The Blue Fairy Book
anything to be done, the eldest had always to do it; but if something
was required later or in the night-time, and the way led through the
churchyard or some such ghostly place, he always replied: “Oh! no,
father: nothing will induce me to go there, it makes me shudder!” for
he was afraid. Or, when they sat of an evening around the fire telling
stories which made one’s flesh creep, the listeners sometimes said:
“Oh! it makes one shudder,” the youngest sat in a corner, heard the
exclamation, and could not understand what it meant. “They are always
saying it makes one shudder! it makes one shudder! Nothing makes me
shudder. It’s probably an art quite beyond me.”
Now it happened that his father said to him one day: “Hearken, you there
in the corner; you are growing big and strong, and you must learn to
earn your own bread. Look at your brother, what pains he takes; but
all the money I’ve spent on your education is thrown away.” “My dear
father,” he replied, “I will gladly learn--in fact, if it were possible
I should like to learn to shudder; I don’t understand that a bit yet.”
The eldest laughed when he heard this, and thought to himself: “Good
heavens! what a ninny my brother is! he’ll never come to any good;
as the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined.” The father sighed, and
answered him: “You’ll soon learn to shudder; but that won’t help you to
make a living.”
Shortly after this, when the sexton came to pay them a visit, the father
broke out to him, and told him what a bad hand his youngest son was at
everything: he knew nothing and learned nothing. “Only think! when I
asked him how he purposed gaining a livelihood, he actually asked to be
taught to shudder.” “If that’s all he wants,” said the sexton, “I can
teach him that; just you send him to me, I’ll soon polish him up.” The
father was quite pleased with the proposal, because he thought: “It will
be a good discipline for the youth.” And so the sexton took him into his
house, and his duty was to toll the bell. After a few days he woke him
at midnight, and bade him rise and climb into the tower and toll.
“Now, my friend, I’ll teach you to shudder,” thought he. He stole forth
secretly in front, and when the youth was up above, and had turned
round to grasp the bell-rope, he saw, standing opposite the hole of the
belfry, a white figure. “Who’s there?” he called out, but the figure
gave no answer, and neither stirred nor moved. “Answer,” cried the
youth, “or begone; you have no business here at this hour of the night.”
But the sexton remained motionless, so that the youth might think that
it was a ghost. The youth called out the second time: “What do you want
here? Speak if you are an honest fellow, or I’ll knock you down the
stairs.” The sexton thought: “He can’t mean that in earnest,” so gave
forth no sound, and stood as though he were made of stone. Then the
youth shouted out to him the third time, and as that too had no effect,
he made a dash at the spectre and knocked it down the stairs, so that it
fell about ten steps and remained lying in a corner. Thereupon he tolled
the bell, went home to bed without saying a word, and fell asleep. The
sexton’s wife waited a long time for her husband, but he never appeared.
At last she became anxious, and woke the youth, and asked: “Don’t you
know where my husband is? He went up to the tower in front of you.”
“No,” answered the youth; “but someone stood on the stairs up there just
opposite the trap-door in the belfry, and because he wouldn’t answer me,
or go away, I took him for a rogue and knocked him down. You’d better go
and see if it was he; I should be much distressed if it were.” The wife
ran and found her husband who was lying groaning in a corner, with his
leg broken.
She carried him down, and then hurried with loud protestations to the
youth’s father. “Your son has been the cause of a pretty misfortune,”
she cried; “he threw my husband downstairs so that he broke his leg.
Take the good-for-nothing wretch out of our house.” The father was
horrified, hurried to the youth, and gave him a scolding.
“What unholy pranks are these? The evil one must have put them into your
head.” “Father,” he replied, “only listen to me; I am quite guiltless.
He stood there in the night, like one who meant harm. I didn’t know who
it was, and warned him three times to speak or begone.” “Oh!” groaned
the father, “you’ll bring me nothing but misfortune; get out of my
sight, I won’t have anything more to do with you.” “Yes, father,
willingly; only wait till daylight, then I’ll set out and learn to
shudder, and in that way I shall be master of an art which will gain me
a living.” “Learn what you will,” said the father, “it’s all one to me.
Here are fifty dollars for you, set forth into the wide world with them;
but see you tell no one where you come from or who your father is, for
I am ashamed of you.” “Yes, father, whatever you wish; and if that’s all
you ask, I can easily keep it in mind.”
When day broke the youth put the fifty dollars into his pocket, set out
on the hard high road, and kept muttering to himself: “If I could only
shudder! if I could only shudder!” Just at this moment a man came by who
heard the youth speaking to himself, and when they had gone on a bit and
were in sight of the gallows the man said to him: “Look! there is the
tree where seven people have been hanged, and are now learning to fly;
sit down under it and wait till nightfall, and then you’ll pretty soon
learn to shudder.” “If that’s all I have to do,” answered the youth,
“it’s easily done; but if I learn to shudder so quickly, then you shall
have my fifty dollars. Just come back to me to-morrow morning early.”
Then the youth went to the gallows-tree and sat down underneath it, and
waited for the evening; and because he felt cold he lit himself a fire.
