The Spirit in the Bottle by Grimm Brothers

[2]

The Spirit in the Bottle



There was once a poor woodcutter who toiled from early morning till
late night. When at last he had laid by some money he said to his boy,
"You are my only child, I will spend the money which I have earned
with the sweat of my brow on your education; if you learn some honest
trade you can support me in my old age, when my limbs have grown stiff
and I am obliged to stay at home." Then the boy went to a High School
and learned diligently so that his masters praised him, and he
remained there a long time. When he had worked through two classes,
but was still not yet perfect in everything, the little pittance which
the father had earned was all spent, and the boy was obliged to return
home to him. "Ah," said the father, sorrowfully, "I can give you no
more, and in these hard times I cannot earn a farthing more than will
suffice for our daily bread." "Dear father," answered the son, "don't
trouble yourself about it, if it is God's will, it will turn to my
advantage I shall soon accustom myself to it." When the father wanted
to go into the forest to earn money by helping to pile and stack wood
ans also chop it, the son said, "I will go with you and help you."
"Nay, my son," said the father, "that would be hard for you; you are
not accustomed to rough work, and will not be able to bear it, besides
I have only one axe and no money left wherewith to buy another." "Just
go to the neighbour," answered the son, "he will lend you his axe
until I have earned one for myself." The father then borrowed an axe
of the neighbour, and next morning at break of day they went out into
the forest together. The son helped his father and was quite merry and
brisk about it. But when the sun was right over their heads, the
father said, "We will rest, and have our dinner, and then we shall
work as well again." The son took his bread in his hands, and said,
"Just you rest, father, I am not tired; I will walk up and down a
little in the forest, and look for birds' nests." "Oh, you fool," said
the father, "why should you want to run about there? Afterwards you
will be tired, and no longer able to raise your arm; stay here, and
sit down beside me." The son, however, went into the forest, ate his
bread, was very merry and peered in among the green branches to see if
he could discover a bird's nest anywhere. So he went up and down to
see if he could find a bird's nest until at last he came to a great
dangerous-looking oak, which certainly was already many hundred years
old, and which five men could not have spanned. He stood still and
looked at it, and thought, "Many a bird must have built its nest in
that." Then all at once it seemed to him that he heard a voice. He
listened and became aware that someone was crying in a very smothered
voice, "Let me out, let me out!" He looked around, but could discover
nothing; nevertheless, he fancied that the voice came out of the
ground. Then he cried, "Where art thou?" The voice answered, "I am
down here amongst the roots of the oak-tree. Let me out! Let me out!"
The scholar began to loosen the earth under the tree, and search among
the roots, until at last he found a glass bottle in a little hollow.
He lifted it up and held it against the light, and then saw a creature
shaped like a frog, springing up and down in it. "Let me out! Let me
out!" it cried anew, and the scholar thinking no evil, drew the cork
out of the bottle. Immediately a spirit ascended from it, and began to
grow, and grew so fast that in a very few moments he stood before the
scholar, a terrible fellow as big as half the tree by which he was
standing. "Knowest thou," he cried in an awful voice, "what thy wages
are for having let me out?" "No," replied the scholar fearlessly, "how
should I know that?" "Then I will tell thee," cried the spirit; "I
must strangle thee for it." "Thou shouldst have told me that sooner,"
said the scholar, "for I should then have left thee shut up, but my
head shall stand fast for all thou canst do; more persons than one
must be consulted about that." "More persons here, more persons
there," said the spirit. "Thou shalt have the wages thou hast earned.
Dost thou think that I was shut up there for such a long time as a
favour. No, it was a punishment for me. I am the mighty Mercurius.
Whoso releases me, him must I strangle." "Softly," answered the
scholar, "not so fast. I must first know that thou really wert shut up
in that little bottle, and that thou art the right spirit. If, indeed,
thou canst get in again, I will believe and then thou mayst do as thou
wilt with me." The spirit said haughtily, "that is a very trifling
feat," drew himself together, and made himself as small and slender as
he had been at first, so that he crept through the same opening, and
right through the neck of the bottle in again. Scarcely was he within
than the scholar thrust the cork he had drawn back into the bottle,
and threw it among the roots of the oak into its old place, and the
spirit was betrayed.
And now the scolar was about to return to his father, but the spirit
cried very piteously, "Ah, do let me out! ah, do let me out!" "No,"
answered the scholar, "not a second time! He who has once tried to
take my life shall not be set free by me, now that I have caught him
again." "If thou wilt set me free," said the spirit, "I will give thee
so much that thou wilt have plenty all the days of thy life." "No,"
answered the boy, "thou wouldst cheat me as thou didst the first
time." "Thou art playing away with thy own good luck," said the
spirit; "I will do thee no harm but will reward thee richly." The
scholar thought, "I will venture it, perhaps he will keep his word,
and anyhow he shall not get the better of me." Then he took out the
cork, and the spirit rose up from the bottle as he had done before,
stretched himself out and became as big as a giant. "Now thou shalt
have thy reward," said he, and handed the scholar a little bag just
like a plaster, and said, "If thou spreadest one end of this over a
wound it will heal, and if thou rubbest steel or iron with the other
end it will be changed into silver." "I must just try that," said the
scholar, and went to a tree, tore off the bark with his axe, and
rubbed it with one end of the plaster. It immediately closed together
and was healed. "Now, it is all right," he said to the spirit, "and we
can part." The spirit thanked him for his release, and the boy thanked
the spirit for his present, and went back to his father.

