# Hans in Luck _Retold by Talerie (talerie.com) from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm_ · 7 min read · ages 4+ Hans trades the lump of gold he earned in seven years for a horse, the horse for a cow, the cow for a pig, the pig for a goose, and the goose for a grindstone and a heavy stone. When both stones slip into a well, Hans jumps for joy, thanks God for freeing him from them, and runs home to his mother with a light heart. --- Once upon a time there was a young man named Hans who had served his master for seven years. “Master,” he said one day, “my time is up. I’d like to go home to my mother. Please give me my wages.” “You have served me faithfully,” said the master, “and your reward shall be just as good.” And he gave Hans a lump of gold as big as his head. Hans wrapped the gold in his handkerchief, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and set off for home. On the road a rider came trotting merrily by on a lively horse. “Ah,” said Hans out loud, “what a fine thing it is to ride! You sit as if you were in a chair, and you never trip over stones.” The rider pulled up. “Then why are you walking, Hans?” “I have to carry this lump home,” said Hans. “It’s gold, but I can’t hold my head straight, and it hurts my shoulder.” “I’ll tell you what,” said the rider. “Let’s trade: my horse for your lump.” “Gladly,” said Hans. The rider took the gold and helped Hans into the saddle. “If you want to go fast,” he said, “click your tongue and call out, ‘Jup! Jup!’” Hans rode off, delighted, but soon he wanted to go faster. He clicked his tongue and called, “Jup! Jup!” The horse broke into a sharp trot, and before Hans knew it, he was lying in the ditch. A countryman coming along with a cow caught the horse before it could run off. “Riding is no fun at all,” Hans told him crossly, “especially on a mare who throws you so hard you could break your neck. A cow is another matter. You can walk quietly behind her, and you get milk, butter, and cheese every day.” “Well,” said the countryman, “if it would make you that happy, I’ll trade you my cow for your horse.” Hans agreed gladly, and the countryman rode off on the horse. Hans drove the cow along, pleased with his bargain, and said to himself, “As long as I have bread, I’ll have butter and cheese to go with it, and milk whenever I’m thirsty. What more could I want?” At an inn he was in such high spirits that he ate all his food at once and spent his last pennies on beer. By noon the sun beat down on the moor Hans had to cross, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. “I’ll milk the cow and have a drink,” he thought. He tied her to a dead tree and held his leather cap under her, but not a drop came. He was so clumsy about it that the cow kicked him in the head, and for a long time he lay dazed on the ground. Luckily, a butcher came by just then with a young pig in his wheelbarrow. He helped Hans to his feet and handed him his flask. “That cow will never give milk,” he said. “She’s old, fit only for the plow or for the butcher.” “Who would have thought it?” said Hans. “I don’t much care for beef anyway. Now a young pig like yours, that’s the thing to have. And think of the sausages!” “Listen, Hans,” said the butcher, “just to please you, I’ll trade my pig for your cow.” “Heaven reward you for your kindness!” said Hans, and he handed over the cow and took the pig on its cord. Hans walked on, sure that everything was going his way. Soon a boy carrying a fine white goose to a christening feast fell in beside him, and Hans told him about his lucky bargains. “Just lift her,” said the boy. “She’s been fattened for eight weeks. Whoever gets a bite of her will have to wipe the fat from both sides of his mouth.” “She’s a good weight,” said Hans, “but so is my pig.” The boy glanced warily this way and that. “Look here,” he said, “in the village back there, somebody stole the Mayor’s own pig right out of its sty. I’m afraid it’s the one you’ve got. If they catch you with it, they’ll lock you up.” Hans was terrified. “Oh, help me out of this fix!” he said. “Take my pig and give me your goose.” “It could land me in trouble too,” said the boy, “but I don’t want you getting caught.” He took the cord and hurried the pig away down a side path. Free of his worries, Hans went on with the goose under his arm. “I’ve even come out ahead,” he said to himself. “First there’s the roast, then all the fat, and then the white feathers for my pillow. How happy my mother will be!” In the last village, a scissors-grinder stood at his barrow, and as his wheel whirred, he sang: I sharpen scissors, I turn and grind, and my coat flies out in the wind behind. “You must be doing well,” said Hans, “to be so merry at your grinding.” “Yes,” said the grinder, “a real grinder finds money every time he puts his hand in his pocket. But where did you buy that fine goose?” “I didn’t buy it. I traded my pig for it.” “And the pig?” “I got that for a cow.” “And the cow?” “I got her for a horse.” “And the horse?” “For that I gave a lump of gold as big as my head.” “And the gold?” “That was my wages for seven years’ work.” “You’ve done well for yourself every time,” said the grinder. “Now if you could only hear money jingling in your pocket whenever you stand up, you’d have made your fortune. All you need is a grindstone. I have one here, a little worn, and I’ll take nothing for it but your goose.” “How can you even ask?” said Hans. “I’ll be the luckiest man on earth!” He handed over the goose and took the grindstone. “And here,” said the grinder, picking up an ordinary heavy stone from the ground, “is a good strong stone to go with it. You can hammer your old nails straight on it.” Hans loaded himself with both stones and went on, eyes shining. “I must have been born under a lucky star!” he cried. “Everything I could want just falls into my lap.” But he had been walking since daybreak, and he was tired and hungry, for he had eaten all his food at the inn. The stones weighed him down, and he couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be not to carry them. At a snail’s pace he reached a well in a field. He laid the stones carefully on its edge, sat down, and leaned over to drink. But he slipped, knocked against the stones, and both of them splashed into the water. When