Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/263

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Tale 47.]
THE JUNIPER-TREE.
181

At last she met the bridegroom, who was coming slowly back. He, like the others, asked,

"O, Fitcher's bird, how com'st thou here?"
"I come from Fitcher's house quite near."
"And what may the young bride be doing?
"From cellar to garret she's swept all clean,
And now from the window she's peeping, I ween."

The bridegroom looked up, saw the decked-out skull, thought it was his bride, and nodded to her, greeting her kindly. But when he and his guests had all gone into the house, the brothers and kinsmen of the bride, who had been sent to rescue her, arrived. They locked all the doors of the house, that no one might escape, set fire to it, and the wizard and all his crew had to burn.



47.—THE JUNIPER-TREE.[1]


It is now long ago, quite two thousand years, since there was a rich man who had a beautiful and pious wife, and they loved each other dearly. They had, however, no children, though they wished for them very much, and the woman prayed for them day and night, but still they had none. Now there was a court-yard in front of their house in which was a juniper-tree, and one day in winter the woman was standing beneath it, paring herself an apple, and while she was paring herself the

  1. It is difficult to know how to translate Machandelbaum. It would seem natural to regard it as the popular pronunciation of Mandelbaum, Almond-tree, and thus render it; but in Pritzel and Tessen's "Deutschen Volksnamen der Pflanzen," Machandel-bom is given as "Common Juniper," and so it is in other dictionaries. The Brothers Grimm themselves say in their notes to this story, "Machandel, nicht etwa Mandel, sondern Wacholder und zwar bedeutend, weil es ein verjüngender Baum ist und wach so viel als queck, rege, vivas, lebendig, heisst; an andern Orten heisst es Queckholder, Reckholder, Juniperus (von junior, jünger), angelsächs. quicbeam." Quicbeam or cwicbeam is, however, not the Juniper, but the wild or mountain-ash, a tree much better known in folk-lore. Its berries also were said to have possessed rejuvenating power, and all who ate of them were glad of heart.—Tr.