“The Glass Coffin”
A tailors apprentice became lost in a
forest. He climbed a tree to spend the night to be away from any beasts. In the
night, he saw a glimmer of light and went towards it. He found a small hut
where an old man lived. At first, the old man tried to send him on his way, but
the tailor pleaded to let him stay the night and the old man relented.
The next morning the tailor was woken by a
loud noise. He ran outside to see a great bull and stag fighting each other.
The stag eventually won, then gathered the tailor up in his horns and carried
him off.
The stag carried the tailor to a rock wall
and let the tailor down. The stag pushed his horns into the rock, and a door
opened with a blast of fire and smoke. The tailor didn’t know if he should run,
but a voice came out of the rock bidding him to enter.
Inside was a great hall, and the voice
told him to step on the stone in the center for a great fortune. The tailor did
as he was asked and he sank down into the mountain. There he found another hall
with two glass chests. In one he saw a miniature castle and farmland. In the
other he saw a beautiful maiden.
She looked asleep, but then she opened her
eyes and begged the tailor to open her glass coffin. The tailor did as she
asked, and she came out and told him her story.
Her parents had died, and she was raised
by an elder brother. They loved each other so much, they promised to never
marry and stay together. One night a stranger came to their door and begged a
place to sleep. He told such stories the brother begged him to stay a little
longer.
That night, music woke the girl. She
wanted to call out to her maid, but could not speak. She saw the stranger – a
magician – enter through her locked doors. He offered her his hand, but she
refused. The stranger then said he would punish her.
The next morning, she learned that the
stranger had ridden off with her brother. She went after them, and found the
stranger leading a stag. She realized what had happened to her brother, and
tried to shoot the stranger but the bullet bounced off of him. He then made her
go to sleep.
She awoke in the glass coffin. The
magician told her he had shrunk her castle and lands and turn all her people
into smoke in jars. He would return everything if she agreed to marry him, but
she again refused. She fell asleep again until she woke to the tailor.
The two carried the castle outside where
it returned to normal, and they freed all the people turned to smoke. He
brother also returned to human form because he had killed the magician as a
bull. And the girl and the tailor were married.
#
I guess this tale makes about as much
sense as the rest of them.
Was there some significance to him being a
tailor?
Was the brother/stag just going to pick
the first man he found to free/wed his sister?
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