Grimms' Fairy Tales
A certain king's golden apples are vanishing nightly, and only his gardener's youngest son glimpses the thief: a bird of pure gold. So begins this collection of tales gathered by the brothers Grimm, in which a humble third son sets out to capture the golden bird and, against his elder brothers' cruelty and his own moments of weakness, learns to heed a wise talking fox. Across these stories, kings issue impossible tasks, animals offer counsel, and the kind and patient win what the greedy and proud cannot.
These are the foundational fairy tales of the Western imagination, where enchantment turns on simple choices between humility and pride, mercy and violence, obedience and folly. Their power lies in their stark moral clarity and the strange beauty of their magic. Passed down through generations, the Grimms' tales endure because they speak plainly to the oldest human hopes and fears.
How it begins
A certain king had a beautiful garden, and in the garden stood a tree which bore golden apples. These apples were always counted, and about the time when they began to grow ripe it was found that every night one of them was gone. The king became very angry at this, and ordered the gardener to keep watch all night under the tree. The gardener set his eldest son to watch; but about twelve o’clock he fell asleep, and in the morning another of the apples was missing. Then the second son was ordered to watch; and at midnight he too fell asleep, and in the morning another apple was gone. Then the third son offered to keep watch; but the gardener at first would not let him, for fear some harm should come to him: however, at last he consented, and the young man laid himself under the tree to watch. As the clock struck twelve he heard a rustling noise in the air, and a bird came flying that was of pure gold; and as it was snapping at one of the apples with its beak, the gardener’s son jumped up and shot an arrow at it. But the arrow did the bird no harm; only it dropped a golden feather from its tail, and then flew away.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain.