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The Nutcracker and the Mouse King

Hoffmann's story begins on Christmas Eve at the Stahlbaum house. Marie, seven years old, and her brother Fritz, eight, sit outside the parlor speculating about what kind of present their godfather Drosselmeier, who is a clockmaker and inventor, has made for them. They are at last allowed into the parlor, where they receive many splendid gifts, including Drosselmeier's, which turns out to be a clockwork castle with mechanical people moving about inside it. However, as the mechanical people can only do the same thing over and over without variation, the children quickly tire of it. At this point, Marie notices a Nutcracker doll, and asks whom he belongs to. Her father tells her that he belongs to all of them, but that since she is so fond of him she will be his special caretaker. Marie, her sister Louise, and her brother Fritz pass the Nutcracker among them, cracking nuts, until Fritz tries to crack a nut that is too big and hard, and the Nutcracker's jaw breaks. Marie, upset, takes the Nutcracker away and bandages him with a ribbon from her dress.

When it is time for bed, the children put their Christmas gifts away in the special cupboard where they keep their toys. Fritz and Louise go up to bed, but Marie begs to be allowed to stay with Nutcracker a while longer, and she is allowed to do so. She puts Nutcracker to bed and tells him that Drosselmeier will fix his jaw as good as new. At this, the Nutcracker's face seems momentarily to come alive, and Marie is frightened, but she then decides it was only her imagination.

The grandfather clock begins to chime, and Marie believes she sees Drosselmeier sitting on top of it, preventing it from striking. Mice begin to come out from beneath the floor boards, including the seven-headed Mouse King. Marie, startled, slips and puts her elbow through the glass door of the toy cupboard. The dolls in the cupboard come alive and begin to move, Nutcracker taking command and leading them into battle after putting Marie's ribbon on as a token. The battle at first goes to the dolls, but they are eventually overwhelmed by the mice. Marie, seeing Nutcracker about to be taken prisoner, takes off her shoe and throws it at the Mouse King, then faints.

Marie wakes the next morning with her arm bandaged and tries to tell her parents about the battle between the mice and the dolls, but they do not believe her, thinking that she has had a fever dream caused by the wound she sustained from the broken glass. Drosselmeier soon arrives with the Nutcracker, whose jaw has been fixed, and tells Marie the story of Princess Pirlipat and Madam Mouserinks, who is also known as the Queen of the Mice, which explains how Nutcrackers came to be and why they look the way they do.

The Queen of the Mice tricked Pirlipat's mother into allowing her and her children to gobble up the lard that was supposed to go into the sausage that the King was to eat at dinner that evening. The King, enraged at the Mouse Queen for spoiling his supper and upsetting his wife, had his court inventor, whose name happens to be Drosselmeier, create traps for the Mouse Queen and her children.

The Mouse Queen, angered at the death of her children, swore that she would take revenge on the King's daughter, Pirlipat. Pirlipat's mother surrounded her with cats which were supposed to be kept awake by being constantly stroked, however inevitably the nurses who stroked the cats fell asleep and the Mouse Queen magically turned the infant Pirlipat ugly, giving her a huge head, a wide grinning mouth and a cottony beard, like a nutcracker. The King blamed Drosselmeier and gave him four weeks to find a cure. At the end of four weeks, Drosselmeier had no cure but went to his friend, the court astrologer.

They read Pirlipat's horoscope and told the King that the only way to cure her was to have her eat the nut Crackatook (Krakatuk), which must be cracked and handed to her by a man who had never been shaved nor worn boots since birth, and who must, without opening his eyes hand her the kernel and take seven steps backwards without stumbling. The King sent Drosselmeier and the astrologer out to look for the nut and the young man, charging them on pain of death not to return until they had found them.

The two men journeyed for many years without finding either the nut or the man, until finally they returned home and found the nut in a small shop. The man who had never been shaved and never worn boots turned out to be Drosselmeier's own nephew. The King, once the nut had been found, promised his daughter's hand to whoever could crack the nut. Many men broke their teeth on the nut before Drosselmeier's nephew finally appeared. He cracked the nut easily and handed it to the princess, who swallowed it and immediately became beautiful again, but Drosselmeier's nephew, on his seventh backward step, trod on the Queen of the Mice and stumbled, and the curse fell on him, giving him a large head, wide grinning mouth and cottony beard; in short, making him a Nutcracker. The ungrateful Princess, seeing how ugly Drosselmeier's nephew had become, refused to marry him and banished him from the castle.

