“The Hut in the Forest”
A woodcutter lived by a forest with his
wife and three daughters. One day, he
wanted his dinner brought by his eldest daughter. So she could find him, he would take a bag of
millet and sow it behind him. At noon
the daughter set out with some soup, but the birds had cleaned up the
millet. So she kept going until the sun
set.
She was alone in the dark when she saw a
faint light. Hoping it was someone who
could take her in for the night, she went to it. She knocked at the door and a voice told her
to come in. She went in and found an old
man with a beard almost to the ground sitting at a table. By the stove were a hen, a cock, and a
cow. She told him her story and begged
to stay the night, and he asked the animals what to do. They said, “Duks,” which meant they were okay
with it.
The man said she could stay the night, but
she should cook their supper. So she
made a good supper, but only for the old man and herself. After eating, she asked where she could
sleep. The man told her to go upstairs
to a room with two beds and to make them both up, and that he would come up to
sleep. She went up, made up the beds,
then laid down and fell asleep. The old
man came up, and shook his head when he saw her asleep. But he opened a trap door and took her down
to the cellar.
The woodcutter came home and was angry
with his wife for not sending the eldest daughter, but the wife said she went
out and must have gotten lost. So he
said to send the middle daughter the next day, but he’d use lentils, which are
bigger than millet. But the birds picked
them up, and daughter kept walking, and she found the same house and the same
thing happened.
The third day the woodcutter asked his
youngest to bring him his dinner. He’d
throw peas, which were bigger than lentils.
But again the birds ate them. She
got lost and found the house. But
instead of eating her dinner with the man, she got some barley for the chickens
and some hay for the cow, along with water.
After eating, the girl went up and made up
the beds, but she waited until the man came up before laying down.
At midnight, there was a great noise of
cracks and windows and doors throwing themselves open. The girl was unhurt, and eventually fell
asleep again. She awoke in the morning
in a royal hall. Three attendants came
in and asked what order she would give.
She was going to make soup for the old man, and looked over at his
bed. But the old man was a prince bewitched
to live in the forest as an old man with only his three attendants with
him. The spell would only be broken when
a young woman with love for everything came to them.
The prince sent his attendants to get her
parents for the marriage. She asked about
her sisters, and he said they’d be sent as servants to charcoal-burners until
they learned to be kinder to animals.
#
Instead of saying, “Go east and follow the
sounds of an ax hitting a tree,” the woodcutter goes for the sowing millet
route.
You’d think a woodcutter raising daughters
near a forest he’d teach them a little more woodsense. In all the years of his woodcutting, he never
asked them to bring him soup before?
How far away did this daughter think her
father was cutting wood?
My two oldest daughters are missing in the
woods. Send the youngest.
Hi, we just met, but you broke the spell I
was under, so let’s get married.
