Page:Grimm Goblins (1876).djvu/139

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE TURNIP.
93

knows him well, and all the world knows him; but because I am poor, everybody forgets me."

The king then took pity on him, and said, "You shall be poor no longer, I will give you so much that you shall be even richer than your brother." Than he gave him gold and lands and flocks, and made him so rich that his brother's fortune could not at all be compared with his.

When the brother heard of all this, and how a turnip had made the gardener so rich, he envied him sorely, and bethought himself how he could contrive to get the same good fortune for himself. However, he determined to manage more cleverly than his brother, and got together a rich present of gold and fine horses for the king; and thought he must have a much larger gift in return; for if his brother had received so much for only a turnip, what must his present be worth?

The king took the gift very graciously, and said he knew not what to give in return more valuable and wonderful than the great turnip; so the soldier was forced to put it into a cart, and drag it home with him. When he reached home, he knew not upon whom to vent his rage and spite; and at length wicked thoughts came into his head and he resolved to kill his brother.

So he hired some villians to murder him; and having shown them where to lie in ambush, he went to his brother and said, "Dear brother, I have found a hidden treasure; let us go and dig it up, and share it between us." The other had no suspicion of his roguery: so they went out together, and as they were travelling along, the murderers rushed out upon him, bound him, and were going to hang him on a tree.

But whilst they were getting all ready, they heard the trampling of a horse at a distance, which so frightened them that they pushed