“The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus.” The Yellow Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang, London, New York, Bombay: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1906, pp. 225-236.

Tale Summary

Once upon a time, there were two people named Klaus in the same village. One had four horses and was called Big Klaus, and the one called Little Klaus had only one. Through the week, Little Kalus had to plough for Big Klaus and lend him his horse, but on Sundays he got all five. He called them “my five horses” which offended Big Klaus, who killed the other’s horse. Little Klaus went to town to sell the skin, but while traveling through a forest a storm came on and he was trapped until nightfall. He sought refuge at a large farm-house, but the woman who answered said her husband was not at home and she did not take in strangers, and so he set himself up in the outhouse for the night. He could see through the window that the woman and the sexton were having a feast, which he greatly wanted, and then saw the farmer coming home. The sexton had visited the woman while her husband was out because the man hated sextons, which is also why there was such great food, because she rarely saw him. She hid the sexton in a chest and hid the food in the oven and the wine nearby, and in the meantime the farmer saw Little Klaus and invited him in for the night. The woman brought them both porridge, and Little Klaus squeaked his bag of horse skin and said it was a wizard who had conjured up a feast in the oven. The woman could do nothing but bring the good food, and then again Little Klaus squeaked his bag and said the wizard conjured up wine next to the oven. The farmer was very happy with this and asked Little Klaus to summon the devil with the wizard. He told the farmer to look inside his chest, and when he saw the sexton, he was convinced and bought the bag of skin for a bushel of money and threw in the chest as well. Little Klaus pushed the chest in a wheelbarrow until he came to a river, and said aloud that he was going to throw it in, when the sexton offered a bushel of money to spare his life. Little Klaus arrived home and informed Big Klaus of how much money he had gotten from a single skin, and so the latter killed all four of his and tried to sell their skins but was beaten for the high prices he asked. In the meantime, Little Klaus’s grandmother died and he laid her body in his bed for a while, and that night Big Klaus struck her with an ax, intending to get revenge on Little Klaus. The next morning he dressed his grandmother in her Sunday best and went to an inn, where he kept her outside and asked the host to bring her some mead. She would not answer when he spoke to her, so the host became mad and hit her with the glass. Thinking he had killed her, he gave Little Klaus a bushel of money and buried the woman. Big Klaus was surprised when he arrived back, and even more so when he heard how much money he got for his dead grandmother, so he killed his own granny and tried to sell her body but was admonished. He put Little Klaus in a sack and intended to drown him in the river, but stopped at a church on the way and left the bag outside, which was pushed against by an old shepherd and his cattle. The man bemoaned that he was so old and still would not die, so Little Klaus convinced him to get in the bag instead and he himself went home with the cattle while Big Klaus threw the wrong man in the river. Surprised to see him still alive when he got home, Big Klaus asked what had happened. Little Klaus told a story, and said that after he had been thrown in the river he met many rich sea-people who gave him cattle. Big Klaus wanted some also, and so had Little Klaus tie him in a sack with a weight, and so he was thrown in the river.