Free The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales (Penguin Classics) by Franz Xaver von Schonwerth

asked.
    “Hans.”
    “Can you run?”
    “A little.”
    “Then speed up!”
    Hans ran faster and faster and didn’t listen to the passenger, who was now trying to get him to slow down. One of the wheels on the carriage flew off, then a second, and finally the entire coach fell apart.
    “Stop, Hans, stop!”
    But Hans would not stop, even though he was now holding nothing but a pole in his hands. The man had to run after him and catch him.
    Hans reached the house long before his master. The master’s wife made a big fuss about the fine farmhand her husband had hired.
    The next day Hans was supposed to take two horses out into the woods. The other farmhands were long gone, and Hans would not get up until a dish of dumplings was set before him. Finally, when he went riding into the woods, the other fellows were already returning, their carts piled high with wood. Hans saw a narrow passageway and went straight to it. There he relieved himself, and when the other farmhands made their way through the passageway, they were soon stuck in the mess he had made. Hans’s horses had trouble getting through the passageway too, no matter how hard he whipped them. Enraged, he beat one of the horses until it was dead, threw its corpse on the cart, and harnessed himself up. There were wolves all around, and one of them tried to make off with the dead horse. But Hans killed the wolf, tossed it on the cart, and brought home a load of wood.
    The woman was now furious about this stupid farmhand, and her husband finally agreed to get rid of him. He told Hans: “I’m going over to the inn to have a glass of wine. When it gets dark, come over and show me the way home with a bright light.” When night fell, Hans set the barn on fire. With the light from it, the farmer could find his way home. When he was raked over the coals for this new prank, Hans said in all innocence: “I was just following the orders of my master. The barn was just a big bright light that made it easy for him to find his way back home.”
    The farmer’s wife was now completely fed up with Hans.Near the house there was a deep well, which Hans was supposed to clean. “When he gets down there,” she said to her servants, “we’ll throw stones down after him until he’s dead.”
    But Hans shouted cheerfully from below: “There must be some hens up there. They’re scratching and scraping, and the pebbles are landing down here.” Even a huge millstone did not bother him. He put it around his neck as a ruff, finished his work, and crawled back up unharmed.
    Hans’s master was baffled, and he decided to send the farmhand to a haunted mill. He was told to grind some grain over there. When the clock struck midnight, there was a knock at the door. Hans shouted: “Come on in!” Twelve fellows marched in and sat down at the table to play cards. Hans watched them carefully and discovered that they were all cheating. Without further ado he grabbed one of them by the shoulders, took him over to the mill, pulled his pants down, and ground his buttocks down with the millstone. Then he carried him back upstairs and sat him down with the others. The horror-struck comrades fled, and Hans returned home with the flour.
    Husband and wife now despaired of ever getting rid of Hans. They decided to send him to hell to bring back some money they had loaned the devil. The devil refused to pay back the cash and started a quarrel. Hans came running toward him with the ground-up buttocks of the fellow from the mill and shouted: “You can’t get anywhere with this lad!” Hans now had his money and was about to return home.
    But one of the more rowdy devils stopped him and said: “I have a bag of coins. Want to make a bet? Whoever can blow the loudest on this horn will get everything that belongs to both of us.” Hans found that to be a fine bargain. The devil blew into the horn and the entire world began to shake.
    “You moron! Can’t you do better than that?” Hans said