# Bambi _Felix Salten_ · 15 min read · ages 8-12 Bambi, a fawn born deep in the forest, learns to fear Man, whom the deer call Him, and loses his mother one frozen morning of thunder in the snow. Years later, his face turning gray, Bambi finds two fawns crying in a summer thicket, tells the little buck his mother has no time for him now, and walks on into the forest. --- The fawn was born deep in a thicket, in one of those little forest hollows that look open on every side yet hide what lies inside. He stood on his thin legs, swaying and dazed, his red coat sprinkled with white spots. His mother washed him with her tongue, and as he drank, she whispered, “Bambi. My little Bambi.” Bambi trotted behind his mother along the narrow deer paths and asked questions all day long. One morning the bushes ended, and bright light opened up ahead. “That is the meadow,” said his mother. She stood listening and testing the wind, and then she spoke more seriously than ever before. “Going out on the meadow is a dangerous thing. I’ll go first. Keep your eyes on me. If you see me run back in here, turn and run. Even if you see me fall, pay no attention to me. Just run, as fast as you can. Do you promise?” “Yes,” said Bambi softly. “And when I call you, come to my side at once. At my very first call.” “Yes,” said Bambi, more softly still. At last she called, “Come!” Bambi leaped out under the wide sky and jumped for joy again and again, until his mother raced past and cried, “Catch me!” and he flew after her through the swishing grass. One evening he met Friend Hare, who bowed and said, “Good evening, young sir.” He met his mother’s cousin, Aunt Ena, and her twins, Gobo and Faline. Faline was the merriest of them all. Gobo was small and tired easily, and Bambi loved him for his gentleness. As the summer went on, his mother began to leave him alone, and one day she was simply gone. Bambi called, “Mother… Mother…” but nobody came. He wandered on, and in a small clearing he stopped as if rooted to the spot. Beside a hazel bush stood a figure he had never seen before. It was strangely upright and narrow, and its pale face was bare around the nose and eyes. It was so dreadful that Bambi could not look away. Then the figure raised an arm, and that gesture alone sent Bambi flying like a feather in the wind. He fled, and all at once his mother was running beside him. They ran until they were home. “Did you… see?” his mother asked quietly. Bambi had no breath left. He only nodded. “That… was… Him,” said his mother. And they both shivered. After that, Bambi was often left alone. One day he began to call for his mother again, and suddenly a great buck stood before him, his coat deep red and his face already silver-gray. “Why are you calling?” the old buck asked sternly. Bambi trembled and could not answer. “Your mother has no time for you now. Can’t you be alone? Shame on you!” Then he was gone without a sound. Later Faline told Bambi who it had been: the old prince, the greatest buck in the forest. Bambi kept the old prince’s words to himself. But he stopped calling for his mother. One dewy morning, by the great oak, Bambi saw a young prince standing close by, half hidden in a hazel bush. “I’ll say good morning to him,” Bambi thought, gathering his courage. The young prince stepped out into the open. A thunderclap rang out. Everyone fled, and after a few leaps Bambi came upon the young prince lying on the ground. He had been shot through the shoulder, and he was dead. “Don’t stop!” cried Bambi’s mother, galloping past. “Run! Run as fast as you can!” “What was it, Mother?” Bambi asked as they ran. “That… was… Him!” she panted. Afterward a crow in the branches said gravely, “The prince didn’t die because he was proud or foolish. He died because no one can escape Him.” Then the old prince stepped out of the bushes. “Where is your mother?” he asked. “I don’t know,” said Bambi, and he found his courage. “You scolded me once, Old Prince, because I couldn’t be alone. I can now. Who is He, the one they all talk about?” The old prince looked at him for a long while. “Listen, smell, and see for yourself,” he said. “Find out for yourself. Farewell.” Winter came, with snow and hunger, and the deer kept together: Aunt Ena with Gobo and Faline; sharp-tongued old Mrs. Nettla; Marena, a young doe almost grown; and sometimes the bucks, stately Prince Ronno and young Karus, whom Bambi adored. They talked about Him, and about the third hand He carried over His shoulder, which threw fire and thunder from far away. “They say that one day He will come among us and be gentle, as we are,” said Marena. Mrs. Nettla laughed out loud. “He can stay where He is and leave us in peace!” All winter Gobo grew weaker, until he could barely stand. One frozen morning the crows came flying from the edge of the forest, and a wave of that dreadful smell rolled over the deer. “We’re surrounded,” whispered Friend Hare. “He is everywhere!” Then His voices rose on every side, twenty, thirty at once, shouting and beating on the tree trunks. Aunt Ena slipped away with her children. The thunder began, and pheasant after pheasant fell from the air. “Bambi, my