Marie, while she recuperates from her wound, hears the King of the Mice whispering to her in the middle of the night, threatening to bite Nutcracker to pieces unless she gives him her sweets and her dolls. For Nutcracker's sake, Marie sacrifices her things, but the Mouse King wants more and more and finally Nutcracker tells Marie that if she will just get him a sword, he (the Nutcracker) will finish him off. Marie asks Fritz for a sword for Nutcracker, and he gives her the sword of one of his toy hussars. The next night, Nutcracker comes into Marie's room bearing the Mouse King's seven crowns, and takes her away with him to the doll kingdom, where Marie sees many wonderful things. She eventually falls asleep in the Nutcracker's palace and is brought back home. She tries to tell her mother what happened, but again she is not believed, even when she shows her parents the seven crowns, and she is forbidden to speak of her "dreams" anymore.

As Marie sits in front of the toy cabinet one day, looking at Nutcracker and thinking about all the wondrous things that happened, she can't keep silent anymore and swears to the Nutcracker that if he were ever really real she would never behave as Princess Pirlipat behaved, and she would love him whatever he looked like. At this, there is a bang and she falls off the chair. Her mother comes in to tell her that godfather Drosselmeier has arrived with his young nephew. Drosselmeier's nephew takes Marie aside and tells her that by swearing that she would love him in spite of his looks, she broke the curse on him and made him handsome again. He asks her to marry him. She accepts, and in a year and a day he comes for her and takes her away to the Doll Kingdom, where she is crowned queen and eventually marries the Prince.

Old Hildebrand

A peasant's wife and the parson fancied each other, so the wife feigned illness, and the parson preached that whoever had an ill family member could go to the Cuckoo's Mountain in Italy, and get laurel leaves that would cure the ill person. The peasant, Hildebrand, left to get them, and the parson came to his house. But on the way, Hildebrand met his cousin, an egg merchant, who alerted him and brought him to the house in his cart. The parson and the wife began to sing, the merchant sang, and Hildebrand sang that it was enough. He jumped from the basket and beat the parson out of the house.

The Old Woman in the Wood

A poor servant girl travelled with the family she served when robbers attacked them. She hid behind a tree, but no one else survived. She lamented her fate, and a dove came to her, with a golden key. It told her to unlock a tree, and she found food. In the evening, it brought her one to a tree with a bed. She lived like this for many days. When the dove asked her to do something for it, she agreed. It told her to go to a house and go in. An old woman would greet her, but she should not answer; she should open an inner door, which will reveal a room full of splendid rings, but she should take a plain one.

The old woman was quite angry, but the girl did not heed her. Then, when she could not see the plain ring, she saw the old woman trying to carry off a bird cage. She took it away from her; it held a bird, which held the ring in its beak. She took it outside and waited against a tree. Two branches turned into arms about her as the tree turned into a handsome man who kissed her and told her that the witch had turned him into a tree, and for two hours a day, a dove, and she had freed him. All his attendants turned back from trees to humans as well, and him being a king's son, they went to his father's kingdom and got married.

One-Eye, Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes

A woman had three daughters: The eldest had one eye in the middle of her forehead, the second had two eyes like ordinary people, the third had two eyes one the side of her head and a third in the middle of her forehead. Her mother and sisters scorned Little Two Eyes because she was like other people and treated her badly, leaving her only their leftovers to eat.

One day Little Two Eyes was sent to the field to tend to the goat, she sat down and cried as she had been given so little to eat and when she looked up a woman was standing beside her. The woman asked her why she was crying. Little Two Eyes explained and the wise woman told her to say to the goat

little goat
if you are able
pray deck out my table

A beautifully spread table would stand before her, and Little Two Eyes could eat as much as she wanted. The woman then told Little Two Eyes that when she had had enough to eat she simply had to say

Little goat,
when you're able
remove my table

and the table would vanish. The wise woman then left and Little Two Eyes spoke the words the woman had told her would summon the table, and to her surprise there it stood. Little Two Eyes ate until she was full and said the words the woman told her would make the table disappear, and immediately it was all gone. Little Two Eyes returned home in the evening and found the plate of leftovers her sisters had left for her, but she did not touch it.

