# Iron Hans _Brothers Grimm_ · 11 min read · ages 6-12 A king’s son opens a wild man’s iron cage and is carried off into the forest, where his hair turns gold at the golden well and the wild man sends him into the world. As a gardener’s boy he wins the king’s war and three golden apples, marries the princess, and Iron Hans comes to the wedding as a freed king. --- There was once a king whose castle stood beside a great forest full of wild game. He sent a huntsman to bring back a roe deer, but the man never returned. The next day he sent two more, and they too were gone. On the third day he sent every huntsman he had, telling them not to stop until all three were found, but none came home, nor any hound. After that, no one dared enter the forest, and it lay silent for years. At last a huntsman from another land offered to go in himself. Warned he would likely fare no better than the others, he said he knew nothing of fear, and went in with his dog. Before long the dog caught a scent and ran ahead, but at a deep pool a bare arm shot out of the water, seized it, and dragged it under. The huntsman fetched three men with buckets to empty the pool, and at the bottom lay a wild man, brown as rusted iron, his hair hanging past his knees. They bound him and led him to the castle, where the king shut him in an iron cage in the courtyard and forbade, on pain of death, that the door be opened. The queen alone kept the key. From then on the forest was safe again. The king had a son of eight, and one day the boy’s golden ball rolled into the cage as he played. “Give me my ball,” he said. The wild man said he would, once the door was open, but the boy refused and ran off. The next day he came back and asked again, and again the wild man asked to be let out, and again the boy would not. On the third day, with the king away hunting, the boy returned and said he had no key. The wild man told him it lay under his mother’s pillow. Wanting his ball badly enough, the boy fetched the key, and though the heavy door pinched his fingers he got it open. The wild man stepped out, handed him the ball, and strode away. Frightened of what awaited him now, the boy begged him not to go, or he would be punished, and the wild man turned back, lifted him onto his shoulders, and carried him into the forest. When the king came home and found the cage empty and the boy gone, he soon guessed what had happened, and a deep sorrow fell over the whole court. In the forest, the wild man set the boy down and told him gently he would never see his parents again, but would be well cared for, since he had freed him. He made him a bed of moss, and next morning led him to a spring so clear it shone like glass. “This is the golden well,” he said. “Watch that nothing falls in, or it will be spoiled. Each evening I will come to see that you have obeyed.” The boy watched faithfully, sometimes glimpsing a golden fish beneath the water. One day his finger ached so sharply that without thinking he dipped it in, and it turned to gold and would not wash clean. The wild man forgave him once, but warned him to take more care. The next day, rubbing his sore finger against his head, he let a hair fall into the well, and it too turned gold before he could catch it. A third time, the wild man warned, would spoil the well beyond mending, and then the boy could stay no longer. On the third day the boy sat very still, however much his finger hurt. But the hours passed slowly, and leaning to look at his own face in the water, he leaned closer still, and his whole head of hair slipped forward and fell in. He straightened up to find every strand gleaming gold. He wrapped it in a handkerchief before the wild man could see, but the man already knew, and told him to take the handkerchief off. The golden hair spilled out, and no excuse could undo it. “You did not pass the trial,” the wild man said, “and you cannot stay with me any longer. Go into the world, and you will learn what it is to be poor. But you have a good heart, so I will grant you this: if you are ever in trouble, come to this forest and call my name, Iron Hans, three times, and I will come to help you. My power is greater than you know, and I have more gold than anyone alive.” So the king’s son walked on until he reached a great city. He had learned no trade, but the palace took him in, and the cook set him to carrying wood and water and raking ashes. One day, with no one else at hand, he was sent to serve at the royal table, and because he did not want his golden hair seen, he kept his cap on. The king had never seen such a thing, and ordered him to remove it. The boy said he could not, for his head was sore, and the king, angry such a boy had been hired, ordered him dismissed. The cook took pity on him and found him work with the gardener instead. The boy grew up digging and watering the garden in all weathers. One hot day, working