How Chanticleer and Partlet Went to Visit Mr Korbes

Another day the rooster and hen wanted an outing. Chanticleer built a fine coach with four red wheels, hitched six mice in front, and they rolled off. A cat stopped them to ask their destination. He answered in a little verse: they were paying a call on Mr Korbes the fox. She asked for a seat; he told her to climb on behind and hold tight, then called to his mouse-team and bright wheels to keep a steady pace toward that fox’s door.

Along the road a millstone, an egg, a duck, and a pin begged to join. He waved them all aboard.

Mr Korbes was out when they arrived. The mice parked the coach in the coach-house. Rooster and hen perched on a high beam. The cat curled in the hearth. The duck slipped into the wash-cistern. The pin hid in the pillow. The millstone settled above the doorway. The egg wrapped itself in a towel.

Home again, the fox bent to light a fire—ashes from the hearth flew into his eyes. He rushed to the kitchen to rinse them—water from the cistern slapped his face. He grabbed the towel to dry off—the egg smashed across his cheeks. Still supperless and raging, he went to bed. His head met the pillow and the pin stabbed his cheek. He leaped up to flee the house, but the millstone dropped from the doorway onto his head and finished him there.

About this story

The second Chanticleer and Partlet adventure in Project Gutenberg’s Grimms’ Fairy Tales (#2591) is very short. The English text there is based on the translations of Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes; in Margaret Hunt’s fuller translation the same tale is number 41, “Herr Korbes.”

The tale never says why the visitors set their traps; in the German the house simply belongs to Herr Korbes, and in this English version he is called a fox. The ending, where the millstone kills him, is kept as the source tells it, quickly and without detail.

Read the original: Grimms’ Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg #2591)

Reading guidance: older children with adult discussion. The visitors injure a host without an explained motive, and a falling millstone kills him.

A pattern without a justification

Each attempt to get comfortable leads Mr Korbes into the next trap: fire, washing, drying, bed and escape. The familiar uses of household objects make the sequence easy to anticipate. But the story gives no earlier wrong for which he is being punished, so teamwork is not automatically a virtue here.

Sketch a floor plan and trace his route. Then separate two questions: how well does the trap sequence work as storytelling, and what would justify the visitors’ actions? The first can be answered from the text; the second exposes something the text leaves out.

Questions to ask

• The story never tells us what Mr Korbes did wrong. Why do you think the animals set their traps?
• How did each animal choose a hiding place that suited it?
• If you were writing this story, what reason would you give for the visit, and would you change the ending?

Related stories

• How They Went to the Mountains to Eat Nuts — the first Chanticleer and Partlet adventure, where a pin and needle torment an innkeeper
• The Travelling Musicians — old animals team up and use their own strengths to scare off robbers
• The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage — another short Grimm animal tale where small companions share a house