One evening, as they were thus happy together, some one knocked to be let in. The mother said, “Quick, Rose-red, open the door; perhaps it is a traveller who seeks shelter.” Rose-red went and pushed the bolt back, and thought it was a poor man; but a bear stretched his thick black head into the door. Rose-red screamed and sprang back, the little lamb bleated, the little dove fluttered about, and Snow-white hid herself behind her mother’s bed. However, the bear began to speak, and said, “Do not be frightened, I will do you no harm; I am half frozen, and only want to warm myself a little.”
“You poor bear,” said the mother, “lay yourself down before the fire, only take care your fur does not burn.” Then she called out: “Snow-white and Rose-red, come out; the bear will not hurt you—he means honestly by us.” Then they both came out, and, by degrees, the lamb and the dove also approached, and ceased to be afraid. The bear said, “Children, knock the snow a little out of my fur;” and they fetched a broom, and swept the bear’s skin clean; and he stretched himself before the fire and growled softly, like a bear that was quite happy and comfortable. In a short time they all became quite friendly together, and the children played tricks with the awkward guest. They pulled his hair, set their feet on his back, and rolled him here and there; or took a hazel rod and beat him, and when he growled they laughed. The bear was very much pleased with this frolic, only, when they became too mischievous, he called out: “Children, leave me alone.
“Little Snow-white and Rose-red,
You will strike your lover dead.”
When bedtime came, and the others went to sleep, the mother said to the bear: “You can lie there on the hearth, and then you will be sheltered from the cold and the bad weather.” At daybreak the two children let him out, and he trotted over the snow into the wood. Henceforward the bear came every evening at the same hour, laid himself on the hearth, and allowed the children to play with him as much as they liked; and they became so used to him that the door was never bolted until their black companion had arrived. When spring came, and everything was green out-of-doors, the bear said one morning to Snow-white: “Now I must go away, and may not come again the whole summer.”
“Where are you going, dear Bear?” asked Snow-white.
“I must go into the wood, and guard my treasures from the bad dwarfs; in winter, when the ground is frozen hard, they have to stay underneath, and cannot work their way through, but now that the sun has thawed and warmed the earth, they break through, come up, seek, and steal; what is once in their hands, and lies in their caverns, does not come so easily into daylight again.” Snow-white was quite sorrowful at parting, and as she unbolted the door for him, and the bear ran out, the hook of the door caught him, and a piece of his skin tore off; it seemed to Snow-white as if she had seen gold shining through, but she was not sure. But the bear ran quickly away, and soon disappeared behind the trees.
After some time, their mother sent the children into the wood to collect fagots. They found there a large tree, which had been cut down and lay on the ground, and by the trunk something was jumping up and down, but they could not tell what it was. As they came nearer they saw that it was a dwarf with an old withered face, and a snow-white beard a yard long. The end of the beard was stuck fast in a cleft in the tree, and the little fellow jumped about like a dog on a rope, and did not know how to help himself. He stared at the girls with his fiery red eyes, and screamed out: “Why do you stand there? Can’t you come and render me some assistance?”
“What is the matter with you, little man?” asked Rose-red.
“Stupid little goose!” answered the dwarf; “I wanted to chop the tree, so as to have some small pieces of wood for the kitchen; we only want little bits; with thick logs the small quantity of food that we cook for ourselves—we are not, like you, great greedy people—burns directly. I had driven the wedge well in, and it was all going on right, but the detestable wood was too smooth, and sprang out unexpectedly; and the tree closed up so quickly that I could not pull my beautiful white beard out; now it is sticking there, and I can’t get away. There, you foolish, soft, milk-faces, you are laughing and crying out: ‘How ugly you are! how ugly you are!’”
The children took a great deal of trouble, but they could not pull the beard out; it stuck too fast.