{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 108/1908-12-26_02/p005","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Once upon a time it happened—where did it happen? where indeed did it not happen?—there was a tailor's apprentice. He had only one penny left in his pocket, and with this penny in his pocket he felt driven to wander forth. He soon became hungry, but with his penny he could only afford to buy some milk soup. When the soup was placed before him, a swarm of flies flew into it and when he had finished his meal the plate was covered with buzzing flies. He struck the plate once or twice with his hand, counting how many he had killed, and found it amounted to a hundred. So he got a slate from the innkeeper and wrote on it: “He killed a hundred at one blow!” And having hung the slate on his back he went his way. As he passed a king's palace, the king was looking out and seeing someone passing who had something written on his back, he sent his servant down to see what the writing was. The servant saw: “He killed a hundred at one blow!”—and told the king. “Ho!” said the king to himself, “That is someone I can make use of!” and he sent down and had him brought in. “I can make use of you,” said the king to the tailor. “Will you enter my service?” “Yes,” said the other, “I will willingly enter your service if you will give me a proper reward, but what that is I shall tell you later.” “Very well,” said the king, “I shall reward you handsomely if you keep to what you have promised. You shall eat and drink well, as long as you like. After that, you must do me a service, equal to your strength. Every year a number of bears come to my country and do fearful damage. They are so strong that no one can kill them. You will of course be able to kill them, if you live up to the statement on your slate.” Then the apprentice said: “Certainly I will do this, but till the bears come I must ask for as much to eat and drink as I want.” For the apprentice said to himself: “If I cannot slay the bears, and they kill me, I shall at least have eaten and drunk well.” And so it went for a while. When the time came and the bears were due to appear, he arranged the kitchen, set up a little table and left the door wide open; on the table he placed all manner of things that bears like to eat and drink—honey and suchlike; then he hid himself. The bears came along, ate and drank till they were gorged and then had to lie down. He cut off the head of each bear and in this way killed them all. When the king saw this, he asked: “Now how did you do it?” And the apprentice said: “I simply killed the bears and then cut off their heads.” The king took this on trust and said: “If you have done that, you can render me an even greater service. Every year great strong giants come to our country. No one can kill them or drive them away; perhaps you can.” The tailor replied: “Yes, I will do it, if afterwards you will give me your daughter as my wife.” Now it was very important to the king to have the giants driven away, and so he promised, and again for a time the tailor lived a good life.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"The Poetry and Meaning of Fairy Tales","date":"1908-12-26","location":null,"word_count":594,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/108/1908-12-26_02/p005","alignment_confidence":"low","alignment_reason":"no_original_to_compare","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"identified_edition":"eLib","translator":"Hanna van Maltitz Regarding Higher Worlds","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA108/English/eLib/"},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/108/1908-12-26_02/p005"}]}