The Little Peasant

In a certain village lived only really rich peasants—and one poor man they called the little peasant. He had not even a cow, nor money to buy one, yet he and his wife longed for one. One day he said he had a good idea: their friend the carpenter should make a wooden calf, paint it brown like any other, and in time it would certainly get big and be a cow. The woman liked the plan; the carpenter cut and planed and painted the calf with its head hanging down as if eating.

Next morning when the cows were driven out, the little peasant called the cow-herd and said he had a little calf still so small it must be carried. The cow-herd took it in his arms to the pasture and set it in the grass. It always stood as if eating; the cow-herd said, “It will soon run by itself; see how it eats already!” At night, driving the herd home, he told the calf that if it could stand and eat its fill it could walk on four legs—he would not drag it home in his arms. The little peasant waited at his door; when the herd came through and the calf was missing he asked where it was. “Still standing out there eating,” said the cow-herd. “It would not come.” “But I must have my beast back,” said the peasant. They went to the meadow together—someone had stolen the calf; it was gone. “It must have run away,” said the cow-herd. “Don’t tell me that,” said the peasant, and led him before the mayor, who for carelessness condemned him to give the peasant a cow for the calf that had run away.

So at last they had the cow they had wished for, and were heartily glad—but they had no food for it, so it soon had to be killed. They salted the flesh; the peasant went to town to sell the skin and buy a new calf with the proceeds. On the way he passed a mill where a raven sat with broken wings; out of pity he took it and wrapped it in the skin. Bad weather—rain and wind—forced him back to the mill for shelter. The miller’s wife was alone; she told him to lie on the straw and gave him bread and cheese. He ate and lay down with his skin beside him; she thought him asleep. Then came the parson; she received him well and said her husband was out, so they would have a feast. The peasant listened, vexed that he had made shift with bread and cheese while she served roast meat, salad, cakes, and wine.

Just as they sat down there was a knock. “Oh heavens, my husband!” she cried. She hid the roast in the tiled stove, the wine under the pillow, the salad on the bed, the cakes under it, and the parson in the closet on the porch. Then she opened to her husband. “Thank heaven you are back! Such a storm; it looks as if the world were ending.” The miller saw the peasant on the straw and asked what that fellow was doing. “The poor knave came in the storm,” she said, “and begged shelter. I gave him bread and cheese and showed him the straw.” The miller had no objection but wanted food himself. She said she had nothing but bread and cheese; he was content and invited the peasant to eat more. The peasant got up gladly. Then the miller saw the skin with the raven and asked what he had there. “A soothsayer is inside it,” said the peasant. “Can he foretell anything?” “Why not? But he says only four things, and keeps the fifth to himself.” The miller was curious. The peasant pinched the raven’s head till it croaked krr, krr. “First,” said the peasant, “he says there is wine under the pillow.” “Bless me!” The miller found it. Again the raven croaked. “Second, roast meat in the tiled stove.” Found. Third, salad on the bed. Found. Fourth, cakes under the bed. Found.

The two sat down to eat; the miller’s wife, frightened to death, went to bed with all the keys. The miller longed to know the fifth, but the peasant said, “First eat the four; the fifth is something bad.” They ate, then bargained until the miller agreed to pay three hundred talers for the fifth prophecy. The peasant pinched the raven once more. “He says the Devil is hiding outside in the closet on the porch.” “The Devil must go out,” said the miller, and opened the house-door; the woman had to give up the keys; the peasant unlocked the closet. The parson ran out as fast as he could; the miller said he had seen the fleeing figure with his own eyes. Next morning at daybreak the peasant made off with the three hundred talers.

At home he gradually launched out and built a beautiful house. The peasants said he must have been where golden snow falls and people shovel gold home. Brought before the mayor and bidden to say whence his wealth came, he answered that he had sold his cow’s skin in town for three hundred talers. Hearing that, the others wished the same profit: they ran home, killed all their cows, and stripped the skins to sell in town. The mayor’s servant went first; the merchant gave her only two talers for a skin, and when the others came he would not give even so much—what could he do with all these skins?

