Some days after, the miller came to him and told him that the old ass
was dead; ‘The other two,’ said he, ‘are alive and eat, but are so
sorrowful that they cannot last long.’ Then the huntsman pitied them,
and told the miller to drive them back to him, and when they came, he
gave them some of the good salad to eat. And the beautiful young lady
fell upon her knees before him, and said, ‘O dearest huntsman! forgive
me all the ill I have done you; my mother forced me to it, it was
against my will, for I always loved you very much. Your wishing-cloak
hangs up in the closet, and as for the bird’s heart, I will give it you
too.’ But he said, ‘Keep it, it will be just the same thing, for I mean
to make you my wife.’ So they were married, and lived together very
happily till they died.
THE STORY OF THE YOUTH WHO WENT FORTH TO LEARN WHAT FEAR WAS
A certain father had two sons, the elder of who was smart and sensible,
and could do everything, but the younger was stupid and could neither
learn nor understand anything, and when people saw him they said:
‘There’s a fellow who will give his father some trouble!’ When anything
had to be done, it was always the elder who was forced to do it; but
if his father bade him fetch anything when it was late, or in the
night-time, and the way led through the churchyard, or any other dismal
place, he answered: ‘Oh, no father, I’ll not go there, it makes me
shudder!’ for he was afraid. Or when stories were told by the fire at
night which made the flesh creep, the listeners sometimes said: ‘Oh,
it makes us shudder!’ The younger sat in a corner and listened with
the rest of them, and could not imagine what they could mean. ‘They are
always saying: “It makes me shudder, it makes me shudder!” It does not
make me shudder,’ thought he. ‘That, too, must be an art of which I
understand nothing!’
Now it came to pass that his father said to him one day: ‘Hearken to me,
you fellow in the corner there, you are growing tall and strong, and you
too must learn something by which you can earn your bread. Look how your
brother works, but you do not even earn your salt.’ ‘Well, father,’ he
replied, ‘I am quite willing to learn something--indeed, if it could but
be managed, I should like to learn how to shudder. I don’t understand
that at all yet.’ The elder brother smiled when he heard that, and
thought to himself: ‘Goodness, what a blockhead that brother of mine is!
He will never be good for anything as long as he lives! He who wants to
be a sickle must bend himself betimes.’
The father sighed, and answered him: ‘You shall soon learn what it is to
shudder, but you will not earn your bread by that.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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