“Aha, is that you?” cried the soldier. “Get to work now! Go fetch the broom and sweep the room.” When she was finished he called her to his chair, stuck his feet out at her, and said, “Pull off my boots,” then threw them in her face, and she had to pick them up and clean them and make them shine.
I had been wondering if “maid service” was a euphemism. I suppose it could be worse. But my sympathy is definitely gone. I realize that the king’s a dick, but I’m pretty sure his daughter didn’t have anything to do with the military pension situation, and you’re using your amazing magic tinderbox just so you can throw boots at her head?
She did everything that he ordered her to do, without resisting, silently, and with half-closed eyes.
Nothing creepy ’bout that at all.
At the first cock’s crow, the dwarf carried her to the royal palace and back to her bed.
The next morning, after the king’s daughter had gotten up, she went to her father and told him that she had had an amazing dream. “I was carried away through the streets as fast as lightning and taken to a soldier’s room. I had to serve as his maid and wait on him and do common work, sweep the room, and clean his boots. It was only a dream, but still I am as tired as if I had really done it all.”
“The dream could have been true,” said the king. “I will give you some advice. Fill your pocket with peas, then make a small hole in your pocket. If you are carried away again, they will fall out and leave a track on the street.”
The king may be a dick, but this is really rather clever. (In other versions he sees a spot of boot-grease on her face, which explains a little better why he was willing to believe that this was really happening.)
As the king was thus speaking, the dwarf was invisibly standing nearby and heard everything.
Honestly, the dwarf deserves Employee of the Year. You notice that the soldier never thanks him for any of this.
That night when he once again carried the sleeping princess through the streets, a few peas did indeed fall out of her pocket, but they did not leave a track, because the cunning dwarf had already scattered peas in all the streets. And once again the king’s daughter had to do maid service until the cock crowed.
The next morning the king sent his people out to look for the track, but it was to no end, for in all the streets there were poor children gathering peas and saying, “Last night it rained peas.”
Personally I might have just closed up her pocket, but I suppose if one of your superpowers is making it rain peas, you take any chance you can to use it. I would imagine this annoys the heck out of the dwarf ’s friends. “Damnit, Bob! We’re just locked out of the house here! This is not an appropriate situation for the rain of peas!”
“We must think of something else,” said the king. “Leave your shoes on when you go to bed, and before you return from there, hide one of them. I will be sure to find it.”
The black dwarf overheard this proposal, and that evening when the soldier again wanted the king’s daughter brought to him, the dwarf advised him against this, saying that he had no way to protect him against such trickery. If the shoe were to be found in his room, it would not go well with him.
Let me get this straight. The dwarf can make it rain vegetables, go invisible, drag witches off to be tried fairly by a jury of their peers (I am clinging to this one, damnit) and smuggle sleeping women all over town, but if somebody throws a shoe under the bed, he’s powerless?
“Do what I tell you,” replied the soldier, and for a third night the king’s daughter had to work like a maid. But before she was carried back, she hid a shoe under the bed.
Maybe the dwarf is a recovering brownie, and he can’t touch shoes. He’ll lose his mind if shoes get involved. He had to join Shoes Anonymous for recovering fairy cobblers.
On the other hand, it’s a fairy tale, and there are so many red-hot iron shoes, shoes that make you dance endlessly, shoes that cause passing farmhouses to fall on your head, etc, that maybe he’s being quite sensible about this.
The next morning the king had the entire city searched for the shoe, and it was found in the soldier’s room. The soldier himself, following the little man’s request, was already outside the city gate, but they soon overtook him and threw him into prison.
Bet you wish you’d kept that tomcat-as-fast-as-the-wind now, huh?
In his haste, he had forgotten to take along his most valuable things: the blue light and the gold.
Translation: The soldier is too stupid to live. This is not like forgetting to pack your toothbrush.
He had only one ducat in his pocket. Standing at the window of his prison and weighted down with chains, he saw one of his comrades walking by. He knocked on the glass, and as he walked by, he said, “Be so good and bring me the little bundle that I left at the inn. I’ll give you a ducat for it.”
The comrade ran forth and brought back the desired things. As soon as the soldier was alone again, he lit his pipe and summoned the black dwarf. “Have no fear,” he said to his master. “Just go where they lead you, and let everything happen, but take the blue light with you.”
If I were the dwarf, I might be trying to shed this guy by now and go back to my nice well, which isn’t full of ingrates.
The next day the soldier was tried, and although he had done nothing wrong, the judge still sentenced