Hans saw them sink to the bottom, he jumped for joy. Then he knelt down and, with tears in his eyes, thanked God for taking the heavy stones off his hands without his having to throw them away himself, for they had been his only trouble. “There’s no man under the sun as lucky as I am!” he cried. And with a light heart, free of every burden, he ran all the way home to his mother. --- ## About this tale The Brothers Grimm added Hans in Luck to their Kinder- und Haus-Märchen in 1819, as no. 83 of the second edition; it is not in the first. Their source was in print: August Wernicke had published it in 1818 in Wünschelruthe, a Göttingen periodical, as a tale from oral tradition. Wernicke called his hero Hans Wohlgemut and named two places. The Grimms dropped the surname and the place names and reworked several scenes; their 1819 text is already close to that of 1857. Our two English versions, the shorter under Gentler and the fuller under Original, both retell Margaret Hunt’s translation. > I sharpen scissors, I turn and grind, > and my coat flies out in the wind behind. > > Brothers Grimm, 1857: ich schleife die Scheere und drehe geschwind, / und hänge mein Mäntelchen nach dem Wind. ### Two of our sources: Wernicke’s text of 1818 and the Grimms’ of 1857 | | Wernicke 1818 | Grimm 1857 | | --- | --- | --- | | The hero | Hans Wohlgemut | Hans | | The gold | no great trouble, he is strong | can’t hold his head straight, hurts his shoulder | | Pig for the cow | Hans asks the butcher | the butcher offers | | Place names | Susewedel, Gernefraß | none | | The whetstone | Hans begs, gets the most useless one | the grinder offers a slightly damaged one | | Lucky saying | after the goose | after the stones | | Into the well | the stones simply fall in | he knocks against them | ### What our retelling does Each of our versions keeps the whole chain: Hans gives his lump of gold for a horse, the horse for a cow, the cow for a young pig and the pig for a fat white goose. The boy with the goose tells Hans that the Mayor’s pig was stolen from its sty and that he fears it is the one Hans has; Hans, afraid of being caught, begs the boy to take the pig and hand over the goose, and the boy drives the pig off down a side path. A scissors-grinder then offers a worn grindstone for the goose and adds an ordinary heavy stone for straightening nails. At a well Hans slips as he bends to drink and knocks both stones into the water; he thanks God on his knees and runs home to his mother. Where Hunt has Hans say he was born with a caul, both our versions say he was born under a lucky star. On the moor the cow kicks Hans in the head and he lies dazed for a long time, but a passing butcher helps him to his feet and gives him a drink. Our Original version tells the same events at greater length, down to the half glass of beer Hans buys at the inn. ### Related tales and one mix-up The Grimms point to the jest of Block and the tailor Bock, where seven ells of cloth meant for a coat shrink step by step into a belt. Among the relatives Bolte and Polívka list is the English Mr. Vinegar, and in a number of their versions the hero bets on how his wife will take his trades: in a Danish chapbook of 1756 a farmer trades his cow for a goat, the goat for a cock and the cock for a flute, bets 400 gulden that his wife will not say a cross word, and wins. Hans has no wife and makes no bet. As an early echo Bolte and Polívka cite Murner (1512), who mentions a fool who traded a donkey for a pipe. On our site this tale is easy to confuse with Jack and the Beanstalk, where a boy also trades away a cow, in his case for beans. Jack’s beans grow right up to the sky, while each of Hans’s bargains leaves him with less. Sources (claims checked against them on 2026-10-30): - 1818: Hans Wohlgemut, August Wernicke, Wünschelruthe. Ein Zeitblatt, no. 33, Göttingen 1818, pp. 129–131 (https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Hans_Wohlgemut) - 1819: Hans im Glück, Kinder- und Haus-Märchen, 2nd ed., Berlin 1819, vol. 1, no. 83, pp. 423–430 (https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Hans_im_Gl%C3%BCck_(1819)) - 1857: Hans im Glück, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, 7th ed., Göttingen 1857, vol. 1, no. 83, pp. 417–422 (https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Hans_im_Glück_(1857)) - 1856: Kinder- und Haus-Märchen, Band 3: Anmerkungen, 3rd ed., Göttingen 1856, no. 83 „Hans im Glück“, p. 144 (https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Kinder-_und_Haus-M%C3%A4rchen_Band_3_(1856)/Anmerkungen) - Hans in Luck, Household Tales by Brothers Grimm, trans. Margaret Hunt, Project Gutenberg #5314, no. 83 [our source] (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5314) - 1915: Johannes Bolte, Georg Polívka: Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm, vol. 2, Leipzig 1915, no. 83, pp. 199–203 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grimms_M%C3%A4rchen_Anmerkungen_(Bolte_Polivka)_II_199.jpg) - Wikidata Q11827, ATU 1415 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11827) --- - Read online: https://talerie.com/en/tales/hans-in-luck - Version: gentler retelling; the longer, more faithful retelling: https://talerie.com/en/tales/hans-in-luck-original.md - Also in: [German](https://talerie.com/de/maerchen/hans-im-glueck.md), [French](https://talerie.com/fr/contes/jean-le-chanceux.md), [Spanish](https://talerie.com/es/cuentos/juan-con-suerte.md), [Portuguese](https://talerie.com/pt/contos/joao-felizardo.md), [Czech](https://talerie.com/cs/pohadky/jak-honza-ke-stesti-prisel.md), [Polish](https://talerie.com/pl/bajki/szczesliwy-jas.md) - Author's country: Germany (https://talerie.com/en/tales/country/germany) - Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11827 - Tale type: ATU 1415 (per Wikidata) - Source: Household Tales by Brothers Grimm, trans. Margaret Hunt (Project Gutenberg #5314) (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5314) - Public-domain basis: Talerie contemporary retelling (CC0 2026), based on: Household Tales by Brothers Grimm, trans. Margaret Hunt (Project Gutenberg #5314) — translation: author died 1859/1863 (+70 passed); translator Margaret Hunt died 1912 (+70 passed) - License: CC0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)