[Note: this tale is from the village of Zwehrn, where it was obtained on 29 June 1813, from an unknown informant. It was first published in the edition of 1815, where it was no. 25; it was renumbered 111 in the edition of 1819, and kept that number thereafter. In the original telling of this tale, the giants are slain before the huntsman visits the sleeping daughter of the king. About the Grimm Collection.]
There was once a young fellow who had learned the locksmith’s trade and told his father that he now wanted to go out in the world and try his luck. “Yes,” said the father, “I have nothing against that,” and gave him some money for the journey. So he roved about and looked for work. In time he became unsuccessful at locksmithing, and what’s more, he no longer liked it; on the other hand, he developed a yearning for huntsmanship. In the course of his journeyings he met a huntsman clad in green who asked him where he came from and where he was going. He was a journeyman locksmith, said the lad, but he no longer liked the trade and had a yearning for huntsmanship and would he take him on as an apprentice. “O yes, if you want to come with me.” So the boy went along, bound himself to him for a number of years and learned huntsmanship. Then he wanted to try his luck further, and the only wage the huntsman gave him was a blow-gun which had, however, the property that when one fired a shot with it, one never missed.
He went his way and came to a very big forest whose end he couldn’t find in one day. When it was evening, he sat down in a high tree to keep out of the way of wild animals. Toward midnight he thought he saw a little light glimmering faintly from afar; he looked through the branches in its direction and took note of where it was coming from. Even so, he first took off his hat and threw it down in the direction of the light so that, once he had climbed down, he might go toward it as toward a beacon. He climbed down, went after his hat, put it on again, and went straight ahead. The farther he went, the bigger grew the light, and when he got near it, he saw that it was a huge fire. Three giants were sitting by it, had an ox on a spit and were roasting it. One said, “I really must take a taste and see if the meat is almost done,” tore off a piece and was about to put it in his mouth when the huntsman shot it out of his hand. “Well, well,” said the giant, “there the wind went and blew the piece out of my hand,” and took another. As he was just about to take a bite, the huntsman again shot it away; then the giant slapped his companion who was sitting beside him and cried angrily, “Why did you snatch my piece away from me?” “I didn’t snatch it away,” said the other. “A sharpshooter probably shot it away.” The giant took a third piece but couldn’t keep hold of it, for the huntsman shot it out of his hand.
Then the giants said, “He must be a good marksman to shoot away the food from in front of one’s mouth; we could use someone like that,” and called out loud, “Come here, you sharpshooter, sit down with us by the fire and eat your fill; we won’t harm you. But if you don’t come, we’ll fetch you by force; then you’re done for.” Then the boy stepped up and said he was a trained huntsman and whatever he aimed his gun at he was quite certain to hit. Then they said, if he’d come along with them, he’d fare well. They told him that outside the forest was a big body of water beyond which was a tower, and in the tower was a beautiful king’s daughter whom they very much wanted to carry off. “Yes," he said, “I’ll have her here directly.” “But there’s something else there, too,” they continued. “There’s a little dog there that starts barking as soon as anybody comes near, and as soon as it barks, everybody in the royal court wakes up. That’s why we can’t get in. Do you dare to shoot the dog?” “Yes,” he said, “that’s mere child’s play for me.” Thereupon he got into a boat and rowed across the water. When he was close to shore, the dog came running up and was about to bark, but he got out his blowgun and shot it dead.
When the giants saw that, they were delighted and thought that they as good as had the king’s daughter, but the huntsman wanted first to see how the land lay and said that they should stay outside until he called them. Then he went into the castle, and within it was as still as could be, and everybody was asleep. On opening the door of the first room he saw a saber hanging there on the wall: it was of solid silver with a gold star on it and the king’s name. Beside it on a table lay a sealed document; this he opened, and it said that whoever had the saber would be able to kill whatever he ran into. He took the saber from the wall, girded it on, and went his way.
Then he came to the room where the king’s daughter was lying asleep, and she was so beautiful that he stopped and, looking at her, held his breath, thinking to himself, “How can I put an innocent maiden in the power of those savage giants? They bode her no good.” He looked about some more, and there, under the bed, was a pair of slippers: on the right slipper was her father’s name with a star, and on the left her own name with a star. She was wearing a big silk neckerchief embroidered with gold, on the right side her father’s name, on the left her own, all in gold letters. The huntsman took a pair of scissors and cut off the right corner and put it in his knapsack; then he also took the right slipper with the king’s name and put it in his knapsack. The maiden just lay there and slept on and was all sewed up in her shift. Then he cut a piece off the shift, too, and put it in with the rest, yet did it all without touching her. Then he went away and left her sleeping undisturbed.
