Strong Hans (Grimm)
Short summary
A solitary valley in a German forest. When Hans was two years old, robbers kidnapped him and his mother while they gathered firewood. The robbers took them to their cave where the woman kept house for years. Hans grew extraordinarily tall and strong.
At age ten, Hans beat the robbers with a club and escaped with his mother. They returned to his father, and Hans helped build a new house with treasure from the cave. Later, Hans left home with a hundredweight club and met two strong men, Fir-twister and Rock-splitter. The three stayed in a deserted castle where a dwarf attacked them while cooking. The dwarf beat the first two, but Hans defeated him and rescued a captive princess. His companions betrayed Hans, pulling the princess up but leaving him underground. Using the dead dwarf's magic ring, Hans summoned air spirits who carried him to the surface. He pursued the traitors to the sea.
He swung his club and gave his wicked comrades the reward they merited and threw them into the water, and then he sailed with the beautiful maiden home to her father.
Hans married the princess.
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
Childhood in the robber cave and escape with mother
A man and woman lived alone in a solitary valley with their only child. When the mother went to gather fir branches in the forest, taking two-year-old Hans with her, two robbers suddenly sprang from the thicket and seized them both. The robbers carried the mother and child deep into the black forest to a cave hidden behind a rock door. Inside the cavern, lit by a fire on the hearth, weapons hung on the walls and four other robbers sat gambling at a black table.
The robber captain told the woman she would manage their housekeeping and would not be harmed. Years passed, and Hans grew tall and strong. His mother taught him to read from an old book of knight tales found in the cave. When Hans turned nine, he carved a strong club from a fir branch and demanded to know who his father was.
I now wish to know who is my father, and if thou dost not at once tell me I will strike thee down... I will wait another year and then try again, perhaps I shall do better then.
The captain laughed and boxed Hans's ears, sending him rolling under the table. A year later, Hans tried again with the same result, but this time he beat the captain and all the robbers with his club until they could no longer move. After demonstrating his strength, Hans told his mother he was serious about finding his father.
Now I have shown myself to be in earnest, but now I must also know who is my father... Dear Hans, come, we will go and seek him until we find him.
His mother took the key from the captain, and Hans packed a sack full of gold, silver, and treasures. They left the cave together, and Hans marveled at seeing daylight, the green forest, flowers, and birds for the first time since his early childhood.
Return home and building a new life
After walking for hours, they reached their valley and little house. The father wept with joy when he recognized his wife and learned that Hans was his son, having long believed them dead. Though not yet twelve years old, Hans was already a head taller than his father. When Hans placed his heavy sack on the bench, the entire house cracked, the bench broke, and the floor collapsed, sending the sack crashing into the cellar.
Don't grow any grey hairs about that, dear father... there, in that sack, is more than is wanting for a new house.
Father and son built a new house, bought cattle and land, and established a farm. Hans ploughed the fields with such strength that the oxen barely needed to pull. The next spring, Hans requested a walking stick weighing a hundredweight so he could go traveling.
Hans finds powerful traveling companions
Hans entered a deep, dark forest where he heard crunching and cracking sounds. He discovered a great fellow twisting a fir tree like a rope from bottom to top. The man explained he was making rope for faggots. Impressed by his strength, Hans invited him to come along and named him Fir-twister.
They continued and heard tremendous knocking and hammering that shook the ground. They found a giant striking great pieces away from a mighty rock with his fist. He explained that wild beasts disturbed his sleep, so he wanted to build a house for protection. Hans convinced him to abandon his building and join them, naming him Rock-splitter.
The three companions roamed through the forest, terrifying wild beasts wherever they went. In the evening, they reached an old deserted castle where they decided to sleep in the hall.
The mysterious dwarf at the abandoned castle
The next morning, Hans killed a wild boar in the garden, and they arranged that each day two would hunt while one stayed home to cook nine pounds of meat for each of them. On the first day, Fir-twister stayed behind. A little shriveled old man came asking for meat, but Fir-twister rudely refused.
The insignificant dwarf sprang up and beat Fir-twister so severely that he fell gasping to the ground. Fir-twister told his companions nothing about this encounter. The next day, Rock-splitter suffered the same fate when he refused to give the dwarf meat. Both kept silent, thinking Hans should also experience this humiliation.
When Hans's turn came to stay home, he generously gave the dwarf some meat. When the dwarf demanded more, Hans gave him another piece, telling him to be content. But when the dwarf begged a third time, Hans refused. The malicious dwarf tried to attack Hans as he had the others, but Hans easily gave him a couple of blows that sent him jumping down the castle steps. Hans chased the dwarf and saw him slip into a hole in the rock, marking the spot carefully.
Underground rescue of the imprisoned princess
When his companions returned, Hans revealed what had happened and laughed at their shame.
It served you quite right; why were you so greedy with your meat? It is a disgrace that you who are so big should have let yourselves be beaten by the dwarf.
They took a basket and rope to the hole in the rock and lowered Hans down. At the bottom, he found a door and opened it to discover a maiden of extraordinary beauty sitting inside, bound with chains. The dwarf sat beside her, grinning like a sea-cat.
Hans felt great pity for the maiden and struck the dwarf dead with his club. The chains immediately fell from the maiden, and she told Hans she was a king's daughter whom a savage count had stolen and imprisoned among the rocks because she refused him. The count had set the dwarf as her watchman. Hans placed the maiden in the basket and had her drawn up, but when the basket returned for him, he distrusted his companions and put his club in it instead. His suspicion proved correctâthey let the basket fall halfway up.
Trapped underground, Hans discovered a ring on the dead dwarf's finger that shone and sparkled. When he put it on and turned it, spirits of the air appeared, declaring him their master and asking his desires. They carried him above ground, where he found his treacherous companions had fled with the beautiful maiden.
Pursuit of treacherous companions and wedding
Hans turned the ring again, and the spirits told him his faithless companions were on the sea. He ran without stopping until he reached the seashore, where he saw a little boat far out on the water with his companions inside. In fierce anger, he leaped into the water with his club, but the hundredweight weapon dragged him down until he nearly drowned.
Just in time, Hans turned his ring, and the spirits bore him swift as lightning into the boat. He swung his club and gave his wicked companions the reward they deserved, throwing them into the water. Then he sailed home with the beautiful maiden, who had been in the greatest alarm but whom he had now delivered for the second time. He brought her to her father and mother, married her, and all rejoiced exceedingly.