Mistress Trudy

I have long wanted to share some of my favorite German fairy tales from my youth.  They will be short, reworked as best I can translate or interpret the ideas behind them.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who was stubborn and inquisitive, and whenever her parents told her to do something, she would never obey.

One day she said to her parents, "I have heard so much about Mistress Trudy; I will call on her sometime.  People say that her house looks queer and that there are many strange things in it.  I have become quite curious."

Her parents strictly forbade her going there and said, "Mistress Trudy is a wicked woman, given to evil things, and if you go there, we will disown you."

The girl paid no attention, however, to her parents' orders and went straight away to Mistress Trudy's.  When she got there, Mistress Trudy asked her, "Why are you so pale?"

"Oh, " she answered, shaking all over, "I am frightened at what I have seen!"

"What have you seen?"

"I saw a black man on your stairs."

"That was the charcoal burner."

"Then I saw a green man."

"That was a huntsman."

"Then I saw a blood red man."

"That was the butcher."

"Oh, Mistress Trudy," the girl shuddered", "I looked through the window and I did not see you but the devil with his fiery head."

"Is that so!", she said.  "Then you saw the witch in her proper garb.  I  have been waiting for you for a long time now and have longed for you.  Now you shall furnish me with light."

There upon she transformed the girl into a log and threw it in the fire, and when it was all aglow, she sat down beside it and, warming herself at it, said, "That really does give a bright light."