on a long black garment that looked like a monk’s cowl and stuck a grey beard on his chin. When at last he was quite unrecognizable, he took the sack the crawfish had been in, went into the church, and mounted the chancel. The belfry clock was just striking twelve. When the last stroke had died away, he called out in a loud, ringing voice, “Harken, ye sinners! The end of all things has come. Doomsday is near. Harken, harken! Whoever wants to come with me to Heaven, let him crawl into the sack. I am Peter who opens and closes the gates of Heaven. Behold! out in the graveyard the dead are stirring and are assembling their members. Come, come, crawl into the sack! The world is coming to an end!”
The cry echoed through the whole village. The rector and the verger, who lived nearest the church, were the first to hear it, and when they spied the lights moving about in the graveyard, realized that something unusual was up and went into the church. They listened to the sermon for a while, then the verger nudged the rector and said, “It wouldn’t be a bad thing if we seized the opportunity and both got to Heaven an easy way before the dawn of Doomsday.” “Certainly,” replied the rector, “those were my thoughts, too. If you want, let’s get going.” “Yes,” answered the verger, “but you, rector, have precedence. I’ll follow after you.”
So the rector stepped forward and mounted the chancel where the master opened the sack. The rector crawled in first, then the verger. Straightway the master tied the sack tight, gathered it up by the mouth, and dragged it down the chancel steps. Every time the two fools’ heads hit the steps, he would cry, “Now, of course, we’re going over the mountains.” Then in the same way he dragged them through the village, and when they went through puddles, he would cry, “Now, of course, we’re going through the moist clouds.” And when at last he was dragging them up the palace steps, he cried, “Now we’re on the steps of Heaven and shall soon be in the vestibule.” But on getting upstairs he shoved the sack into the pigeon-loft, and when the pigeons fluttered, he said, “Hear how the angels are rejoicing and beating their wings.” Then he shot the bolt and went away.
The next morning he betook himself to the count and told him that he had solved the third task, too, and had abducted the rector and the verger from the church. “Where did you leave them?” asked the lord. “They are in a sack up in the pigeon-loft and imagine they are in Heaven.” The count climbed up himself and convinced himself that the thief had told the truth.
When he had freed the rector and the verger from their prison, he said, “You are an arch-thief and have won your case. This time you’re getting off with a whole skin, but see to it that you get out of my country; for if you set foot in it again, you may count on your elevation to the gallows.” The arch-thief took leave of his parents, again went into the wide world, and nobody has heard anything about him since.
