The Lambkin and the Little Fish

There were once a little brother and a little sister, who loved each
other with all their hearts. Their own mother was, however, dead, and
they had a step-mother, who was not kind to them, and secretly did
everything she could to hurt them. It so happened that the two were
playing with other children in a meadow before the house, and there was
a pond in the meadow which came up to one side of the house. The
children ran about it, and caught each other, and played at counting
out.

"Eneke Beneke, let me live,
And I to thee my bird will give.
The little bird, it straw shall seek,
The straw I'll give to the cow to eat.
The pretty cow shall give me milk,
The milk I'll to the baker take.
The baker he shall bake a cake,
The cake I'll give unto the cat.
The cat shall catch some mice for that,
The mice I'll hang up in the smoke,
And then you'll see the snow."


They stood in a circle while they played this, and the one to whom the
word snow fell, had to run away and all the others ran after him and
caught him. As they were running about so merrily the step-mother
watched them from the window, and grew angry. And as she understood
arts of witchcraft she bewitched them both, and changed the little
brother into a fish, and the little sister into a lamb. Then the fish
swam here and there about the pond and was very sad, and the lambkin
walked up and down the meadow, and was miserable, and could not eat or
touch one blade of grass. Thus passed a long time, and then strangers
came as visitors to the castle. The false step-mother thought, "This is
a good opportunity," and called the cook and said to him, "Go and fetch
the lamb from the meadow and kill it, we have nothing else for the
visitors." Then the cook went away and got the lamb, and took it into
the kitchen and tied its feet, and all this it bore patiently. When he
had drawn out his knife and was whetting it on the door-step to kill
the lamb, he noticed a little fish swimming backwards and forwards in
the water, in front of the kitchen-sink and looking up at him. This,
however, was the brother, for when the fish saw the cook take the lamb
away, it followed them and swam along the pond to the house; then the
lamb cried down to it,

"Ah, brother, in the pond so deep,
How sad is my poor heart!
Even now the cook he whets his knife
To take away my tender life."


The little fish answered,

"Ah, little sister, up on high
How sad is my poor heart
While in this pond I lie."


When the cook heard that the lambkin could speak and said such sad
words to the fish down below, he was terrified and thought this could
be no common lamb, but must be bewitched by the wicked woman in the
house. Then said he, "Be easy, I will not kill thee," and took another
sheep and made it ready for the guests, and conveyed the lambkin to a
good peasant woman, to whom he related all that he had seen and heard.

The peasant was, however, the very woman who had been foster-mother to
the little sister, and she suspected at once who the lamb was, and went
with it to a wise woman. Then the wise woman pronounced a blessing over
the lambkin and the little fish, by means of which they regained their
human forms, and after this she took them both into a little hut in a
great forest, where they lived alone, but were contented and happy.
