Soon, every one who had come to the market-place out of curiosity, old and young, fat and lean, were dancing as hard as they could; even the dogs got upon their hind legs, and pranced about with the rest. The longer he played, the higher they jumped, till they knocked their heads together, and made each other cry out.
At last the Judge, quite out of breath, cried: ‘I will give you your life, if only you will stop playing.’
The honest Servant allowed himself to be prevailed upon, laid his fiddle aside, and came down the ladder. Then he went up to the Jew, who lay upon the ground gasping, and said to him:
‘You rascal, confess where you got the money, or I will begin to play again.’
‘I stole it! I stole it!’ he screamed; ‘but you have honestly earned it.’
The Judge then ordered the Jew to the gallows to be hanged as a thief.
Ashenputtel
THE wife of a rich man fell ill, and when she felt that she was nearing her end, she called her only daughter to her bedside, and said:
‘Dear child, continue devout and good, then God will always help you, and I will look down upon you from heaven, and watch over you.’