child,” said his mother, “stay right behind me. When we reach the clearing, run as fast as you can. And remember, Bambi, my child: even if you see me fall, pay no attention to me. Just run, as fast as you can.” Friend Hare dashed out onto the clearing ahead of them. The thunder banged, and he turned a soft somersault in mid-run and lay still. The shot had killed him. “Now!” said his mother, and she sprang into the open. Bambi raced after her. Thunder crashed on every side, and he only ran. It seemed to him that he had seen his mother fall, but he could not be sure. He did not stop. In the next thicket a pheasant lay dying in the snow. Farther on, the hare’s wife called out to Bambi. She had been shot, and her hind legs would not move. “Couldn’t you help me a little?” she asked calmly. “I can’t seem to walk just now…” In the middle of the sentence she sank onto her side and died. Bambi ran on. “Bambi!” Gobo lay half buried in the snow, too weak to stand. “Get up, Gobo!” cried Bambi. “Come with me!” “I can’t,” said Gobo quietly. “Mother and Faline had to leave me. You have to go too. I’ll probably die.” Just then Karus galloped by. “Run!” he shouted. “Keep going, if you still can!” His flight swept Bambi along, and only much later did Bambi say, “Goodbye, Gobo.” By then Gobo could no longer hear him. That night Mrs. Nettla took Bambi and Faline under her care, grumbling all the while. Aunt Ena came back weeping. Gobo was gone from the place where he had fallen, and the only tracks in the snow were His. “Aunt Ena,” Bambi asked, “have you seen my mother?” “No,” said Aunt Ena softly. Bambi never saw his mother again. In spring Bambi grew his first antlers, and it was a hard year: the grown bucks chased him off wherever they saw him, Ronno and Karus worst of all. But by the next summer his antlers stood tall and bright. One hot day he met Faline again, grown and lovely. They played chase as they had long ago, and when he caught her, he asked, “Do you love me, Faline?” “If you ask me nicely,” she said, teasing, “I’ll stay with you.” And she was off again. Bambi was racing after her when Karus burst out of the bushes. “Get away! I forbid you to chase Faline!” Bambi remembered every chase of that hard year, and without a word he lowered his antlers and threw himself at Karus. After three blows Karus fled. Then Bambi heard Faline cry out. Ronno was chasing her. “Well, well,” said Ronno, “little Bambi! Have you forgotten how often I drove you off?” They crashed together, a tine of Ronno’s antlers snapped, and Ronno went down. “Let me go,” he begged. “You know I limp from an old wound.” Bambi let him go. Faline stepped out of the trees. She had seen everything. “That was wonderful,” she said, laughing, and then, quietly, “I love you.” One blazing afternoon Bambi woke from a deep sleep in the bushes. Faline was gone, and from somewhere came her voice, soft and longing: “Come… come…” Bambi leaped up, and there stood the old prince, blocking his way. “Don’t go,” said the old prince. “She isn’t calling.” “Come…” the voice called again. “There, listen!” cried Bambi. “Let me go! I’ll come back later!” “No,” said the old prince sadly. “You won’t come back. Not ever. Very well, we’ll go together. Slowly. Stay behind me, step by step.” He led Bambi in wide, silent curves, and not a twig cracked under his hooves. At last the sharp smell hit Bambi full in the face. There He stood, pressed against an oak and half hidden by hazel bushes, and it was He who was calling softly in Faline’s voice, “Come… come…” Bambi went cold with terror. “Quiet!” whispered the old prince, and he led him away as slowly as they had come. When Bambi found Faline again, he said, “Please, never call me when we’re apart. We’ll search until we find each other. But don’t call me, because I can’t resist your voice.” Some days later a plump young buck came strolling across the meadow as if there were no danger in the world. “Don’t you know me?” he called. It was Gobo. “Aren’t you dead?” asked Bambi. “He saved me,” said Gobo proudly. Half the forest gathered to hear how the dogs had found him in the snow, how He had called them off and carried Gobo away, and how all winter he had lived with Him, warm and dry, fed on sweet hay. “If He loves you and you serve Him,” said Gobo, “He is good. Wonderfully good.” Then the old prince stepped silently out of the bushes. “What is that stripe on your neck?” he asked. Now everyone saw it: a ring of rubbed, flattened hair all the way around Gobo’s neck. “That’s from the collar I wore,” Gobo stammered. “His collar. It’s the greatest honor to wear His collar…” The old prince looked at him long and sadly. “Unhappy one,” he said quietly, and he was gone. From then on Gobo and Marena went everywhere together. Gobo strolled on the open meadow in broad daylight, and when Bambi warned him, he only laughed. “Danger is for you, not for me.” One morning a jay screamed a warning, then the magpies, then the crows. Marena peeked out onto the meadow and came flying back, trembling. “He’s there, by the alders!” “Then I’ll go and greet Him,” said Gobo, and nobody could hold him back. Gobo walked out into the