The Nixie of the Mill-Pond
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The Nixie of the Mill-Pond is a German fairy tale. The Brothers Grimm collected in in their Grimm's Fairy Tales, as tale number 181. Andrew Lang included a version in The Yellow Fairy Book, citing his source Hermann Kletke and titling it The Nixy.
It is Aarne-Thompson type 316, the nix of the mill-pond.
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[edit] Synopsis
A miller became poor. A nixie appeared to him and promised to make him wealthy again if he promised her what had just been born in his house. Thinking it a kitten or puppy, he promised, and returned home to find that his wife had had a son. He never let the boy go near the pond.
The boy grew up, became a hunter and skilled enough to be taken into a lord's service, and married. One day he chased a deer long before he brought it down, and went to wash in the millpond. The nixie seized him at once. His wife went to the mill pond, weeping and calling for him, but saw nothing. She fell asleep and dreamed of climbing a nearby hill and finding an old woman. When she woke, she climbed it, and the old woman was there. The woman gave her a golden comb and told her to comb her hair by the pond and then lay it on the sand. The nixie snatched it away and showed her her husband's head. The woman went back, and received a gold flute, to play and do the same as with the comb; this time, her husband's head and half his body appeared. The third time, she received a golden spinning wheel; with this, all of her husband appeared, and he snatched his wife's hand and fled with her. The nixie tried to drown them, but the woman called on the old woman, who turned her into a toad and him into a frog. The flood separated them. They regained their human forms on dry land, but far apart.
They both became shepherds. They met without recognizing each other, but the man played on the flute, which reminded her of when she had played a flute to rescue him, and she wept. When she told him why, they recognized each other.
[edit] See also
- The Sea-Maiden
- The White Dove
- The Battle of the Birds
- King Kojata
- Nix Nought Nothing
- The Mermaid and the Boy
- The Grateful Prince
[edit] References
- Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Grimm's Fairy Tales
- Andrew Lang, The Yellow Fairy Book
