The Six Servants (Grimm)
Short summary
A prince fell sick with love for a beautiful maiden whose sorceress mother killed all suitors who failed her tasks.
After seven years of illness, the prince set out and recruited six servants with extraordinary abilities: a fat man who could drink seas, a listener who heard everything, a tall man who could stretch enormously, a man whose gaze shattered objects, a cold man who froze in heat, and a sharp-eyed man who saw everything.
The sorceress set three tasks: retrieve a ring from the Red Sea, eat three hundred oxen and drink three hundred casks of wine, and keep the maiden in his arms until midnight. The servants accomplished the first two tasks. During the third, everyone fell asleep under a spell and the maiden was transported away.
Oh, misery and misfortune! cried the prince, now I am lost!
The servants rescued the maiden just before midnight. Defeated, the sorceress gave her daughter to the prince. The maiden tried to kill him by making a servant sit in fire, but the cold man survived. After marriage, the prince pretended to be a swineherd to test his bride. When she showed humility, he revealed his true identity and they celebrated their royal wedding.
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
The princes illness and gathering of the six servants
In former times, an aged queen ruled who was a powerful sorceress. Her daughter was renowned as the most beautiful maiden under the sun, but the queen used her daughter's beauty as a deadly trap for suitors.
Many had been dazzled by the daughter's beauty, and had actually risked this, but they never could accomplish what the old woman enjoined them to do, and then no mercy was shown
A king's son heard of the maiden's beauty and declared his intention to seek her hand in marriage. His father warned him that such a quest would mean certain death, but the prince fell desperately ill from love and lay dying for seven years.
When the son heard that, he rose from his bed and was well again, and joyfully set out on his way.
During his journey, the prince encountered six extraordinary men with supernatural abilities and recruited each of them as servants.
The first task: retrieving the ring from the Red Sea
The prince and his six servants arrived at the sorceress's kingdom. Without revealing his identity, the prince requested the beautiful maiden's hand in marriage. The sorceress was delighted to ensnare such a handsome youth and set him three seemingly impossible tasks. The first was to retrieve her ring from the depths of the Red Sea.
The Far-seer located the ring on a pointed stone beneath the waves. The Tall One carried them to the sea, and the Stout One drank up the entire Red Sea until it was dry as a meadow. The Tall One then easily retrieved the ring, and the prince successfully completed the first task.
The second task: consuming three hundred oxen and wine
Astonished by the prince's success, the sorceress set the second task: he must consume three hundred fat oxen and three hundred casks of wine completely, leaving not a single hair or drop, or forfeit his life. The prince invited the Stout One as his sole dinner companion.
The Stout One devoured all three hundred oxen without leaving a single hair and drank the wine straight from the casks, asking if he was to have nothing but breakfast.
The third task: keeping the maiden until midnight
For the final task, the sorceress brought her daughter to the prince's chamber, instructing him to keep her in his arms until midnight struck. If she disappeared, he would lose his head. The prince arranged his servants as guards, with the Tall One encircling the couple and the Stout One blocking the door.
The prince gazed at the maiden's wondrous beauty, filled with love and happiness. At eleven o'clock, the sorceress cast a spell that made everyone fall asleep, and the maiden vanished to an enchanted rock three hundred leagues away. When they awoke at quarter to twelve, the Listener heard her location, and the Tall One and Sharp-eyes rescued her just before midnight struck.
When the sorceress arrived expecting triumph, she found her daughter still in the prince's arms.
Here is one who knows more than I do! She dared not make any opposition, and was forced to give him her daughter.
The maidens revenge: the test of fire
Despite her mother's defeat, the proud maiden refused to marry the prince. She whispered poison in her daughter's ear about the disgrace of obeying common people.
It is a disgrace to thee to have to obey common people, and that thou art not allowed to choose a husband to thine own liking.
Filled with anger, the maiden demanded one final test: someone must sit in the midst of three hundred bundles of burning wood and survive the flames. The servants chose the Frosty One for this task.
The fire burned for three days until all wood was consumed. When the flames died out, the Frosty One stood trembling in the ashes, complaining he had never felt such frost in his life.
The final escape and wedding
I suffered much for thee and now thou, too, hast had to suffer for me.