XIX.—THE PALE MAIDEN.
A peasant farmer in reduced circumstances had a beautiful
daughter, whom an old knight, the proprietor of the village,
wanted to marry, and that even by compulsion. But the
damsel disliked him, and her parents also refused to consent
to the marriage. So the proprietor persecuted them in
every way in his power, and so oppressed them with forced
labour and ordered them to be beaten on the slightest
occasion, that the poor farmer could hold out no longer,
but determined to remove from the village with his whole
family. In the cottage in which the farmer dwelt there
was something continually grating behind the stove, but
though they searched several times, and turned the seat
constructed at the side of the stove upside down, yet were
they unable to discover aught. But when, on the day of
their departure, they were removing the rest of their goods,
they heard a more and more articulate grating, and whilst
they were impatiently listening, as the grating and scraping
went on, out of the stove sprang a thin pale form, like a
buried maiden. `What the devil is this?' cried the father.
`For heaven's sake!' screamed the mother, and all the
children after her. `I am no devil,' said the thin pale
maiden, `but I am your Poverty. You are now taking yourselves
off hence, and you are bound to take me with you to
your new abode.' The poor householder was no fool; he
bethought himself a little, and neither seized nor throttled
his Poverty, for she was so slight that he could have done
nothing of any consequence to her, but he made the lowest
possible reverence to her, and said: `Well, your gracious
ladyship, if you are so well satisfied amongst us, then come
with us; but, as you see, we are removing everything for
ourselves, so help us to carry something, and we shall get off
the quicker.' Poverty agreed to this, and wanted to take a
couple of small vessels out of the house, but the householder
distributed the small vessels among his children to
remove, and said that there was still a block of wood in the
yard which must also be taken away. Going out into the
yard, he made a cut in the block from above with his axe. He
then called Poverty, and politely requested her to help him
remove the block. Poverty did not see on which side to
lift the block, till, when the farmer pointed out the cleft to
her, she put her long thin fingers in the chink. The farmer,
pretending to lift the block on the other side, suddenly
pulled his axe out of the cleft, and Poverty's long thin
fingers remained squeezed in the block, so that, being
utterly unable to pull them out, she shrieked out immediately
in what pain she was. But all in vain. The farmer removed
all his goods as well as his children, quitted the cottage
completely, and returned to the place no more.
When the farmer settled in another village, things went
with him so prosperously that ere long he was the richest
man in the whole village; he married his daughter to a
respectable and wealthy farmer's son, twenty years old, and
the whole family prospered. On the other hand, the proprietor
of the first village, the oppressor of these poor
people, having to assign vacant cottages to fresh tenants,
came to inspect the cottage left vacant by the reduced
farmer, who had refused to give him his daughter. Seeing
Poverty beside the block complaining of the pain of her
fingers, he took pity on the pale maiden, took her fingers
out by means of a wedge, and set her completely free.
From the time of her liberation the pale maiden never
quitted the side of her liberator, and when, moreover, the
devil lit a fire in the old stove, and the proprietor went dotty
with love in his old age, he spent and spent, and ran through
everything that he had.