When he got back to the gate, the giants were still standing outside waiting for him, thinking he’d bring the king’s daughter. He called to them to come in, saying that the maiden was already in his power; however, he couldn’t open the door for them, but there was a hole through which they’d have to crawl. When the first giant approached, the huntsman wrapped the latter’s hair around his hand, pulled the head in, cut it off with one stroke of his saber, and then dragged him all the way in. Then he called the second and cut off his head, too, and last of all the third, and was glad to have freed the beautiful maiden from her enemies. He cut out their tongues and put them in his knapsack. Then he thought, “I’ll go home to my father and show him what I’ve done thus far, then I’ll travel about the world. The good fortune that God is willing to grant me will surely overtake me.”
When the king in the castle awoke, he saw the three giants lying there dead. He went into his daughter’s bedchamber, waked her up, and asked who on earth had killed the giants. “Father dear,” she said, “I don’t know; I’ve been asleep.” When she got up and was about to put on her slippers, the right slipper was gone, and when she looked at her neckerchief, it was cut through and the right corner was missing. And when she looked at her shift, a piece was gone from that. The king had the whole court assembled, soldiers and everybody who was there, and asked who had freed his daughter and killed the giants.
Now he had a captain who had only one eye and was a hideous person; he said he’d done it. Then the old king said, since he’d done it, he should also marry his daughter. The maiden, however, said, “Father dear, rather than marry him, I’ll go out in the world as far as my legs will carry me.” Then the king said, if she wouldn’t marry him, she was to take off her royal clothing and put on peasant garb and go away. She was to go to a potter and and start an earthenware business. She took off her royal clothing and went to a potter and took a stock of earthenware on credit; she also promised him to pay for it if she’d sold it by evening. The king then said that she was to sit on a corner and sell it; then he ordered some farm wagons to drive right through it and smash it to a thousand pieces. When the king’s daughter had laid out her stock by the roadside, the carts came along and reduced it to nothing but shards. She began to weep and said, “Oh, God, now how shall I pay the potter?”
In doing this the king had wanted to force her to marry the captain; instead, however, she went back to the potter and asked him if he’d extend her loan. He answered no, she’d first have to pay for the previous stock. Then she went to her father, cried and lamented and said that she wanted to go out in the world. “I’ll have a cottage built for you out in the forest,” he said. “There you’re to stay as long as you live and cook for all comers, but you’re not to accept any money.” When the cottage was ready, a sign was hung outside the door and on it was written, “Today for nothing, tomorrow for money.” There she stayed a long time, and word went abroad that there was a maiden there who cooked for nothing and the sign by the door said so.
The huntsman, too, heard that and thought, “That would be something for me; I’m really poor and have no money.” He took his blowgun and his knapsack in which everything he’d previously taken with him from the castle still was, went into the forest and soon found the cottage with the sign: “Today for nothing, tomorrow for money.” He had, however, girded on the saber with which he’d cut off the three giants’ heads, and going thus into the cottage, had himself served something to eat. He rejoiced at the sight of the beautiful girl who was really as pretty as a picture. She asked where he came from and where he was going, and he said, “I’m traveling about the world.” Then she asked him where he’d got the sword, for her father’s name was on it. He asked if she was the king’s daughter. “Yes,” she answered. “With this sword,” he said, “I cut off the heads of three giants,” and as a token he took their tongues out of the knapsack. He also showed her the slipper, the corner of the neckerchief, and the piece of the shift. Then she rejoiced, saying it was he who had saved her.
Thereupon they both went to the old king and brought him there, and she led him to her room and told him that the huntsman was really the man who had saved her from the giants. When the old king saw all the tokens, he could no longer be in doubt, and said he was glad to know how it had all happened and that the huntsman should have her in marriage. The maiden rejoiced over this with all her heart. Then they dressed him as if he were a foreign lord, and the king had a banquet prepared. When they went to table, the captain happened to be sitting on the daughter’s left, the huntsman on her right, and the captain thought he was a foreign lord who had come on a visit. When they had eaten and drunk, the old king said to the captain that he wanted to propound him a riddle which he was to guess: if a person said he’d killed three giants and was asked where the giants’ tongues were, and he had to look and there were none in their heads, how did that come about? Then the captain said, “They probably didn’t have any.” “Not so,” said the king, “every animal has a tongue,” and asked further what that person deserved to have done to him. “He deserves to be torn to pieces,” answered the captain. Then the king said that he had pronounced his own sentence, and the captain was imprisoned and then quartered. But the king’s daughter was married to the huntsman. Afterward he brought his father and mother there, and they lived happily with their son, who after the old king’s death got the kingdom.