The next day she went out again with the goat and left the scraps given to her, after a time her sisters began to notice this and told their mother. So Little One Eye was sent to go with Little Two Eyes when she drove the goat to pasture to see if someone was giving her food and drink. Little Two Eyes suspected this was the reason Little One Eye was accompanying her and so sang Little One Eye a song to make her one eye fall asleep. Little Two Eyes then summoned the table and ate as before. On returning home Little One Eye told her mother that the fresh air made her so tired she fell asleep and that was why she did not see what Little Two Eyes had done, so the next day the mother sent Little Three Eyes to watch Little Two eyes when she went out with the goat. Little Two Eyes suspected that Little Three Eyes had been sent to watch her and so meant to sing her song to make her three eyes fall asleep but instead she sang a song to only make two of her eyes fall asleep. Little Three Eyes shut her third eye though it was still awake so when Little Two Eyes thought her sister was fast asleep she said the rhyme and ate and drank from the little table though all the while Little Three Eyes blinked her eye and watched. When they returned home Little Three Eyes told her mother what she had seen. Her mother then, in rage that Little Two Eyes thought to live better than her family, fetched a knife and killed the goat.

Little Two Eyes sat in the meadow and cried having seen what her mother had done. Just as before when she looked up the wise woman stood beside her and asked why she wept. Little Two Eyes explained and the wise woman told her to bury the heart of the goat as it would bring her luck. Little Two Eyes asked her sisters if she might have the goat's heart and nothing more. They laughed and told her she could have it. That evening Little Two Eyes buried the heart before the door just as the wise woman had told her and the next morning there, where she had buried the heart, stood a beautiful tree which had leaves of silver and fruit of gold growing on it.

The mother told Little One Eye to climb the tree and break off some fruit, but as Little One Eye tried to take hold of one of the golden apples the bough sprang out of her hands. This happened every time she reached for it. The mother then told Little Three Eyes to climb the tree and break off some fruit since with her three eyes she could see much better than Little One Eye. Little Three Eyes was no more successful than her older sister and at last the mother climbed up and tried in vain to break off a single piece of fruit. Little Two Eyes then volunteered to try. Her sisters told her that she would not succeed with her two eyes. To their great surprise Little Two Eyes managed to pluck off a whole apronful of the golden fruit, and her mother took them from her. But instead of treating Little Two Eyes better, her sisters and mother were jealous that only she could pick the golden fruit and were even more unkind than before.

One day a Knight came riding along. Little One Eye and Little Three Eyes pushed Little Two Eyes under an empty cask nearby so the Knight would not see her. The Knight stopped to admire the beautiful tree and asked who it belonged to, saying that whoever would give him a twig from the tree could have whatever they wanted. The two sisters told him that the tree belonged to them and that they would certainly break a twig off for him. But just as before the twigs and fruit bent away from their hands whenever they got close. The Knight exclaimed that it was odd that the owners of the tree could not break anything from it, yet the sisters insisted the tree was theirs. Little Two Eyes, who was still hidden under the empty cask, rolled a couple of golden apples to the Knight's feet. When the Knight asked where the apples had come from, the two sisters confessed they had another sister but she had been hidden away because she had two eyes like normal people. The Knight demanded to see Little Two Eyes who came happily from under the cask and told the Knight that the tree was indeed hers. So Little Two Eyes climbed up the tree and broke off a small branch with its silver leaves and golden fruit with ease and gave it to the Knight. The Knight proceeded to ask Little Two Eyes what she would like, as she was entitled to whatever she wanted. Little Two Eyes asked to be taken away from the suffering she had at the hands of her mother and sisters. So the Knight lifted Little Two Eyes onto his horse and took her to live at his father's castle. There he treated her to beautiful clothes and food and drink. They fell in love and he married her.

The two sisters believed that they were lucky to have kept the beautiful tree as Little Two Eyes and the Knight first set off for the castle but, to their dismay, the very next morning they awoke to find that the tree had vanished. When Little Two Eyes woke and looked out her window she saw, with delight, that the tree had grown outside the castle.

When two poor women came to the castle to beg one day, Little Two Eyes looked at them and realised that they were her sisters. Little Two Eyes took them in and made them welcome. The sisters then repented of ever having been so mean to their sister.

The Peasant and the Devil

A peasant found a devil in his fields, sitting on a fire. He guessed he was sitting on treasure, and the devil offered it if for two years, half of the crop was his. The peasant agreed, and said that to prevent disputes, the half above the ground was the devil's, and the half below the peasant's. When the devil agreed, the peasant planted turnips.

When harvest time came, the devil saw his leaves and the peasant's turnips, and said they must do it the other way round the next year. The peasant agreed and planted wheat. At harvest, the devil found he got nothing but stubble.

