Grimms' Fairy Tales

Back Forward Menu

into the world, she perceived her stepdaughter hurrying away with her
sweetheart Roland. 'That shall not help you,' cried she, 'even if you
have got a long way off, you shall still not escape me.' She put on her
many-league boots, in which she covered an hour's walk at every step,
and it was not long before she overtook them. The girl, however, when
she saw the old woman striding towards her, changed, with her magic
wand, her sweetheart Roland into a lake, and herself into a duck
swimming in the middle of it. The witch placed herself on the shore,
threw breadcrumbs in, and went to endless trouble to entice the duck;
but the duck did not let herself be enticed, and the old woman had to
go home at night as she had come. At this the girl and her sweetheart
Roland resumed their natural shapes again, and they walked on the whole
night until daybreak. Then the maiden changed herself into a beautiful
flower which stood in the midst of a briar hedge, and her sweetheart
Roland into a fiddler. It was not long before the witch came striding up
towards them, and said to the musician: 'Dear musician, may I pluck that
beautiful flower for myself?' 'Oh, yes,' he replied, 'I will play to