The Lambkin and the Little Fish
There were once a little brother and a little
sister, who loved each other with all their hearts. Their own mother, however, was dead,
and they had a step-mother who was not kind to them, and secretly did everything she could
to hurt them. It so happened that the two were playing with other children in a meadow
before the house, and there was a pond in the meadow which came up to one side of the
house. The children ran about it, and caught each other, and played at counting out. Eneke
beneke, let me live, and I to you my bird will give. The little bird, it straw shall seek,
the straw I'll give to the cow to eat. The pretty cow shall give me milk, the milk I'll to
the baker take. The baker he shall bake a cake, the cake I'll give unto the cat. The cat
shall catch some mice for that, the mice I'll hang up in the smoke, and then you'll see
the snow. They stood in a circle while they played this, and the one to whom the word snow
fell, had to run away and all the others ran after him and caught him. As they were
running about so merrily the step-mother watched them from the window, and grew angry. And
as she understood arts of witchcraft she bewitched them both, and changed the little
brother into a fish, and the little sister into a lamb. Then the fish swam here and there
about the pond and was very sad, and the lambkin walked up and down the meadow, and was
miserable, and could not eat or touch one blade of grass. Thus passed a long time, and
then strangers came as visitors to the castle. The false step-mother thought, this is a
good opportunity, and called the cook and said to him, go and fetch the lamb from the
meadow and kill it, we have nothing else for the visitors. Then the cook went away and got
the lamb, and took it into the kitchen and tied its feet, and all this it bore patiently.
When he had drawn out his knife and was whetting it on the door-step to kill the lamb, he
noticed a little fish swimming backwards and forwards in the water, in front of the
gutter-stone and looking up at him. This, however, was the brother, for when the fish saw
the cook take the lamb away, it followed them and swam along the pond to the house, then
the lamb cried down to it, ah, brother, in the pond so deep, how sad is my poor heart. The
cook he whets his knife to take away my life. The little fish answered, ah, little sister,
up on high how sad is my poor heart while in this pond I lie. When the cook heard that the
lambkin could speak and said such sad words to the fish down below, he was terrified and
thought this could be no common lamb, but must be bewitched by the wicked woman in the
house. Then said he, be easy, I will not kill you, and took another sheep and made it
ready for the guests, and conveyed the lambkin to a good peasant woman, to whom he related
all that he had seen and heard. The peasant, however, was the very woman who had been
foster-mother to the little sister, and she suspected at once who the lamb was, and went
with it to a wise woman. Then the wise woman pronounced a blessing over the lambkin and
the little fish, by means of which they regained their human forms, and after this she
took them both into a little hut in a great forest, where they lived alone, but were
contented and happy.
--The End-- |
