The Four Skillful Brothers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Four Skillful Brothers is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 129. It is Aarne-Thompson type 653.
[edit] Synopsis
A poor man sent his sons out to learn trades. Each met a man and did not want to learn his trade, but was persuaded, so the oldest became a thief, the second an astronomer, the third a huntsman, the fourth a tailor. When they returned, their father put them to the test. He asked his second son how many eggs there were in a nest, high on the tree, and the second used his telescope to tell him five. Then the eldest went up and stole them without the bird's being aware; the third shot all of them with one shot; the fourth sewed both the chicks and the eggs back up, so that when the eldest put them back without the mother bird noticing, they hatched, the only sign being some red thread about their necks.
Not long after, the king's daughter was stolen by a dragon. The brothers set out to rescue her. The astronomer used his telescope to find her and asked for a ship to reach where it kept her captive. The huntsman did not dare shoot the dragon for fear of killing her as well. The thief, however, stole her, and they set out back to the king. The dragon followed, and the huntsman killed him, but the fall swamped the boat. The tailor sewed it back together again.
The king did not know which man to give his daughter to, because all had been essential. He gave them each half a kingdom instead, and they agreed that that was better than their quarreling.
