Gifts of a little folk

Once a tailor and a hunchbacked goldsmith traveled together, and now, after sunset, a strange but cheerful music suddenly sounded, from which even their tiredness disappeared. On the hill , in the light of the month, small men and women danced, and in the center sat an old man with a long gray beard, who invited travelers to enter the circle of the dancers. The old man sharpened a knife and shaved baldly both, and then signs offered them to fill their pockets with charcoal from a pile located on the side. When the travelers descended into the valley, the bell of the neighboring monastery rang at midnight , and the hill instantly emptied. Ahead was a tavern, where there was a place on the straw. Waking up the next day, they found that instead of coals, their pockets were stuffed with gold , and the hairs on their heads were as long as before. The goldsmith wanted to stay in this area for another night in order to get more gold from the old man. The tailor did not want to go with him to the hill, but agreed to wait for it in the tavern. The same thing happened on the hill, but when the master poured out the contents of his pockets in the morning of gold, there was plain coal in them, and his head remained shaved (and his hair never grew again). In addition, the gold that he got the previous night also turned into coal, and a second hump grew on his chest. Recognizing this punishment for greed, the goldsmith began to cry loudly. But the good tailor took him to live with him and shared his wealth with him.

In the collection of fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm as an independent story (KHM 182) appears from the 6th edition of 1850, in the 5th edition it is located under the number 182a as part of the plot group “Die Erbsenprobe” (Pea Test). The tale has parallels with the work of 1846 by philologist Emil Sommer Der Berggeister Geschenke in Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Sachsen und Thüringen (Gifts of mountain spirits in the tales, tales and traditions of Saxony and Thuringia). ^[one]

In their comments, the Brothers Grimm explain the greedy punishment as typical in elf stories. A similar narrative is contained in Irish Tales of the Elves (No. 3), translated by the Grimm brothers in 1826 . The Grimm brothers' manuscript contains a footnote about two girls who, in gratitude for their help in the christening of the toad , received a full apron of coal that had turned gold. ^[2]

Similar legends existed primarily in Western Europe .

• Tales of the Brothers Grimm

• (German) Grimm, Brüder: Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Ausgabe letzter Hand mit den Originalanmerkungen der Brüder Grimm. Mit einem Anhang sämtlicher, nicht in allen Auflagen veröffentlichter Märchen und Herkunftsnachweisen herausgegeben von Heinz Rölleke. Band 3: Originalanmerkungen, Herkunftsnachweise, Nachwort. S. 266, 510. Durchgesehene und bibliographisch ergänzte Ausgabe, Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-15-003193-1 )
• (German) Rölleke, Heinz (Hrsg.): Grimms Märchen und ihre Quellen. Die literarischen Vorlagen der Grimmschen Märchen synoptisch vorgestellt und kommentiert. 2., verb. Auflage, Trier 2004. S. 418-423, 578. (Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier; Schriftenreihe Literaturwissenschaft Bd. 35; ISBN 3-88476-717-8 )
• (German) Uther, Hans-Jörg: Handbuch zu den Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm. Berlin 2008. S. 375-378. (de Gruyter; ISBN 978-3-11-019441-8 )
• (German) Uther, Hans-Jörg: Gaben des kleinen Volkes. In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens . Band 5. S. 637-642. Berlin, New York, 1987.