"Where hast thou been racing about?" said the father; "why hast thou
forgotten thy work? I said at once that thou wouldst never get on with
anything." "Be easy, father, I will make it up." "Make it up indeed,"
said the father angrily, "there's no art in that." "Take care, father,
I will soon hew that tree there, so that it will split." Then he took
his plaster, rubbed the axe with it, and dealt a mighty blow, but as
the iron had changed into silver, the edge turned; "Hollo, father,
just look what a bad axe you've given me, it has become quite
crooked." The father was shocked and said, "Ah, what hast thou done?
now I shall have to pay for that, and have not the wherewithal, and
that is all the good I have got by thy work." "Don't get angry," said
the son, "I will soon pay for the axe." "Oh, thou blockhead," cried
the father, "wherewith wilt thou pay for it? Thou hast nothing but
what I give thee. These are students' tricks that are sticking in thy
head, but thou hast no idea of wood-cutting." After a while the
scholar said, "Father, I can really work no more, we had better take a
holiday." "Eh, what!" answered he, "Dost thou think I will sit with my
hands lying in my lap like thee? I must go on working, but thou mayst
take thyself off home." "Father, I am here in this wood for the first
time, I don't know my way alone. Do go with me." As his anger had now
abated, the father at last let himself be persuaded and went home with
him. Then he said to the son, "Go and sell thy damaged axe, and see
what thou canst get for it, and I must earn the difference, in order
to pay the neighbour." The son took the axe, and carried it into town
to a goldsmith, who tested it, laid it in the scales, and said, "It is
worth four hundred thalers, I have not so much as that by me." The son
said, "Give me what thou hast, I will lend you the rest." The
goldsmith gave him three hundred thalers, and remained a hundred in
his debt. The son thereupon went home and said, "Father, I have got
the money, go and ask the neighbour what he wants for the axe." "I
know that already," answered the old man, "one thaler, six groschen."
"Then give him him two thalers, twelve groschen, that is double and
enough; see, I have money in plenty," and he gave the father a hundred
thalers, and said, "You shall never know want, live as comfortably as
you like." "Good heavens!" said the father, "how hast thou come by
these riches?" The scholar then told how all had come to pass, and how
he, trusting in his luck, had made such a good hit. But with the money
that was left, he went back to the High School and went on learning
more, and as he could heal all wounds with his plaster, he became the
most famous doctor in the whole world.




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