"The Water Nixie.” More tales from Grimm, Brothers Grimm, Wanda Gág, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006, pp. 23-25.

Tale Summary

Once upon a time, a brother and sister fell down a well, where they met a Water Nixie who lived at the bottom. She put the two to work for her, and the work was very hard and the food was terrible. The brother was made to cut down a tree with a blunt ax, and the sister was forced to carry water in a bottomless bucket. One day when the Nixie had gone to church, the children ran away. When she realized what had happened she hurried after them, but the sister took a hairbrush and tossed it behind her and it turned into a brush-hill covered in bristles. Still the Nixe kept coming, and so the brother tossed a comb behind him until it became a mountain of combs. This did not stop the Nixie either, and so the sister tossed a looking-glass behind her, which grew into a slippery hill of mirrors. The water Nixie returned home to grab an ax to break the mirrors with, but by the time she returned, the children had escaped her.