Goose Girl

The Goose Girl

Fairy Tale by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, illustrated by Max Teschemacher

A king and a queen have a daughter. The king dies and the queen runs the kingdom. When the daughter is old enough, she has to go to another kingdom. There, everything is arranged for her marriage with a prince. While arrangements are very old, the prince and the princess never met. Nevertheless, she has to leave her home. Only one servant will go with her.

The princess is almost ready. Her mother gives her two gifts. The first is a handkerchief with three drops of her blood. These drops shall remind the princess about her royal origin all the time. The second gift is a horse called Falada. Falada shall remind her of her royal origin as well. These two gifts are meant as the only connection with her old family. It's very possible the princess will never see her mother anymore.

The voyage begins. The princess and her servant ride peacefully towards their destination, and nothing really important happens. There is no danger. They come to the brook. The princess is thirsty and asks her servant to get her some water. The servant tells her to get water by herself. This is not just an improper and rude behavior. It's also a test.

The princess needs to show her authority. She is the one who gives orders, not to be bossed around. Instead, she gets off the horse and gets some water by herself. She fails a test.

While she drinks water, a handkerchief given by her mother falls into the water and floats away. Three drops of blood try to remind the princess of her royal origin, but she doesn't hear them. She is too thirsty and too distracted by the disobedience of her servant. This means she fails the second test.

Right after that, another test comes and she fails for the third time. The servant wants to switch horses and clothes. She wants to enter their destination as the princess, and the real princess shall come with her as the servant.

The real princess is unable to resist and re-establish the hierarchy. She accepts the position of the servant and gives her word not to tell the truth to any living soul.

The girls come to the kingdom, where they are received with royal honors. The servant, who pretends to be the princess, is very satisfied with the situation. The wedding preparations are in full swing. Soon, she'll marry a real prince. Now she has to deal with the reminders of the past. She wants to humiliate her real mistress as much as possible, so she asks the king if her servant (princess) can get some low-valued job. This is how a born princess becomes a goose girl.

Her job is not valued but it's at least easy. The dethroned princess gets some distance from the action in the castle and builds a bit of a perspective. She works with a young boy who likes her a lot. His name is Conrad. He suspects that something is off with the goose girl, but he can't tell what.

At the court, the king is suspicious as well. The newly arrived princess acts strangely. Her manners are not noble at all. Still, he can't specify why exactly he doesn't like her.

Her decision to send the horse (it's Falada, a talking horse who could tell somebody the truth about her origin) to the butcher is not princess-like at all.

In the meantime, the goose girl finds out about the Falada's sad fate. She asks the butcher to preserve the horse's head, and the horse's head is hung on the city gate.

Every day, when she takes the flock of geese out of the town and back, Falada greets her and tells her about her royal origin. The real princess is sad, but the talking head of the dead horse and Conrad are her only friends at the moment.

One day, the goose girl combs her hair believing Conrad is not looking at her. But he is. He is astonished by the look of her golden hair. There's no chance an ordinary girl can have such hair! She is definitely not suitable for a goose girl.

While the princess doesn't know he is watching, the wind takes charge of the situation. The wind takes Conrad's hat and plays with it around and around, so the boy has to run after it. The princess can finish combing without distraction and in privacy.

Conrad tells the king about strange doings connected with the goose girl.

The king wants to know more about her, yet she is very reserved.

The king is pretty sure she is hiding something. He also gets a feeling she wants to tell him something important, but something stops her.

He thinks that maybe she can't tell her secret to people, so she can maybe tell it in the oven. The truth must come out, right?

Indeed, the goose girl tells her sad story to an open oven. She doesn't know the king is listening on the other side of the iron pipe.

Right after that, he takes action. At dinner, he asks the false princes for her opinion. What should be a punishment for somebody who stole everything, including personality, from somebody else?

The servant who pretends to be the princess is happy to share her opinion. She suggests that such a person should be locked in a barrel and driven by horses through streets until death.

Not knowingly, she gives herself her punishment.

The real princess is finally introduced to the prince.

A huge party is thrown.

The treacherous servant dies in a barrel and the goose girl becomes the future queen

***

The original edition was published by Alfo Kunstdruck Verlag as the fifth book in the series of picture books with Grimm's tales in 1940. It took a while to get all the beautiful illustrations by Max Teschemacher.

Don't forget to check dozens of illustrations from Goose Girl by other artists, too.

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