The old man picked up a small tree, planted it in a pit, put stakes beside the tree, shoveled in some more dirt, and stamped it tightly with his feet, and then tied a rope to the stakes at the top, middle, and bottom of the tree. "But will you tell me," said the stranger, "that there is a crooked tree over there that is about to droop to the ground; why don't you lean it against the stakes and make it grow straight too?" The farmer laughed, "Your Lordship, you say as much as you know, and it is evident that you know nothing about gardening. That tree is so old and scarred that it is impossible to get it straight now; trees have to be carefully cultivated from an early age." "Your son is like the tree," said the stranger; "if he had been well disciplined from an early age, he would not have run away from home. Now he must have grown hard and scarred." "That is certain," said the old man; "he must have changed long ago after he had been away so long." "Would you recognize him if he came back again?" The stranger asked. "Outwardly he would certainly not be recognizable," said the farmer, "but he has a mark, a birthmark on his shoulder the size of a broad bean." When he had finished, he saw the stranger take off his shirt, exposing his shoulder and showing the farmer the bean-sized birthmark. "My God!" The old man exclaimed, "You are really my son!" The love of his son was so great that the old man's heart was in turmoil for a moment. "But," he added, "how can you be my son when you are already a rich, elegant and honorable lord?" "Oh, father," replied the son, "seedlings grow crooked without a stake to lean on, and now I am too old to stretch out any longer. You ask how I came to be like this, for I have become a thief. Don't be surprised, I am a master thief, and there is no lock or latch in the world for me; what I want is mine. Don't think of me as a lowly thief; I only borrow the rich man's superfluities, and the poor man is safe, and I will only succor them, and never take the slightest thing from them. And I will not even touch those things which I can get without any effort of brain, mind, or artifice." "Alas! son," said the father, "but I don't like it; thieves are thieves after all, and they will be rewarded in the end." The old father brought his son to his mother, and when she learned that it was her own son, she wept with joy; but when she learned that he was a master thief, the tears swished out again. At last she was heard to say, "Even though he was a thief, he was my son after all, and I finally saw him again."
The three of them sat around the table as a family, and he ate the rough meal with his parents again, something he hadn't had in a long time. At that moment his father spoke up, "If the lord earl of the city learns who you are and what you do, he won't hold you in his arms as he did when he christened you, he'll send you to the gallows." "Don't worry, father, he can't hurt me, I have a plan. Tonight I will go and pay my respects to the Lord Earl." At dark the divine thief got into a carriage and drove to the castle. The count received him politely, and thought this was a great man; but when he made known his identity, the count's face swished white, and for a moment he could not speak. At last he spoke at last, saying, "You are my godson, and out of that I will not be merciless to you; I will be lenient with you. Since you boast that you are a divine thief, show me a few tricks. If it is too much to try, you must ask for a pair of ropes, and then the crows will come and wow you with their music." "Master Earl," replied the divine thief, "try to think of three puzzles, and if I cannot do them, I will then be at your mercy for punishment." The earl thought for a moment, and said, "The first is, that you must steal my horse out of my stable; the second is, that you must steal the mattress out from under me and my lady while we sleep, without our noticing it, and my lady's wedding-ring; and the last is, that you must steal the priest and the deacon out of the church. Remember what I said, and after that it's up to you."
The divine thief went to the nearest town and bought an old peasant woman's dress and put it on him, and then he painted his face brown and drew wrinkles on it. He also filled a small wine cask with Hungarian wine and sprinkled some montenegro into it. Then he shuffled his slow steps and stumbled toward the count's castle. By the time he reached the town, it was dark, and when he sat down on a stone in the courtyard, he began to cough, looking like an old woman with asthma. He wiped his hands, as if he were terribly cold. Just in front of the stable door, some soldiers were sitting on the ground around a fire. One of them saw the woman and called out to her, "Come here, old woman. Come and warm yourself beside us. I'm sure you don't even have a place to spend the night, so you can make do here." The old woman staggered over to them, asked for their help in removing the barrel from her body, and then sat down by the fire beside them. "What's in the barrel, old woman?" One asked. "A few mouthfuls of good wine," she replied; "I make a living by doing a little business, and I'll let you have a glass of it instead, if the words are good and the price reasonable." "Then I will drink it here." The soldier said, and asked for a cup first, saying, "As long as the wine is good, I'll have another cup." With that he poured himself a glass, and the others followed his example and poured and drank. "Hey, fellows," cried one of them to the soldiers in the stable, "here's an old woman with stale wine about her age; come and have a drink! It will warm you up, and it will do much more than a roasting fire." The old woman carried the pail into the stable, only to see inside a soldier sitting in the saddle, one hand holding the reins, the other grasping the horse's tail.
