Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version Read Online Free PDF

fable
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Several of the variants employ a scatological earthiness: the real culprit smears butter under the sleeping partner’s tail to demonstrate the partner’s guilt. I borrowed the idea of the reflection in the bottom of the pot from the Uncle Remus tale, which, like this version, ends in a shrug about the world’s injustice: ‘Tribbalashun seem like she’s a waitin’ roun’ de cornder fer ter ketch one en all un us’ (
The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus
, p. 53).

THREE
    THE BOY WHO LEFT HOME TO FIND OUT ABOUT THE SHIVERS
    Once there was a father who had two sons. The elder one was quick-witted and bright and able to deal with anything, but the younger one was so dim that he understood nothing and learned nothing. Everybody who knew them said, ‘His father’s going to have trouble with that boy.’
    If there was any job that needed doing, it was always the elder son who had to do it. But there was one thing the elder son wouldn’t do: if his father asked him to get something as night was falling, or when it was completely dark, and if his way took him through the graveyard or some creepy place like that, he’d say, ‘Oh, no, father, I won’t go there, it gives me the shivers.’
    Or in the evening when people were sitting around the fire telling stories of ghosts or hauntings, the listeners would sometimes say, ‘Oh, that gives me the shivers.’
    The younger son used to sit in the corner and listen, but he didn’t understand what the shivers were. ‘Everyone says: “It gives me the shivers, it gives me the shivers!” I don’t know what they’re talking about. I haven’t got any shivers, and I was listening just as hard as they were.’
    One day his father said to him: ‘Listen, boy, you’re getting big and strong. You’re growing up, and it’s time you began to earn a living. Look at your brother! He’s learned to work hard, but you’ve learned nothing, as far as I can see.’
    ‘Oh, yes, father,’ he said. ‘I’d like to earn a living, I really would. I’d love to learn how to get the shivers. That’s something I don’t understand at all.’
    His elder brother heard him, and laughed. ‘What a blockhead!’ he thought. ‘He’ll never come to any good. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’
    The father could only sigh. ‘Well, it won’t do you any harm to find out about the shivers,’ he said, ‘but you won’t get a living by shivering.’
    A few days later the sexton dropped in for a chat. The father couldn’t help it: he poured out all his worries about the younger son, what a fool he was, how he couldn’t learn anything, how he understood nothing at all.
    ‘Take this, for example,’ he said. ‘When I asked him what he wanted to do for a living, he said he wanted to learn how to get the shivers.’
    ‘If that’s what he wants,’ said the sexton, ‘you send him along to me. I’ll give him the shivers all right. It’s time he was licked into shape.’
    ‘That’s a good idea,’ said the father, thinking, ‘Maybe it’ll come better from someone else. It’ll do the boy good, anyway.’
    So the sexton took the boy back to his house, and gave him the job of ringing the church bell. Once he’d got the hang of that, the sexton woke him up at midnight one night and told him to go up the church tower and ring the bell.
    ‘Now you’ll learn what the shivers are,’ he thought, and while the boy was pulling on his clothes, the sexton crept up the tower ahead of him.
    The boy reached the belfry, and when he turned around to get hold of the rope, he saw a white figure standing there at the top of the stairs just opposite the sound hole.
    ‘Who’s that?’ he said.
    The figure didn’t speak or move.
    ‘You’d better answer me,’ shouted the boy. ‘You’ve got no business here in the middle of the night.’
    The sexton kept quite still. He was sure the boy would think he was a ghost.
    The boy shouted again: ‘I warn you. Answer me, or I’ll throw you