Hey Folks,
I’ve got a gem for you today: a wonderful fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm.
It is selected from Philip Pullman’s delightful Grimm Tales.
If you don’t know who Philip Pullman is, he’s the master story teller who wrote The Golden Compass, the Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, three of my favourite fantasy novels of all time.
Those books are children’s books, and I haven’t read them since I was 13 or 14, but Philip Pullman also wrote a masterpiece of a novella called Clockwork, or All Wound Up.
It is, in my humble opinion, up there with Sleepy Hollow, Edgar Allan Poe, and Lovecraft in terms of truly great Gothic fiction.
If you like that kind of thing, check it out.
Thank me later!
Crow
Bearskin
Once there was a young fellow who enlisted as a soldier, fought bravely, and was always at the front when red-hot bullets were raining down. As long as the war lasted, everything went well, but when peace was signed, he was discharged. The captain said he could go wherever he liked. His parents were dead, and he no longer had a home, so he went to his brothers and asked if he could live with them until there was another war. But his brothers were hard-hearted and said, "What have your problems got to do with us? We don’t need you here. Clear off and shift for yourself."
All the soldier had left was his musket, so he put it on his shoulder and went out into the world. Soon he came to a great heath where there was nothing to be seen but a circle of trees. He sat under them thinking about his fate and feeling pretty sorry for himself.
"I’ve got no money and no prospects," he thought. "All I can do is make war, but if all they want is peace, I’m useless. I’ll probably starve to death."
Suddenly, he heard a rustling, and when he looked around to see what it was, he saw a strange man standing there. He wore a smart green jacket and looked perfectly respectable, except for the hideous great horse’s foot he had at the end of one leg.
"I know what you want," he said to the soldier, "and you can have all of it, as much gold and property as you like, but first you must show me how brave you are. I’m not going to give my money to someone who runs away at the first sign of danger."
"Well, I’m a soldier, and it’s my profession to be afraid of nothing. You can test me if you like."
"All right," said the man, "look behind you."
The soldier turned around and saw a huge bear running toward him, growling furiously.
"Oh ho," said the soldier, "I’ll tickle your snout for you, you ugly brute. See how you feel like growling after this."
He leveled his musket at the bear and fired a shot. It hit the bear in the muzzle, and it fell down at once.
"I can see you don’t lack courage," said the stranger, "but I haven’t finished yet. There’s one more condition."
"As long as it doesn’t spoil my chances of going to heaven," said the soldier, who knew quite well who the stranger was. "If that’s at risk, I’ll have nothing to do with it."
"Well, we’ll see about that," said the stranger. "Here’s what you’ve got to do: for the next seven years, you mustn’t wash yourself, comb your hair, cut your nails, or say the Lord’s Prayer. I’ll give you a jacket and a cloak to wear all that time. Now, if you die during those seven years, you’re mine, understand? If you stay alive, you’re free and rich for the rest of your life, don’t forget."
The soldier thought about it. He’d faced death so often on the battlefield that he was used to danger, but poverty was another matter. He decided to take up the Devil’s offer.
The Devil took off his green jacket and handed it to the soldier, saying, "If you put your hand in the pocket when you’ve got this jacket on, you’ll always find a handful of money."
Then the Devil skinned the bear and said, "You must use this bearskin as your cloak, and you must sleep in it too, and you mustn’t lie in any other bed. You must go by the name of Bearskin."
With those words, the Devil disappeared.
The soldier put the jacket on and reached into the pocket, finding that the Devil had told the truth. He put the bearskin on like a cloak and started his wanderings. He went wherever he liked, did whatever he pleased, and spent as much as he found in his pocket.
For the first year, he looked all right, but during the second, he began to look like a monster. His face was almost entirely covered with his long coarse beard, his hair was matted and tangled, his fingers ended in claws, and he was so dirty that if you sowed cress on his face, it would have sprouted. Everyone who saw him shuddered or ran away. However, he always gave money to the poor to pray that he’d stay alive for seven years, and because he always paid in full and at once for anything he wanted, he could always find shelter.
In his fourth year of wandering, he arrived at an inn. The landlord wouldn’t let him in and even refused him a place in the stable in case he frightened the horses. But when Bearskin put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a handful of cash, the landlord relented a little and let him stay in a lean-to in the yard, on the condition that he didn’t show his face to anyone.
One night, he was sitting alone in there, heartily wishing that his seven years were up when he heard someone sobbing with misery in a nearby room. Bearskin was a kind-hearted man, and wanting to help, he opened the door and saw an old man weeping bitterly and striking his fists together. As soon as the old man saw Bearskin, he struggled up and tried to run away, but upon hearing a human voice, he stopped and let the monster talk to him. Bearskin spoke kindly and got the old fellow to sit down again and tell him his troubles. It seemed that little by little, he’d lost what money he had, and now he and his daughters were on the brink of starvation. He couldn’t pay his bill to the landlord and was sure to be sent to prison.