But at midnight it got so chill that in spite of the fire he couldn’t
keep warm. And as the wind blew the corpses one against the other,
tossing them to and fro, he thought to himself: “If you are perishing
down here by the fire, how those poor things up there must be shaking
and shivering!” And because he had a tender heart, he put up a ladder,
which he climbed unhooked one body after the other, and took down all
the seven. Then he stirred the fire, blew it up, and placed them all
round in a circle, that they might warm themselves. But they sat there
and did not move, and the fire caught their clothes. Then he spoke:
“Take care, or I’ll hang you up again.” But the dead men did not hear
and let their rags go on burning. Then he got angry, and said: “If you
aren’t careful yourselves, then I can’t help you, and I don’t mean to
burn with you”; and he hung them up again in a row. Then he sat down at
his fire and fell asleep. On the following morning the man came to him,
and, wishing to get his fifty dollars, said: “Now you know what it is to
shudder.” “No,” he answered, “how should I? Those fellows up there never
opened their mouths, and were so stupid that they let those few old
tatters they have on their bodies burn.” Then the man saw he wouldn’t
get his fifty dollars that day, and went off, saying: “Well, I’m blessed
if I ever met such a person in my life before.”
The youth went too on his way, and began to murmur to himself: “Oh! if I
could only shudder! if I could only shudder!” A carrier who was walking
behind him heard these words, and asked him: “Who are you” “I don’t
know,” said the youth. “Where do you hail from?” “I don’t know.” “Who’s
your father?” “I mayn’t say.” “What are you constantly muttering to
yourself?” “Oh!” said the youth, “I would give worlds to shudder, but no
one can teach me.” “Stuff and nonsense!” spoke the carrier; “come along
with me, and I’ll soon put that right.” The youth went with the carrier,
and in the evening they reached an inn, where they were to spend the
night. Then, just as he was entering the room, he said again, quite
aloud: “Oh! if I could only shudder! if I could only shudder!” The
landlord, who heard this, laughed and said: “If that’s what you’re
sighing for, you shall be given every opportunity here.” “Oh! hold your
tongue!” said the landlord’s wife; “so many people have paid for their
curiosity with their lives, it were a thousand pities if those beautiful
eyes were never again to behold daylight.” But the youth said: “No
matter how difficult, I insist on learning it; why, that’s what I’ve set
out to do.” He left the landlord no peace till he told him that in the
neighborhood stood a haunted castle, where one could easily learn to
shudder if one only kept watch in it for three nights. The King had
promised the man who dared to do this thing his daughter as wife, and
she was the most beautiful maiden under the sun. There was also much
treasure hid in the castle, guarded by evil spirits, which would then
be free, and was sufficient to make a poor man more than rich. Many had
already gone in, but so far none had ever come out again. So the youth
went to the King and spoke: “If I were allowed, I should much like
to watch for three nights in the castle.” The King looked at him, and
because he pleased him, he said: “You can ask for three things, none of
them living, and those you may take with you into the castle.” Then he
answered: “Well, I shall beg for a fire, a turning lathe, and a carving
bench with the knife attached.”
On the following day the King had everything put into the castle; and
when night drew on the youth took up his position there, lit a bright
fire in one of the rooms, placed the carving bench with the knife close
to it, and sat himself down on the turning lathe. “Oh! if I could only
shudder!” he said: “but I sha’n’t learn it here either.” Toward midnight
he wanted to make up the fire, and as he was blowing up a blaze he heard
a shriek from a corner. “Ou, miou! how cold we are!” “You fools!” he
cried; “why do you scream? If you are cold, come and sit at the fire and
warm yourselves.” And as he spoke two huge black cats sprang fiercely
forward and sat down, one on each side of him, and gazed wildly at him
with their fiery eyes. After a time, when they had warmed themselves,
they said: “Friend, shall we play a little game of cards?” “Why not?” he
replied; “but first let me see your paws.” Then they stretched out their
claws. “Ha!” said he; “what long nails you’ve got! Wait a minute: I must
first cut them off.” Thereupon he seized them by the scruff of their
necks, lifted them on to the carving bench, and screwed down their paws
firmly. “After watching you narrowly,” said he, “I no longer feel any
desire to play cards with you”; and with these words he struck them dead
and threw them out into the water. But when he had thus sent the two of
them to their final rest, and was again about to sit down at the fire,
out of every nook and corner came forth black cats and black dogs with
fiery chains in such swarms that he couldn’t possibly get away from
them. They yelled in the most ghastly manner, jumped upon his fire,
scattered it all, and tried to put it out. He looked on quietly for
a time, but when it got beyond a joke he seized his carving-knife and
called out: “Be off, you rabble rout!” and let fly at them. Some of them
fled away, and the others he struck dead and threw them out into the
pond below. When he returned he blew up the sparks of the fire once
more, and warmed himself. And as he sat thus his eyes refused to keep
open any longer, and a desire to sleep stole over him. Then he looked
around him and beheld in the corner a large bed. “The very thing,” he
said, and laid himself down in it. But when he wished to close his
eyes the bed began to move by itself, and ran all round the castle.
“Capital,” he said, “only a little quicker.” Then the bed sped on as if
drawn by six horses, over thresholds and stairs, up this way and down