The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (Rackham)/The Dog and the Sparrow
The Dog and the Sparrow
HERE was once a sheep-dog who had not got a kind master, but one who left him to suffer from hunger. When he could bear it no longer, he went sadly away. On the road he met a Sparrow, who said, ‘Brother Dog, why are you so sad?’
On the road he met a Sparrow.
The Dog answered, ‘Because I am hungry and I have nothing to eat.’
‘Then,’ said the Sparrow, ‘Brother Dog, come with me to the town, and I will satisfy your hunger.’
So they went to the town together, and when they came to a butcher’s shop, the Sparrow said to the Dog, ‘Stay where you are out there and I will peck down a piece of meat.’ He perched upon the stall, and looked about to see that he was not noticed; then he pecked, pulled, and pushed a piece of meat lying near the edge, till at last it fell to the ground. The Dog seized it and ran off with it to a corner, where he devoured it. Then the Sparrow said to him, ‘Now come with me to another shop, and I will pull down another piece so that you may have enough.’
When the Dog had gobbled up the second piece of meat, the Sparrow said, ‘Brother Dog, have you had enough?’
‘Yes, I have had enough meat,’ replied the Dog; “but I haven’t had any bread.’
‘Oh, you shall have some bread too,’ said the Sparrow. ‘Come with me.’ And then he led him to a baker’s shop, where he pecked at a couple of rolls till they fell down. Then, as the Dog still wanted more, he took him to another shop where he pulled down some more bread.
When that was consumed, the Sparrow said, ‘Brother Dog, is your hunger satisfied?’
‘Yes,’ he answered; ‘now let us go and walk about outside the town for a bit.’
So they both went out on to the high-road. Now it was very warm weather, and when they had walked. a little way the Dog said, ‘I am tired, and I want to go to sleep.’
‘Oh, by all means,’ answered the Sparrow; ‘I will sit upon this branch in the meantime.’
So the Dog lay down upon the road and fell fast asleep. While he lay there sleeping, a Carter came along driving a wagon with three horses. The wagon was laden with two casks of wine. The Sparrow saw that he was not going to turn aside, but was going on in the track in which the Dog lay, and he called out, ‘Carter, don’t do it, or I will ruin you!’
But the Carter grumbled to himself, ‘You won’t ruin me,’ cracked his whip, and drove the wheels of his wagon right over the Dog and killed him.
The Sparrow cried out after him, ‘Carter, you have killed my brother Dog; it will cost you your wagon and your team.’
‘My wagon and my team indeed, what harm can you do me?’ asked the Carter, as he drove on. The Sparrow crept under the tarpaulin and pecked at the bunghole of one of the casks till the bung came out, and all the wine trickled away without the Carter’s being aware of it. When he looked round and saw the wine dripping from the wagon, he examined the casks and found that one was empty.
‘Alas, poor man that I am!’ he cried.
‘Not poor enough yet,’ said the Sparrow, as he flew on to the head of one of the horses and pecked out its eyes. When the Carter saw what he was doing, he seized his chopper to throw it at the Sparrow; but the bird flew away, and the chopper hit the horse on the head, and he dropped down dead.
‘Alas, poor man that I am!’ he cried.
‘Not poor enough yet,’ said the Sparrow. As the Carter drove on with his two horses, the Sparrow again crept under the tarpaulin and pecked the bung out of the second cask, so that all the wine ran out.
When the Carter perceived it, he cried again, ‘Alas, poor man that I am!’
But the Sparrow answered, ‘Not poor enough yet’; and he seated himself on the head of the second horse and pecked its eyes out. The Carter ran up with his big chopper and struck at him; but the Sparrow flew away, and the blow hit the horse and killed it.
‘Alas, poor man that I am!’ cried the Carter.
‘Not poor enough yet,’ said the Sparrow, as he perched on the head of the third horse and pecked out its eyes. In his rage, the Carter struck out at the Sparrow with his chopper without taking aim, missed the Sparrow, but hit his last horse on the head, and it fell down dead.
‘Alas, poor man that I am!’
“Not poor enough yet,’ said the Sparrow. ‘Now, I will bring poverty to your home’; and he flew away.
The Carter had to leave his wagon standing, and he went home full of rage and fury.
‘Ah!’ he said to his wife, ‘what misfortunes I have had to-day; the wine has all run out of the casks, and my three horses are dead.’
‘Alas! husband,’ she answered, ‘whatever kind of evil bird is this which has come into our house. He has assembled all the birds in the world, and they have settled on our maize and they are eating it clean up.’
He went up into the loft, where thousands and thousands of birds were sitting on the floor. They had eaten up all the maize, and the Sparrow sat in the middle of them.
Then the Carter cried out, ‘Alas, poor man that I am!’
‘Not poor enough,’ answered the Sparrow, ‘Carter, it will cost you your life yet’; and he flew away.
Now the Carter, having lost all that he possessed, went downstairs and sat down beside the stove, very angry and ill-tempered. But the Sparrow sat outside the window and cried, ‘Carter, it will cost you your life.’
The Carter seized his chopper and threw it at the Sparrow, but it only smashed the window and did not hit the bird.
Then the Sparrow hopped in and perched on the stove, and cried, ‘Carter, it will cost you your life.’
The Carter, mad, and blind with rage, smashed the stove to atoms, but the Sparrow fluttered hither and thither till all the furniture,—the little looking-glass, the bench, the table,—and at last the very walls of his house were destroyed, but without ever hitting the Sparrow. At last he caught it in his hand.
‘Then,’ said his wife, ‘shall I kill it?’
‘No,’ he cried; ‘that would be too good for it; it shall die a much worse death. I will swallow it.’ And he took it and gulped it down whole.
But the bird began to flutter about in his inside, and at last fluttered up into the man’s mouth. He stretched out his head and cried, ‘Carter, it will cost you your life yet.’
The Carter handed his chopper to his wife and said, ‘Wife, kill the bird in my mouth.’ The woman hit out, but she aimed badly and hit the Carter on the head, and down he fell, dead.
The Sparrow, however, flew out and right away.
