The Girl Without Hands

Long ago there was a miller whose fortune shrank day by day. In the end he owned nothing but his mill and one tall apple tree behind it. One morning he went into the forest to cut wood. A strange old man came up to him and said, "Why do you wear yourself out? Promise me the thing that stands behind your mill, and I will make you rich." The miller thought, "Behind my mill there is only my apple tree." He said yes and signed a paper. The stranger smiled a cold smile. "In three years I will come back for what is mine," he said, and he walked away. When the miller reached home, his wife cried out in wonder. "Husband, where did all this wealth come from? Every box in the house is full, yet no one carried anything in." The miller told her about the stranger and the promise. "Oh, dear husband," she said, "that was no man — that was the devil! He did not want the apple tree. He wants our daughter. She was behind the mill, sweeping the yard."

The daughter was a good and lovely girl, and for three years she lived without doing any wrong. When the day came, she washed herself clean and drew a white circle around her on the floor. Early in the morning the devil came, but he could not step inside the circle. "Take away all her water," he shouted at the miller, "so she can never wash again. Then I can win." The miller was afraid and obeyed. The next day the devil came back, but the girl had wept on her hands, and they were clean. "Cut off her hands!" the devil roared. "If you refuse, I will take you instead." The frightened father went to his daughter with tears in his eyes. "My child, the devil will carry me away unless I cut off your hands. Forgive me." She answered, "Dear father, do as you must. I am your child." She held out her hands, and he cut them off. A third time the devil came, but she had wept so long on her arms that they were clean too. At last he gave up, for he had no power over her at all.

After that the miller grew rich and begged her to stay. "I will keep you in comfort for the rest of your life," he said. But she answered, "I cannot live here. I will go out into the wide world, and kind people will share with me." So they tied her arms behind her back, and at sunrise she set off. She walked all day, and when night fell she reached a royal garden. The moon shone on trees full of fine fruit, but a wide moat of water circled the garden, and she could not cross. She had eaten nothing all day, and hunger pressed her hard. "Oh, if only I could step inside and take one fruit," she thought, "or I will surely die." She knelt down and prayed. Then an angel came down and stopped the water, so the moat ran dry and she walked across. The angel stayed beside her. In the garden she found a pear tree, and every pear on it had been counted. To calm her hunger she took one pear with her mouth and ate it, and no more. A gardener saw her, but the angel stood near her, so he was afraid and kept quiet, thinking she was a ghost. When she had eaten, she hid among the bushes.

The next morning the king, who owned the garden, came down to walk among the trees. He counted the pears and found that one was gone. "Where is the missing pear?" he asked the gardener. "It is not on the ground, and it is not on the tree." The gardener said, "Last night a ghost came in. It had no hands, and it ate a pear with its mouth." The king asked, "How did a ghost cross the water? And where did it go?" The gardener answered, "A being in a snow-white robe came down from heaven and held back the water. That must have been an angel, so I was afraid and did not call out. When the ghost had eaten, it went back." The king said, "If what you say is true, I will keep watch with you tonight."

When night came, the king entered the garden with a priest, so that they could speak with the ghost. The three of them sat under the tree and waited. At midnight the girl crept out of the bushes, went to the tree, and took another pear with her mouth. The angel in white stood at her side. The priest stepped forward and asked, "Do you come from heaven or from earth? Are you a ghost, or are you a person?" She answered, "I am no ghost. I am a poor woman, and everyone in the world has left me — everyone except God." Then the king said, "If the whole world has left you, I will not leave you." He led her to his palace, and as she was lovely and good, he loved her deeply. He gave her two silver hands and married her.

A year later the king had to ride off to war. He left his young queen with his mother. "If her child is born," he said, "care for her well and send me the news at once." Soon the queen gave birth to a strong little boy, and the old mother quickly wrote a happy letter. But the messenger rested by a stream on the way, and because the road was long, he fell asleep. The devil came, for he still wished to harm the good queen, and he forged a new letter. The new letter said that the queen had given birth to a monster. When the king read it, he was deeply troubled, but he wrote back, "Care for the queen with great kindness until I return." The messenger set out again, rested at the same place, and fell asleep again. Once more the devil came and slipped a different letter into his pocket. This one said, "Kill the queen and her child, and keep her tongue and her eyes as proof that you obeyed." The old mother was horrified when she read it, and she could not believe it.

The old mother wept at the thought of killing two innocent people. So that night she had a deer brought to her, and she took its tongue and its eyes and kept them. Then she said to the queen, "I will not carry out this order, but you can stay here no longer. Take your child and go into the wide world. Never come back." The poor queen tied her son on her back and left with tears running down her face.

She walked into a great wild forest and knelt down to pray. An angel of the Lord appeared and led her to a little house. Over the door hung a sign that read, "Here everyone may live in peace." A woman in snow-white clothes came out and said, "Welcome, dear queen." She took her inside, untied the little boy, and laid him in a fine little bed. "How do you know I was a queen?" asked the poor woman. "I am an angel," said the woman in white, "and I am sent to care for you and your child." The queen lived in that little house for seven years and needed nothing. And because she was good, and by God's grace, her hands, which had been cut off, grew back again.

At last the war ended, and the king hurried home. His first wish was to see his wife and his son. But his old mother met him with tears. "You cruel man," she cried, "why did you order me to kill two innocent people?" She showed him the two letters that the devil had forged. Then she showed him the tongue and the eyes. The king wept bitterly for his dear wife and his little boy. Seeing this, the old mother took pity on him. "Be at peace," she said. "They are alive. I secretly killed a deer and took these from it. I sent your wife away with the child and made her promise never to return, for I feared your anger." Then the king said, "I will travel as far as the sky is blue. I will not eat and I will not drink until I find my dear wife and my child — unless they have already died of hunger."

So the king set out and searched for seven long years. He looked into every rock and every cave, but he did not find her, and he feared that she had died. In all those years he ate nothing and drank nothing, yet heaven kept him alive. At last he came into a great forest and found the little house with the sign, "Here everyone may live in peace." The woman in white came out, took his hand, and led him inside. "Welcome, kind king," she said. "Where have you come from?" He answered, "For seven years I have been walking, looking for my wife and my child, and I cannot find them." The angel brought him food and drink, but he would not touch them. He only asked to rest. So he lay down, and he put a handkerchief over his face.

The angel then went to the room where the queen was sitting with her little boy. She called the boy Sorrowful. "Take your child and go out," said the angel. "Your husband has come." The queen went to the king's side, and the handkerchief fell from his face. "Sorrowful," she said, "pick up your father's handkerchief and cover his face again." The boy picked it up and laid it back. The king heard her voice in his sleep, and he let the handkerchief fall a second time, just to hear it again. But the boy grew cross. "Dear mother, I have no father in this world. You taught me to pray to my Father in heaven, the good God. How can this wild-looking man be my father?" At that, the king sat up and asked who they were. "I am your wife," she said, "and this is your son, Sorrowful." He looked at her hands and said, "My wife has silver hands." She answered, "God has given me my own hands again." Then the angel brought out the silver hands and showed them to him. Now he knew that this was truly his dear wife and his child. He kissed them both with joy and said, "A heavy stone has fallen from my heart." The angel shared one meal with them, and then they all went home to the old mother. There was great joy everywhere. The king and the queen were married once more, and they lived in peace to the end of their days. The pure in heart may suffer long, but in the end goodness wins.