She poured a lot of wine on the three men until the barrel was at the bottom. It wasn't long before the reins fell out of the soldier's hands and the soldier collapsed with them and began to snore. The other one also let go of the horse's tail and fell to the ground, snoring one above the other. The man on the horse was still sitting up, but his head was bent almost to the horse's neck, and he, too, was asleep, with his breath coming out of the corners of his mouth as if he were pulling on a bellows. The soldiers outside had long been asleep, and each one lay there like a corpse, not moving a muscle. Seeing that he had won, the thief took a rope and replaced the reins in the soldier's hand, and took a handful of straw and replaced the horse's tail in the other soldier's hand, but what about the one in the saddle? He didn't want to push him off, it would wake him up and make him yell. He thought of a good idea, and saw that he untied the saddle straps under the horse's belly, and with a couple of ropes he tied the saddle securely to a halter on the wall, before hoisting the sleeping rider into the air, and wrapping the ropes around the post and tying them securely. Then he quickly unchained the horse, but if he rode down the stone path in the courtyard like that, those inside would surely hear him, so he wrapped the hoofs in rags and carefully led the horse out of the stable before leaping up and galloping away.
It was dawn, and the god-stealer rode to the castle on the stolen horse. The Count had just gotten up and was looking out. "Good morning, my lord count," the thief called to him, "here is the horse, which I have fortunately taken from the stable. See how beautifully your soldiers lie sleeping there one by one! If you are pleased to go to the stables, you will find how comfortable your guards are." The Count could not help but laugh, only to hear him say, "I got it this time, but next time don't try to be so lucky, I warn you that if I catch you, I will deal with you as a thief."
That night when the Countess went to bed, holding the wedding ring tightly in her hand, she heard the Count say, "All the doors have been locked and bolted, and I stayed up all night waiting for the thief, and if he came in through the window, I shot him dead." At this moment the divine thief took advantage of the night to come under the gallows at the place of execution, where he cut the noose with a single stroke, lowered the criminal, and carried him back to the town. He set up a ladder under his bedroom, and with the dead body over his shoulder he climbed upward. When he had reached a certain height, the dead body's head was exposed just in front of the window, and the count, who was on guard in the bed, drew his gun and fired; the divine thief let go his hand at the sound of it, and the poor criminal fell to the ground, where he at once climbed down the ladder and hid himself in the corner of the wall. The moon was unusually bright that night, and in the moonlight the count climbed to the window, climbed down the ladder, and carried the dead body on the ground towards the garden, where he began to dig a pit to bury it. The God Thief watched all this, "Now's the chance!" Thief thought. So he cleverly slipped out from the foot of the wall, climbed up the ladder, walked straight into the countess's bedroom, pretending to be the count's voice, said: "dear madam, the thief is dead, but after all, he is my godson, he is at most just mischievous, can not be counted as a bad guy, I do not want to make a public scandal of him, and I also sympathize with his poor parents, I want to bury him in the garden before dawn, so that no one knows. I want to bury him in the garden before daybreak, so that no one will know. Give me the mattress, and wrap him up, so that he will not be buried like a dog." The Countess gave him the mattress. "And I say," continued the thief, "as a sign of my magnanimity, give me the ring again, for which this unfortunate man gave his life, and let him take it to the grave!" The countess did not dare to disobey her husband, and in spite of her reluctance, she returned the ring and handed it to the count. The thief got both and went away, returning home in peace before the Count finished burying the body in the garden.
The next morning the thief delivered the mattress and the ring, and the earl's face was drawn! "Do you know spells?" He said, "Who got you out of your grave? Who brought you back from the dead, when I buried you with my own hands?" "It was not me you buried," said the thief, "but the executed criminal." Then he told the count the whole story. The Count could not help admitting that he too was a clever and cunning thief. "But that's not all!" He added, "You have one thing left to do, and if it does not come to pass then, all will be in vain." The thief smiled and went home without answering.
