Er wär auch wohl darinnen blieben,
niemand hat in heraus getrieben;
fiel in mein Garn, drin hangen blieb,
nicht raus kunt komn, war mir nicht lieb,
dass auch der Schebhut ohngefehr
neun Tag ehe rabher kam dann er."
In an Austrian popular book, we have Hansel, who is as tall as a thumb, with a beard of an ell in length (Linz, 1815). Modern as this version is, there are still some genuine features in it. He hides himself with his father and mother in the hollow tooth of a whale (see later the Servian story of The Bear's Son), and is found there. He terrifies a gambler, who is exclaiming, "May the Devil take me," by hopping out of the chimney on to the seat by the fire all covered with soot, and crying, "Here am I." He sets a plate of peas at night before the door of the innkeeper's daughter's lover, which make him fall with a great noise. When she wants to revenge herself for it, and strews the thorns of some briars about her room for him to walk on, he sees them, picks them up, and puts them in her bed. He has himself placed in a horse's ear, and gives out that it is a horse that speaks; then he escapes by springing into a cheese full of holes, and is thrown out of the window with it.
46.—Fitcher's Bird.
From two stories current in Hesse. A third from Hanover varies. A poor wood-cutter who has three daughters goes to his work in the forest, and orders the eldest to bring him his dinner, and in order that she may find the way he will (as in the story of The Robber Bridegroom, No. 40, which is as a whole allied) strew it with peas. Three dwarfs however live in the forest, and they hear what the man says to his child, and pick up the peas and strew them on the path which leads to their cave. And now at dinner-time, the girl goes to the forest, finds the path and falls among the dwarfs. She has to be their servant, but in other respects fares well. She is permitted to go into every apartment in the cave but one. And now the story agrees with ours, and the two other sisters are also lured out. When the dwarfs are forced to carry these latter home again in the basket, and she is alone, she plunges into the blood and then into the feathers, and sets a bundle of straw dressed in her clothes by the hearth. As she leaves the cave some foxes meet her who ask, "Dressed-out bird, from whence comest thou?" "From the dwarfs' cave where they are making ready for a wedding." Thereupon the foxes go thither. Some bears meet her who put the same question, and at length the dwarfs also meet her on their way home, and do not recognize her. She gives them all the same answer. When the dwarfs