He went into the earth in a fury, and the peasant took the treasure.

The Peasant's Wise Daughter

A peasant begged some land from the king. When he and his daughter dug the field, they found a mortar made of gold. The daughter warned that if they gave it to the king for his kindness, he would ask for the pestle as well; the father gave it nonetheless, and the king asked for the pestle and put him in prison until he got it. The peasant lamented his folly in not listening to his daughter. The king had him brought before him again, and asked what he meant. The peasant explained.

The king summoned the daughter and set her riddle: to come to him neither naked nor clothed, neither walking nor riding, neither on the road nor off it. If she guessed it, she had proved her cleverness and would marry him. She wrapped herself in a fish net, and tied it to a donkey's tail so that it had to drag her along, and she kept only one toe touching the ground. The king agreed that she had guessed the riddle; he freed her father and married her.

Some years later, a mare gave birth to a foal that ran off and lay down under an ox. Both the peasant who owned the mare and the one who owned the ox claimed it; the king said it belonged where it was found. The peasant who owned the mare went to the queen for help. She told him to take a fishing net and pretend to fish on dry land where the king would see; when the king said it was impossible, he was to say it was no more impossible than oxen giving birth to foals. The peasant did so, and the king gave him the foal but got from him that the queen had given him the advice. He sent the queen back to her father, saying she could take only one thing, what she valued most, from the castle. The queen gave him a sleeping draught and took him back to her father's house. When he woke, she told him that he was what she valued most in the castle; he took her back with him to the castle and once again recognizied her as his wife.

Peruonto

A widow named Ceccarella had a stupid son named Peruonto, as ugly as an ogre. One day, she sent him to gather wood. He saw three men sleeping in the sunlight and made them a shelter of branches. They woke, and being the sons of a fairy, gave him a charm that whatever he asked for would be done. As he was carrying the wood back, he wished that it would carry him, and he rode it back like a horse. The king's daughter Vastolla, who never laughed, saw it and burst out laughing. Peruonto wished she would marry him and he would cure her of her laughing.

A marriage was arranged for Vastolla with a prince, but Vastolla refused, because she would marry only the man who rode the wood. The king proposed putting her to death. His councilors advised him to go after the man instead. The king had a banquet with all the nobles and lords, thinking Vastolla would betray which man it was, but she did not recognize any of them. The king would have put her to death at once, but the councillors advised a banquet for those still lower in birth. Peruonto's mother urged him to go, he went, and Vastolla recognized him at once and exclaimed. The king had her and Peruonto shut up in a cask and thrown into the sea. Vastolla wormed the story out of Peruonto, and told him to turn the cask to a ship. Then she had him turn it to a castle, and then she had him turn himself into a handsome and well-mannered man. They married and lived happily for years.

Her father grew old and sad. His councillors encouraged him to hunt to cheer him up. One day, he came to a castle and found only two little boys who welcomed him and brought him to a magical banquet. In the morning, he wished to thank them, but not only the boys but their mother and father—Vastolla and Peruonto—appeared. They were reconciled, and the king brought them back to his castle where the feast of celebration lasted nine days.

Pied Piper of Hamelin

n 1284, while the town of Hamelin was suffering from a rat infestation, a man dressed in pied clothing appeared, claiming to be a rat-catcher. He promised the townsmen a solution for their problem with the rats. The townsmen in turn promised to pay him for the removal of the rats. The man accepted, and played a musical pipe to lure the rats with a song into the Weser River, where all but one drowned. Despite his success, the people reneged on their promise and refused to pay the rat-catcher the full amount of money. The man left the town angrily, but vowed to return some time later, seeking revenge.

On Saint John and Paul's day while the inhabitants were in church, he played his pipe yet again, dressed in green, like a hunter, this time attracting the children of Hamelin. One hundred and thirty boys and girls followed him out of the town, where they were lured into a cave and never seen again. Depending on the version, at most three children remained behind. One of the children was lame and could not follow quickly enough, the second was deaf and followed the other children out of curiosity, and the last was blind and unable to see where they were going. These three informed the villagers of what had happened when they came out of church.

Another version relates that the Pied Piper led the children into following him to the top of Koppelberg Hill, where he took them to a beautiful land and had his wicked way,[1] or a place called Koppenberg Mountain.[2] This version states that the Piper returned the children after payment, or that he returned the children after the villagers paid several times the original amount of gold.