open. The thunder cracked, and he spun around and raced back into the thicket, where he collapsed. The shot had torn open his side. “Marena…” he said with great effort. “He didn’t know me…” The bushes crashed as He came closer, and Marena fled. Looking back once, she saw Him bend over Gobo. Then they heard Gobo’s death cry. After that, Bambi kept to himself. One day the old prince led him to a hare caught by the neck in a wire snare, and patiently worked a tine under the wire until the hare ran free. “Didn’t your Gobo tell you that He is almighty and all-good?” the old prince said bitterly. “Isn’t He almighty?” whispered Bambi. “Just as much as He is all-good,” the old prince growled. “You must learn to live, Bambi, and to be on your guard.” One night Faline found Bambi and looked at him sadly. “Do you still love me?” she asked. “I don’t know,” said Bambi, and she went quietly away. At dawn Bambi stepped out onto the misty meadow. A thunderclap rang out, and a terrible blow made him stagger. He fled into the thicket with a burning pain in his leg and ran until he sank to the ground. “Get up, Bambi! Up!” The old prince stood over him. “Get up, my child! You must get away!” At those words Bambi was on his feet. The old prince led him in a wide circle until they were behind Him and His dog. There he made Bambi eat a few dark, bitter leaves, and soon the bleeding stopped and no trail of blood could give them away. Then he led Bambi across the deep ditch, which Bambi had never crossed before, to a hollow under a fallen beech, hidden by thick bushes. “You are safe here,” he said. “Stay.” Bambi lay there for many days while his wound healed, and the old prince stayed close. Even when he was well again, Bambi never went back across the ditch. Winter came again. One morning the old fox came stumbling past their hollow with one foreleg shattered by a shot, and a small, short-legged dog close behind him. The fox could go no farther. “Let me go home,” he begged. “We’re almost brothers, you and I.” “No! No! No!” barked the dog. “Traitor!” cried the fox, and the birds in the trees took up the cry. “You all belong to Him, as I do!” shouted the dog. “But I love Him and serve Him! He is almighty! He is above us! Everything that grows and lives comes from Him!” Then the dog seized the fox by the throat, and in a few moments the fox was dead. “That is the most terrible thing of all,” said the old prince quietly. “They believe what the dog says. They live in fear, they hate Him and themselves, and they kill one another for His sake.” Late that winter they heard thunder on their own side of the ditch. The old prince’s head was white now, and his eyes had grown dim. “Come,” he said. “We are going to Him. Don’t be afraid. I’m glad I can show you this before I go.” The old prince walked straight toward the dreadful smell, and Bambi followed. There in the trampled snow He lay, a poacher, His pale face turned up to the sky. A wound in His neck had killed Him. “Here we stand, right beside Him,” said the old prince. “Where is the danger now? Bambi, do you remember what Gobo said, and what the dog said? He is not almighty, as they say. He is not above us. He is beside us, and He is like us, because He knows fear and need and pain. Do you understand me?” “I think so,” whispered Bambi. “Then say it.” Bambi said, trembling, “There is Another above all of us. Above us and above Him.” “Then I can go,” said the old prince. They walked together a little way, until he stopped beside a tall ash tree. “Don’t follow me anymore, Bambi. My time is over. Now I must go and find a place to die.” Bambi wanted to speak. “No. When that hour comes, each of us is alone. Farewell, my son. I have loved you very much.” Bambi lived alone after that, as the old prince had taught him. Once, across the ditch, he saw Faline walking slowly, gray and old, and he did not call to her. His own face was turning gray. One hot summer morning, deep in the thicket, Bambi heard a thin, frightened crying. “Mother… Mother!” Two fawns stood there, a little brother and sister in red coats, left alone. Bambi stepped out before them, and they stared at him, speechless. “Your mother has no time for you now,” said Bambi sternly. He looked the little buck in the eyes. “Can’t you be alone?” Then Bambi slipped into the bushes. “I like that little one,” he thought. “Maybe I’ll meet him again when he’s grown.” He walked on and disappeared into the forest. --- - Read online: https://talerie.com/en/tales/bambi - Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q742753 - Source: Bambi. Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde, Felix Salten (Ullstein, Berlin 1923; Text nach Fischer Bücherei 1956, Projekt Gutenberg-DE) (https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/authors/felix-salten/books/bambi/) - Public-domain basis: Talerie contemporary retelling (CC0 2026), based on: Bambi. Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde, Felix Salten (Ullstein, Berlin 1923; Text nach Fischer Bücherei 1956, Projekt Gutenberg-DE) — original: author died 1945 (+70 passed) - License: CC0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)