1812
GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES
THE WATER SPRITE
by Jacob Ludwig Grimm and Wilhelm Carl Grimm
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
THE WATER SPRITE
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A LITTLE brother and sister were one day playing together by the
side of a well, and not being careful, they both fell in. Under the
water they found a fairy, who said to them, "Now I have caught you,
I intend you to work for me." So she carried them both away.
When they arrived at her home she set the maiden to spin hard,
tangled flax, and gave her a cask full of holes to fill with water;
and she sent the boy to the wood with a blunt axe, and told him to cut
wood for her fire.
The children became at last so impatient with this treatment that
they waited till one Sunday, when the fairy was at church, and ran
away. But the church was close by, and as they were flying away like
two birds she espied them, and went after them with great strides.
The children saw her coming in the distance, and the maiden threw
behind her a great brush, which instantly became a mountain covered
with prickly points, over which the fairy had the greatest trouble
to climb. But the children saw that she had managed to get over and
was coming near.
The boy then threw a comb behind him, which became a mountain of
combs, with hundreds of teeth sticking up; but the fairy knew how to
hold fast on this, and soon clambered over it.
The maiden next threw a looking-glass behind, which became a
mountain also, and was so slippery that it was impossible to get
over it.
Then thought the fairy, "I will go home and fetch my axe and break
the looking-glass."
But when she came back and had broken the looking-glass, the
children had been for a long time too far away for her to overtake
them, so she was obliged to sink back into the well.
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THE END
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