Frau Trude
Font Size
Image Layout
An obstinate little girl insists on visiting the wicked Frau Trude despite her parents' strict warnings.
There was once a little girl who was obstinate and inquisitive, and when her parents told her to do anything, she did not obey them, so how could she fare well? One day she said to her parents, "I have heard so much of Frau Trude, I will go to her some day. People say that everything about her does look so strange, and that there are such odd things in her house, that I have become quite curious!"
Her parents absolutely forbade her, and said, "Frau Trude is a bad woman, who does wicked things, and if thou goest to her; thou art no longer our child."
The girl defies the ban and arrives before Frau Trude, pale with terror.
But the maiden did not let herself be turned aside by her parent's prohibition, and still went to Frau Trude.
And when she got to her, Frau Trude said, "Why art thou so pale?" - "Ah," she replied, and her whole body trembled, "I have been so terrified at what I have seen."
The girl describes the strange sights she saw on the steps: a black collier and a green huntsman.
"What hast thou seen?" - "I saw a black man on your steps." - "That was a collier."
"Then I saw a green man." - "That was a huntsman."
The girl mentions seeing a blood-red man and the devil with a fiery head in the window, prompting Frau Trude to reveal her true nature.
"After that I saw a blood-red man." - "That was a butcher." - "Ah, Frau Trude, I was terrified; I looked through the window and saw not you, but, as I verily believe, the devil himself with a head of fire."
"Oho!" said she, "then thou hast seen the witch in her proper costume."
Frau Trude turns the girl into a block of wood, throws her into the fire, and warms herself by the blaze.
"I have been waiting for thee, and wanting thee a long time already; thou shalt give me some light."
Then she changed the girl into a block of wood, and threw it into the fire. And when it was in full blaze she sat down close to it, and warmed herself by it, and said, "That shines bright for once in a way."
