The Two Kings' Children (Grimm)
Short summary
A sixteen-year-old prince, prophesied to die by a stag, chased one while hunting. The stag transformed into a tall man who captured him and took him to a palace.
There he had to watch the king's three daughters on successive nights. Each princess had a stone St. Christopher answer for him when the king called hourly. After succeeding, the king demanded impossible tasks: cutting down a forest, cleaning a fishpond, and clearing a mountain to build a castle. The youngest princess helped him each time, summoning earth-workers with her handkerchief.
They fled together, and she transformed them to escape her pursuing parents. At his castle, his mother's kiss made him forget everything. The princess worked as a miller's servant while he prepared to marry another. She used three magical walnut dresses to sleep outside his door, lamenting her deeds for him.
All this the King's son heard, and was sore troubled, and what was past came back to him. Then he wanted to go to her, but his mother had locked the door.
The next morning, he went to his beloved, told her everything, and they married.
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
The prophecy and arrival at the mysterious palace
A prophecy foretold that a king's son would be killed by a stag when he reached sixteen years of age. When the prince turned sixteen, he went hunting with the royal huntsmen. In the forest, he became separated from the others and encountered a great stag that he desperately wanted to shoot but could not hit. He chased the creature far beyond the forest boundaries.
Suddenly, instead of the stag, a great tall man appeared before him.
It is well that I have thee. I have already ruined six pairs of glass skates with running after thee, and have not been able to get thee.
The mysterious figure dragged the prince through a great lake to a magnificent palace, where he was forced to sit at table and eat.
The three nights of watching the daughters
The king revealed he had three daughters and demanded that the prince keep watch over the eldest for one night, from nine in the evening until six in the morning. Every time the clock struck, the king would call, and if the prince failed to answer, he would be executed at dawn. If he succeeded, he could marry the daughter. When they went to the bedroom, a stone image of St. Christopher stood there.
The princess instructed the statue to answer her father's calls instead of the prince. The stone image nodded quickly, then more slowly until it stood still. The prince successfully passed the first test. The king then demanded he watch over the second daughter, with the same conditions. Again, a larger stone image of St. Christopher helped them.
For the third night, the prince had to watch over the youngest princess. The bedroom contained an even greater and taller image of St. Christopher than the previous two. The princess commanded it to answer when her father called, and the great statue nodded for half an hour before standing still. The prince again slept on the threshold and passed the test.
The three impossible tasks with the earth-workers help
Despite the prince's success, the king refused to give him any daughter. Instead, he set an impossible task: the prince must cut down a great forest between six in the morning and six at night. He was given glass tools - a glass axe, wedge, and mallet. When the prince began cutting, the axe broke in two, the wedge shattered into sand-like pieces after one strike. Despairing, he sat down and wept.
At noon, the youngest princess came to bring him food.
She comforted him and combed his hair until he fell asleep. Then she took her handkerchief, made a knot in it, struck the earth three times, and called forth the earth-workers.
Earth-workers, come forth... In three hours' time the great forest must be cut down, and the whole of the wood laid in heaps.
The little earthmen completed the task in three hours. The king then demanded the prince clear a fishpond of all mud and fill it with every kind of fish by six o'clock the next day. Again, the glass tools broke, but the youngest princess helped with her earth-workers, who completed the task in two hours. Finally, the king ordered the prince to cut down briars on a great mountain and build a strong castle with all furnishings. Once more, the earth-workers accomplished the impossible task in three hours.
However, the king still refused to give his youngest daughter until the two eldest were married. Frustrated, the prince and princess decided to run away together at night.
The escape, transformations, and wedding
When the king pursued them, the princess used her magic powers to transform herself and the prince.
I will at once change thee into a briar, and myself into a rose, and I will shelter myself in the midst of the bush.
The king was pricked by thorns when he tried to pick the rose. When the queen pursued them, the princess transformed them into a church and priest, then into a fishpond and fish. The queen drank the entire pond but had to vomit it back up. Finally defeated, the queen gave her daughter three magic walnuts and let them go. They reached the prince's home kingdom, where he went to fetch a carriage while she waited in the village.
At the castle, the prince's mother kissed him, causing him to forget everything. The princess took work at a mill and used her magic walnuts to create beautiful dresses, eventually winning back the prince's memory and love. They were married in a joyful ceremony.