The Little Peasant (Brothers Grimm)
Short summary
A German village in fairy-tale times. The Little Peasant was the only poor man among wealthy villagers.
He had a wooden calf made and painted to look real. When it was stolen from the pasture, he tricked the authorities into giving him a real cow as compensation. After killing the cow, he took its skin to sell in town. At a mill, he discovered the miller's wife hiding a feast and the parson from her husband. Using a raven wrapped in the cowhide, the peasant pretended it was a soothsayer that revealed the hidden wine, meat, salad, and cakes.
The peasant replied, 'He says that the Devil is hiding outside there in the cupboard in the entrance.' The miller said, 'The Devil must go out,' and opened the house-door
The parson fled, and the peasant earned three hundred thalers. When villagers tried to copy his success by selling cowhides, they failed and sentenced him to death by drowning. He tricked a shepherd into taking his place in the barrel. Seeing him alive with sheep, all the villagers jumped into the water believing sheep lived below. The peasant inherited everything and became rich.
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
The wooden calf trick: getting a real cow through deception
In a village where all inhabitants were wealthy except one, lived a man known as the little peasant.
He had not even so much as a cow, and still less money to buy one, and yet he and his wife did so wish to have one... there is our gossip the carpenter, he shall make us a wooden calf
His wife agreed to this clever plan.
The carpenter crafted and painted a wooden calf brown, making it appear to be eating with its head hanging down.
The next morning, the peasant convinced the cowherd to carry the small wooden calf to pasture.
The raven soothsayer and the millers wife
The cowherd left the wooden calf in the field, believing it would follow on its own. When it disappeared, stolen by someone, the peasant demanded compensation. The mayor ruled in the peasant's favor, ordering the cowherd to provide a real cow for the lost calf. The peasant and his wife were delighted but had no food for the cow, so they killed it and salted the meat. The peasant set out to sell the hide in town to buy a new calf. On his journey, he found a raven with broken wings and wrapped it in the cowhide out of pity. When bad weather forced him to seek shelter at a mill, the miller's wife gave him bread and cheese, thinking he had gone to sleep.
Soon the parson arrived, and the woman prepared a feast of roast meat, salad, cakes, and wine.
When the miller returned unexpectedly, his wife quickly hid everything - the food in various places and the parson in the entrance cupboard. The miller saw the peasant and asked for food, but his wife claimed to have only bread and cheese.
Earning 300 thalers with the false prophecy
Noticing the cowhide, the miller asked what it contained. The peasant claimed he had a soothsayer inside.
The peasant answered, 'I have a soothsayer inside it.' 'Can he foretell anything to me?' said the miller. 'Why not?' answered the peasant, 'but he only says four things, and the fifth he keeps to himself.'
The peasant pinched the raven, making it croak, then revealed the hidden wine under the pillow, roast meat in the stove, salad on the bed, and cakes under the bed. The miller was amazed by each accurate prediction. For the fifth prophecy, they negotiated a price of three hundred thalers. The peasant then declared that the devil was hiding in the entrance cupboard. When the miller opened it, the parson ran out as fast as he could, and the miller believed he had seen the devil himself.
The peasant, however, made off next morning by daybreak with the three hundred thalers... The small peasant has certainly been to the place where golden snow falls, and people carry the gold home in shovels.
The other peasants failed cow skin business
The little peasant built a beautiful house with his earnings, arousing suspicion among the other villagers.
When questioned by the mayor, he claimed he sold his cow's skin for three hundred thalers.
When the peasants heard that, they too wished to enjoy this great profit, and ran home, killed all their cows, and stripped off their skins in order to sell them in the town to the greatest advantage.
However, the merchant only paid two thalers per skin, leaving the peasants furious at being deceived.
Escaping death and the final deception
The angry peasants accused the little peasant of treachery before the mayor, who sentenced him to death by drowning in a barrel full of holes. As he was led to execution, the peasant recognized the priest who was to perform last rites as the same parson from the mill. He reminded the parson of their previous encounter, asking to be freed from the barrel as he had freed the parson from the cupboard. At that moment, a shepherd appeared with his flock.
The peasant cried out that he refused to become mayor, even if the whole world insisted. The curious shepherd asked what he meant, and the peasant explained they wanted to make him mayor by putting him in the barrel. The eager shepherd volunteered to take his place, got into the barrel, and was rolled into the water while the peasant escaped with the sheep. When the villagers saw him return with the flock, he claimed he had sunk to the bottom where beautiful meadows full of lambs awaited. The greedy villagers, seeing cloud reflections in the water that looked like sheep, all jumped in and drowned.
Then the entire village was dead, and the small peasant, as sole heir, became a rich man.