"If money’s your only problem," said Bearskin, "I’ve got enough to help you."
He called for the landlord and paid the bill, and then he put a bag of gold into the old man’s pocket. When the old man saw that all his troubles were over, he didn’t know how to thank his strange helper.
"Come home with me," he said. "Come and meet my daughters. They are all wonderfully beautiful, and you must choose one of them to be your wife. When they hear what you’ve done for me, they won’t refuse you. You do look a bit, well, eccentric, but whichever one you choose will soon have you looking neat and tidy."
Bearskin liked the sound of the daughters, so he went home with the old man. However, when the eldest daughter saw him, she screamed and ran away. The second daughter looked him up and down and said, "You expect me to marry a thing like that? He doesn’t even look like a man. I’d sooner marry that bear who came here once, you remember; they’d shaved all his fur off and he was wearing a hussar’s uniform and white gloves. I could have got used to him!"
The youngest daughter, however, said, "Father dear, he must be a good man if he helped you like that. And if you promised him a bride, I’m ready to keep your word."
It was a shame that Bearskin’s face was covered in hair and dirt, because otherwise father and daughter would have seen how joyfully his heart leaped at those words. He took a ring from his finger, broke it in two, and gave her one half, keeping the other for himself. He wrote her name in his half, and his name in hers, and asked her to take good care of it.
"I’ve got to be off now," he said. "I’ve got three more years’ wandering to get through. If I don’t come back after then, you’re free, because I shall be dead. But I hope you’ll pray to God and ask him to keep me alive."
The poor bride dressed herself all in black, and when she thought about her future bridegroom, tears came to her eyes. From her sisters, all she had for the next three years was scorn and ridicule.
"Better be careful," said the elder sister. "If you give him your hand, he’ll crush it in his paw."
"Watch out," said the second sister, "bears like sweet things. If he takes a fancy to you, you’ll be down his gullet in a moment."
"And you better do as he tells you. I wouldn’t care to be you if he starts to growl."
"But the wedding will be fun. Bears always dance well."
The bride-to-be said nothing and didn’t let them upset her. As for Bearskin, he wandered all over the world, doing good wherever he could and giving generously to the poor so that they’d pray for him.
Finally, at dawn on the very last day of the seven years, he went once more to the heath and sat down under the circle of trees. Quite soon, the wind began to howl, and there was the Devil again, scowling at him.
"Here’s your jacket," he said, throwing Bearskin’s old jacket to him. "Now give me back my green one."
"Not so fast," said Bearskin. "First of all, you’re going to clean me up. I want four tubs of water, from very hot to lukewarm, and four kinds of soap, from that yellow stuff they scrub the floors with to the finest Parisian soap. As for shampoo, I want several kinds, from the sort they use on horses to the most delicate stuff scented with lavender. Then I want a gallon of eau de cologne."
And whether the Devil wanted to or not, he had to bring water, soap, and several kinds of cosmetic products and wash Bearskin from head to foot, cut his hair, comb it neatly, shave his beard, and trim his nails. After that, Bearskin looked like a dashing soldier once more; in fact, he looked more handsome than ever.
When the Devil had vanished, complaining bitterly, Bearskin felt joyful. He strode into the town, bought a splendid velvet jacket, hired a carriage drawn by four white horses, and drove to the house of his bride. Of course, no one recognized him. The father assumed he was a distinguished officer, a colonel at least, and led him into the dining room where his daughters were sitting.
He took a seat between the two eldest. They made a real fuss of him. They poured wine for him, chose the finest morsels to put on his plate, flirted and simpered, thinking they’d never seen a more handsome man. But the youngest daughter sat across the table from him, not raising her eyes, not saying a word.
Finally, Bearskin asked the father if he’d let him choose one of the daughters for a wife. At that, the two eldest daughters leaped up from the table and raced to their bedrooms to put on their finest dresses. Each one thought she was the one Bearskin wanted.
As soon as he was alone with his bride-to-be, the visitor brought out his half of the broken ring and dropped it into a glass of wine, which he handed to her across the table. She took the wine, drank it, and when she found the half-ring in the bottom of the glass, her heart beat faster. She took the other half, which she wore on a ribbon around her neck, and put them together. The two halves matched perfectly.
The stranger said, "I’m your bridegroom, whom you knew as Bearskin. By the grace of God, I’ve found my clean human form again."
He embraced her and kissed her warmly. And at that moment, the two sisters came in wearing all their finery, and when they saw Bearskin and their sister together and realized who he was and what had happened, they went mad with fury. They ran outside, and one of them drowned herself in the well, and the other hanged herself from a tree.
That evening, there was a knock at the door. Bearskin opened it, and there was the Devil in his green jacket.
"What do you want?" said Bearskin.
"I’ve just come to thank you. I’ve now got two souls to play with, instead of your one."