When it was dark, he came to the village church with a long sack on his shoulder, a parcel under his armpit, and a lantern in his hand. The bag contained crabs and the parcel held candles. When he got to the churchyard, he sat down on the ground, took out a crab, stuck a candle on its back, then lit a small candle, put it on the ground, and let it crawl around by itself. Then he pulled out another, and fiddled with it in the same way, and so on and so forth he busied himself until there was not a single one left in the bag. At this point he put on a black tunic not unlike a priest's, and stuck a white beard on his chin, until at last no one could recognize him, and then he went into the church with the bag of crabs and ascended to the altar. By this time the bells overhead were striking exactly twelve o'clock, and as soon as the last peal had been struck, he let loose with a shrill, piercing voice: "Hear! Listen! Whoever wants to enter heaven with me, climb into this bag at once; I am Peter, the guardian of the heavenly hosts. Behold the dead outside are wandering about, picking up their bones. Come on! Come on. Come on! Crawl into the bag, the world is about to be destroyed." The screams echoed throughout the village for a long time. The priest and the deacon, who lived nearest the church, were the first to hear it; and at that moment they saw some more lights moving about the church, and, thinking that something was wrong, came to the church. They listened to the sermon for some time, only to see the deacon nudge the pastor with his elbow, and say, "When you can easily get into heaven before the end of the world comes, it's a good thing you don't use this opportunity." "Honestly," said the pastor, "that's just what I want; let's go together, if you like." "Yes!" The deacon replied, "After you, pastor, I will follow." So the priest, in advance, and the deacon after, ascended to the altar, where the divine thief was opening the bag. The priest climbed in first, and then the deacon followed. The thief then tied the bag tightly, grabbed it by the waist, and dragged it down to the altar. Whenever the two fools' heads touched on the steps, he said in a loud voice, "We're going through the mountains!" He dragged them in the same way when they reached the mouth of the village, and as he crossed the mud puddle he exclaimed, "We're prancing through the clouds!" At last the divine thief dragged them up the stone steps of the castle, and again he exclaimed, "We are going up the steps of heaven, and soon we shall be in the forecourt of heaven." When he reached the top, he pushed the bag into the dovecote, and the doves flew out in droves, and he added, "Listen how happy the angels are; they are spreading their wings and flying!" And when he had said this, he thrust in the door and went away.
The next morning he came again to the earl, and told him that he had accomplished the third task, and had carried the priest and the deacon out of the church. "Where did you put them?" The Count asked. "They are lying upstairs in their pockets inside the pigeonholes, and they think they are in heaven!" The Count himself ascended to the citadel and confirmed that the divine thief was telling the truth. When he released the priest and the deacon, he said, "You are indeed a god-thief through and through, and you have won. This time you have escaped unharmed again, but henceforth you must leave my territory, and if you dare to set foot here again, I will send you to the West." The Thief of Heaven then took leave of his parents, and walked once more into the great world, and was never heard of again. Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales
The Flint Box
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Flying Box
The Ugly Duckling
The Picture Book with No Paintings
The High Jumper
The Red Shoes
Shirt Collar
Five Beans for the Mile of a Bean
Ollie the Tower Keeper
The Grimm's Fairy Tales
The Frog Prince
The Cat and the Mouse in Partnership
The Madonna's Child
The Foolish Boy Learns to Be Afraid
The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats
The Faithful John
Good Deals
A Bunch of Duplicates
Little Red Riding Hood (1) The story of "The Wolf Came " story first came from where? (2) 1. Grimm's Fairy Tales 2. Aesop's Fables
(2) The author of "The Emperor's New Clothes" is? 1, Hans Christian Andersen of Denmark 2, Grimm 1
(3) In "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", Ali Baba is from which country? 1, Arab 2, India 3, Persia 3
(4) Who is the author of the fairy tale "Snow and Red Roses"? 1, Grimm 2, Hans Christian Andersen 1
(5) Snow White was written by 1, Hans Christian Andersen 2, Grimm 2
(6) Which side of the apple that the queen in Snow White gives to Snow White is poisoned 1, red 2, green 1
(7) Why does the queen in Snow White want to kill Snow White 1, Snow White is more beautiful than her 2, Snow White is not her child 1
(8) Who did Snow White meet in the forest 1. small animals 2. seven dwarfs 2
(9) How many dwarfs did Snow White meet in the forest? 1, 7 2, 5 3, 9 1
Snow White