Vexed at being outwitted, the peasants accused the little peasant of treachery before the mayor. The villagers unanimously sentenced him to a grotesquely disproportionate punishment, death: to be rolled into the water in a barrel pierced full of holes. He was led forth; a priest was brought to say a mass for his soul; the others had to stand back. Looking at the priest, the peasant recognized the man who had been with the miller’s wife. “I set you free from the closet,” he said; “set me free from the barrel.” At that moment up came, with a flock of sheep, the very shepherd the peasant knew had long wished to be mayor. The peasant cried with all his might, “No, I will not do it! If the whole world insists, I will not do it!” The shepherd asked what he would not do. “They want to make me mayor if I will but put myself in the barrel,” said the peasant, “but I will not.” “If nothing more than that is needful to be mayor,” said the shepherd, “I would get into the barrel at once.” “If you will get in, you will be mayor,” said the peasant. The shepherd got in; the peasant shut the top, took the flock for himself, and drove it away. The parson told the crowd the mass had been said. They rolled the barrel toward the water. As it began to roll the shepherd cried he was quite willing to be mayor. They thought it the peasant speaking, answered that was what they intended—but first he should look about down below—and rolled the barrel into the water.

The peasants went home—and as they entered the village the small peasant came quietly in driving a flock of sheep, looking contented. Astonished, they asked whence he came—had he come out of the water? “Yes, truly,” he said. “I sank deep, deep down until I reached the bottom. I pushed the bottom out of the barrel and crept out, and there were pretty meadows with lambs feeding, and from there I brought this flock.” “Are there any more there?” “Oh yes, more than I could want.” Then each peasant meant to fetch a flock for himself, but the mayor said he came first. They went to the water together. Just then small fleecy clouds—called little lambs—were reflected in the blue sky upon the water, and the peasants cried they already saw the sheep down below! The mayor pressed forward. “I will go down first and look about me; if things promise well I’ll call you.” He jumped in—splash!—it sounded as if he were calling them, and the whole crowd plunged after him as one man. Then the entire village was dead, and the small peasant, as sole heir, became a rich man.

Where this story comes from

“The Little Peasant” is a German trickster tale from the Brothers Grimm, not an Indian one. Margaret Hunt’s 1884 translation numbers it 61, Das Bürle, and the wording here follows the Gutenberg text that draws on Taylor and Edwardes.

The Grimms had it from Zwehrn. Their note records what they describe as a less complete version from Hesse about a tailor who finds a frozen thrush and pretends it can prophesy; shut in a chest on the water, he shouts that he will never marry the princess, and a shepherd takes his place. In another telling the trickster is called Herr Hands.

The source’s ending, in which the villagers drown after mistaking reflected clouds for sheep, is kept.

Read the original: Grimms’ Fairy Tales, tr. Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes (Project Gutenberg #2591, The Little Peasant)

For older readers: deceptive bargains, animal mistreatment, an implied secret affair, an attempted execution and deaths by drowning. The trickster’s success is not a model of harmless cleverness.

Reading the story closely

Each fraud takes advantage of a different gap in knowledge. The cow-herd accepts a wooden object as livestock; the miller does not know the peasant has watched the food being hidden; the villagers mistake a payment for a secret for the market price of a hide. The reader sees the missing information, so apparent magic becomes explainable manipulation.

Choose the raven episode and write two accounts of the same five discoveries: what the miller believes and what the peasant already knows. Then compare the barrel exchange. The shepherd has not joined the villagers’ attack, yet the peasant knowingly transfers the danger to him. The story begins by inviting sympathy for poverty and ends by testing how far that sympathy should extend.

Talk about it

• How does the little peasant turn a wooden calf into a real cow?
• The rich peasants copy everything the little peasant does. Why does that keep going wrong for them?
• Is the little peasant a hero or a villain? Explain your answer with something from the story.

Related stories

• Doctor Knowall — another poor Grimm peasant who wins money by a lucky bit of bluffing
• Clever Gretel — a sly Grimm cook who talks her way out of trouble
• The Valiant Little Tailor — a small Grimm hero who outsmarts everyone bigger than he is