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Title: Grimm's Fairy Tales: Peter the Goatherd
Date of first publication: 1930
Author: Jacob Grimm (1785-1863)
Author: Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859)
Illustrator: Noel Pocock (1880-1955)
Date first posted: October 13 2012
Date last updated: October 13 2012
Faded Page eBook #20121025

This ebook was produced by: David Edwards, Donna M. Ritchey
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

(This file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)



Peter the Goatherd


In the wilds of the Hartz Forest there is a high mountain, where the
fairies and goblins dance by night, and where they say the great Emperor
Frederic Barbarossa still holds his court among the caverns. Now and
then he shows himself and punishes those whom he dislikes, or gives some
rich gift to the lucky wight whom he takes it into his head to befriend.
He sits on a throne of marble with his red beard sweeping on the ground,
and once or twice in a long course of years rouses himself for a while
from the trance in which he is buried, but soon falls again into his
former forgetfulness. Strange chances have befallen many who have
strayed within the range of his court--you shall hear one of them.

A great many years ago there lived in the village at the foot of the
mountain, one Peter, a goatherd. Every morning he drove his flock to
feed upon the green spots that are here and there found on the
mountain's side, and in the evening he sometimes thought it too far to
drive his charge home, so he used in such cases to shut it up in a spot
amongst the woods, where an old ruined wall was left standing, high
enough to form a fold, in which he could count his goats and rest in
peace for the night. One evening he found that the prettiest goat of his
flock had vanished soon after they were driven into this fold, but was
there again in the morning. Again and again he watched, and the same
strange thing happened. He thought he would look still more narrowly,
and soon found a cleft in the old wall, through which it seemed that his
favourite made her way. Peter followed, scrambling as well as he could
down the side of the rock, and wondered not a little, on overtaking his
goat, to find it employing itself very much at its ease in a cavern,
eating corn, which kept dropping from some place above. He went into the
cavern and looked about him to see where all this corn, that rattled
about his ears like a hail-storm, could come from: but all was dark, and
he could find no clue to this strange business. At last, as he stood
listening, he thought he heard the neighing and stamping of horses. He
listened again; it was plainly so; and after a while he was sure that
horses were feeding above him, and that the corn fell from their
mangers. What could these horses be, which were thus kept in a mountain
where none but the goat's foot ever trod? Peter pondered a while; but
his wonder only grew greater and greater, when on a sudden a little page
came forth and beckoned him to follow; he did so, and came at last to a
court-yard surrounded by an old wall. The spot seemed the bosom of the
valley; above rose on every hand high masses of rock; wide branching
trees threw their arms overhead, so that nothing but a glimmering
twilight made its way through; and here, on the cool smooth shaven turf,
were twelve old knights, who looked very grave and sober, but were
amusing themselves with a game of nine-pins.

Not a word fell from their lips; but they ordered Peter by dumb signs to
busy himself in setting up the pins, as they knocked them down. At first
his knees trembled, as he dared to snatch a stolen sidelong glance at
the long beards and old-fashioned dresses of the worthy knights. Little
by little, however, he grew bolder; and at last he plucked up his heart
so far as to take his turn in the draught at the can, which stood
beside him and sent up the smell of the richest old wine. This gave him
new strength for his work; and as often as he flagged at all, he turned
to the same kind friend for help in his need.

[Illustration: "Shaking his head, and hardly knowing whether he were in
his right mind, he wound his way among the mountain steeps."]

Sleep at last overpowered him; and when he awoke he found himself
stretched out upon the old spot where he had folded his flock. The same
green turf was spread beneath, and the same tottering walls surrounded
him: he rubbed his eyes, but neither dog nor goat was to be seen, and
when he had looked about him again the grass seemed to be longer under
his feet, and trees hung over his head which he had either never seen
before or had forgotten. Shaking his head, and hardly knowing whether he
were in his right mind, he wound his way among the mountain steeps,
through paths where his flocks were wont to wander; but still not a goat
was to be seen. Below him in the plain lay the village where his home
was, and at length he took the downward path, and set out with a heavy
heart in search of his flock. The people who met him as he drew near to
the village were all unknown to him; they were not even drest as his
neighbours were, and they seemed as if they hardly spoke the same
tongue; and when he eagerly asked after his goats, they only stared at
him and stroked their chins. At last he did the same too, and what was
his wonder to find that his beard was grown at least a foot long! The
world, thought he now to himself, is turned over, or at any rate
bewitched; and yet he knew the mountain (as he turned round to gaze upon
its woody heights); and he knew the houses and cottages also, with their
little gardens, all of which were in the same places as he had always
known them; he heard some children, too, call the village by its old
name, as a traveller that passed by was asking his way.

Again he shook his head and went straight through the village to his
own cottage. Alas! it looked sadly out of repair; and in the court-yard
lay an unknown child, in a ragged dress, by the side of a rough,
toothless dog, whom he thought he ought to know, but who snarled and
barked in his face when he called him to him. He went in at an opening
in the wall where a door had once stood, but found all so dreary and
empty that he staggered out again like a drunken man, and called his
wife and children loudly by their names; but no one heard, at least no
one answered him.

A crowd of women and children soon flocked around the long gray-bearded
man, and all broke upon him at once with the questions, "Who are you?"
"Whom do you want?" It seemed to him so odd to ask other people at his
own door after his wife and children, that in order to get rid of the
crowd he named the first man that came into his head--"Hans, the
blacksmith!" said he. Most held their tongues and stared, but at last an
old woman said, "He went these seven years ago to a place that you will
not reach to-day." "Frank the tailor, then!" "Heaven rest his soul!"
said an old beldame upon crutches; "he has laid these ten years in a
house that he'll never leave."

Peter looked at the old woman, and shuddered as he saw her to be one of
his old friends, only with a strangely altered face. All wish to ask
further questions was gone; but at last a young woman made her way
through the gaping throng with a baby in her arms, and a little girl
about three years old clinging to her other hand; all three looked the
very image of his wife. "What is thy name?" asked he wildly. "Mary."
"And your father's?" "Heaven bless him! Peter! It is now twenty years
since we sought him day and night on the mountain; his flock came back,
but he never was heard of any more. I was then seven years old." The
goatherd could hold no longer. "I am Peter," cried he; "I am Peter, and
no other;" as he took the child from his daughter's arms and kissed it.
All stood gaping, and not knowing what to say or think, till at length
one voice was heard, "Why, it is Peter!" and then several others cried,
"Yes, it is, it is Peter! Welcome neighbour, welcome home, after twenty
long years!"


[The end of _Grimm's Fairy Tales: Peter the Goatherd_
by the Brothers Grimm]