alone, he took off his cap to cool his head, and the sun caught his hair so brightly that the light flashed into the princess’s window. She sprang up to look, and called down asking him to bring her a bouquet. He put his cap back on and gathered wildflowers, and though the gardener scolded him for such common blooms, he said the wild ones smelled sweeter and would please her more. The princess told him to take off his cap, but he said his head was sore. She pulled it off anyway, and his golden hair tumbled down, shining beautifully. He tried to run, but she caught his arm and pressed a handful of coins on him, which he gave to the gardener’s children. The next two days went the same way: she could not take his cap, however hard she tried, and he would not keep her gold. Not long after, war came to the kingdom, and the king gathered his soldiers, uncertain they could stand against so strong an enemy. The gardener’s boy asked for a horse so he might fight too, and the others laughed and told him he could take whatever was left in the stable once they had gone. When they rode out, all that remained was a horse lame in one leg, and on it he hobbled to the edge of the dark forest and called three times, as loudly as he could, “Iron Hans! Iron Hans! Iron Hans!” Iron Hans appeared at once. “What do you want?” he asked. “A strong horse,” said the boy, “for I am going to war.” Iron Hans gave him far more: a proud warhorse, and a whole troop of soldiers armored in iron. Leaving his lame horse behind, he rode at the head of the army to where the king’s men were close to breaking, and he and his iron soldiers scattered the enemy until not one stood against them. Instead of returning in triumph, he led his troop back to the forest and called Iron Hans. “What do you want?” Iron Hans asked. “Take back your horse and soldiers.” The boy rode his lame horse home. The princess met her father with joy at the victory, but he said it was not his doing. A strange knight had won it and ridden away without giving his name. She asked the gardener about his boy, and he laughed, saying the boy had only limped home while the others mocked him as “Hobblety-jig.” When the others asked where he had been hiding, the boy said things would have gone badly without him, and they laughed harder still. The king proclaimed a three-day festival at which his daughter would throw a golden apple, hoping the unknown knight would come forward. On the first day the boy called for Iron Hans. “What do you want?” Iron Hans asked. “To catch the golden apple,” he said. Iron Hans gave him red armor and a chestnut horse. No one recognized him, and he alone caught the apple, riding off before anyone could stop him. On the second day, in white armor and on a white horse, he caught it again and vanished the same way. Annoyed the knight would not stay to be known, the king ordered his men to chase him down next time and bring him back by force. On the third day, in black armor on a black horse, he caught the apple once more, but as he fled, a pursuer’s sword point wounded his leg, and his horse leaped so hard that his helmet fell, showing his golden hair. The riders told the king what they had seen. The next day the gardener told the princess his boy had been at the festival too, and had brought home three golden apples for the children to see. The king sent for him at once. He came still wearing his cap, but the princess pulled it away, and his golden hair fell shining over his shoulders, so that everyone stood amazed. “Were you the knight who came each day in a different color and caught the apples?” the king asked. “I was,” he answered, laying the three apples before him, “and here is the wound your men gave me as I fled. It was I, too, who won you the war.” “No gardener’s boy could have done such things,” said the king. “Who is your father?” His father, the young man answered, was a mighty king, and he himself had gold enough for anything he could want. “Then I owe you a great debt,” said the king. “Is there anything I can do for you?” “Only one thing. Give me your daughter for my wife.” The princess laughed, saying she had already guessed from his golden hair that he was no gardener’s boy, and went and kissed him. His own father and mother came to the wedding, overjoyed, for they had long given up hope of seeing their son again. As the feast was underway, the music suddenly stopped, the doors swung open, and a splendid king entered with a grand company behind him. He walked straight to the bridegroom, embraced him, and said, “I am Iron Hans. I was under an enchantment that made me a wild man of the forest, but you set me free, and for that, everything I possess is now yours.” --- - Read online: https://talerie.com/en/tales/iron-hans - Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q462062 - Tale type: ATU 502 (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/)