# Tatterhood _Retold by Talerie (talerie.com) from Popular Tales from the Norse, after Asbjørnsen and Moe_ · 14 min read · ages 6+ Tatterhood, born ugly and riding a goat, sails to the witches’ land and wins back her twin sister’s head, which a witch swapped for a calf’s. Riding to church with the gloomy prince, Tatterhood has him ask about her goat, spoon, hood, and face, and each becomes a horse, a silver wand, a golden crown, and a lovely face. --- Once upon a time there was a king and a queen who had no children, and it grieved the queen so much that she hardly had a single happy hour. She was forever sighing and complaining, and saying how dull and lonely it was in the palace. “If we had children, there would be life enough in this place,” she said. Wherever she went in her kingdom, even in the poorest hut, God had blessed people with children, and everywhere she heard mothers scolding their little ones for this or that thing they had done wrong. The queen heard all this and thought how nice it would be to do as other women did. At last the king and queen took a little girl, a stranger, into the palace to bring up. That way she would always be with them, and they could love her when she was good and scold her when she was naughty, just as if she were their own child. One day the little girl they had taken in ran down into the palace yard to play with a golden apple. Just then an old beggar woman came by with a little girl of her own, and before long the two children were the best of friends, playing together and tossing the golden apple back and forth. The queen was sitting at a window and saw it, and she tapped on the glass for her foster daughter to come up. The child came at once, but the beggar girl came too, and they walked into the queen’s room hand in hand. Then the queen began to scold her foster daughter. “You should know better than to run around playing with a ragged beggar’s brat,” she said. And she was about to send the beggar girl back downstairs. “If Her Majesty only knew what my mother can do, she wouldn’t drive me out,” said the beggar girl. When the queen asked what she meant, the girl told her plainly that her mother could get the queen children if she wanted to. The queen didn’t believe a word of it, but the girl stood her ground. Every word was true, she said, and the queen only had to try and make her mother do it. So the queen sent her down to fetch her mother. “Do you know what your daughter says?” the queen asked the old woman as soon as she came into the room. No, the beggar woman knew nothing about it. “Well, she says you could get me children if you wanted to,” said the queen. “Queens shouldn’t listen to the silly stories of beggar girls,” said the old woman, and she marched out of the room. At that the queen grew angry and was about to drive the beggar girl out again, but the girl insisted that every word she had said was true. “If Your Majesty would only give my mother a little something to drink,” she said, “she’ll soon be merry, and then she’ll find a way to help you.” The queen was willing to try. So the beggar woman was fetched up once more and given as much wine and mead as she liked, and it wasn’t long before her tongue began to wag. Then the queen asked her the same question. “Maybe I do know one way to help you,” said the beggar woman. “Some evening before you go to bed, Your Majesty must have two pails of water brought in. Wash yourself in each of them, and afterward pour the water out under the bed. When you look under the bed the next morning, two flowers will have sprung up, one fair and one ugly. You must eat the fair one, but you must leave the ugly one standing. But be sure you don’t forget that last part.” That was what the beggar woman said. And the queen did just as she was told. She had the water brought up in two pails, washed herself in them, and emptied them under the bed. Sure enough, when she looked under the bed the next morning, there stood two flowers. One was ugly and foul, with black leaves, but the other was so bright and fair and lovely that she had never seen anything like it, and she ate it up at once. The pretty flower tasted so sweet that she couldn’t stop herself, and she ate the other one too. “I’m sure it can’t do much harm or much good either way,” she thought. Well, after a while the queen’s time came, and she gave birth. First she had a girl who held a wooden spoon in her hand and rode on a goat. The child was ugly and dreadful to look at, and the very moment she came into the world she bawled out, “Mama!” “If I’m your mama,” said the queen, “then God give me grace to mend my ways.” “Oh, don’t be sorry,” said the girl on the goat. “Soon there’ll be another one after me who is better looking.” And after a while the queen had another girl, so fair and sweet that no one had ever laid eyes on such a lovely child, and you can imagine how pleased the queen was with her. They called the elder twin Tatterhood, because she was always so ugly and ragged, and because she wore a hood that hung about her ears in tatters. The queen could hardly bear to look at her. The nurses tried to shut her away in a room by herself, but it did no good: wherever the younger twin was, Tatterhood had to be too, and no one could ever keep them apart. One Christmas Eve, when the girls were half grown, such a dreadful noise and clatter rose in the gallery outside the queen’s room that Tatterhood asked what it was that went banging and crashing out there in the passage. “Oh,” said the queen, “it isn’t worth asking about.” But Tatterhood wouldn’t let it go until she had found out all about it, and so the queen told her it was a pack of trolls and witches who had come to keep Christmas there. Then Tatterhood said she would just go out and drive them away. Everyone tried to talk her out of it, and they begged and pleaded with her to leave the trolls alone, but she would go out and chase the witches off, and that was that. First, though, she begged the queen to keep every door tightly shut, so that not a single one opened even the smallest crack. With that Tatterhood went off with her wooden spoon and began to hunt the hags and sweep them away, and all the while there was such a racket out in the gallery as had never been heard before. The whole palace creaked and groaned as if every joint and beam were about to be torn loose. Now how it happened I really can’t tell you, but somehow one door did open the smallest crack. Tatterhood’s twin sister peeped out to see how things were going for Tatterhood and put her head just a tiny bit through the gap. Pop! Up came an old witch, whipped off the princess’s head, and stuck a calf’s head on her shoulders instead. And the princess ran back into the room on all fours and began to moo like a calf. When Tatterhood came back and saw her sister, she scolded them all and was very angry that they hadn’t kept better watch. What did they think of their carelessness now, she asked, with her sister turned into a calf? “All the same, I’ll see whether I can set her free,” she said. Then she asked the king for a ship, fully rigged and well stocked with provisions, but she wanted no captain and no sailors. No, she would sail away all alone with her sister. And since there was no holding her back, at last they let her have her way. So Tatterhood sailed off and steered her ship straight to the land where the witches lived. When she reached the landing place, she told her sister to stay quite still on board, and she herself rode her goat up to the witches’ castle. One of the gallery windows stood open, and there she saw her sister’s head hanging on the window frame. So she jumped her goat through the window into the gallery, snatched up the head, and was off with it. The witches came after her to get the head back, and they swarmed around her as thick as bees in a hive or ants in an anthill. But the goat snorted and puffed and butted them with his horns, and Tatterhood beat and whacked them with her wooden spoon, until the whole pack of witches had to give up. Then Tatterhood went back to her ship, took the calf’s head off her sister, and set the princess’s own head back on her shoulders, and her sister was a girl once more, just as she had been before. After that Tatterhood sailed a long, long way, to a kingdom in a far-off land. Now the king of that land was a widower with an only son. When the king saw the strange sail, he sent messengers down to the shore to find out where it came from and who owned it. But when the king’s men got there, they saw not a living soul on board except Tatterhood, and there she was, riding around and around the deck on her goat at full gallop, with her wild, tangled hair streaming in the wind. The men from the palace were astonished at the sight, and they asked whether there was no one else on board. Yes, there was, said Tatterhood: she had her sister with her. They wanted to see the sister too, but Tatterhood said no. “No one shall see her unless the king comes himself,” she said, and she began galloping around on her goat until the deck thundered. When the messengers got back to the palace and told what they had seen and heard down at the ship, the king decided to go at once and see for himself the girl who rode the goat. As soon as he arrived, Tatterhood led out her sister, and she was so fair and gentle that the king fell head over heels in love with her on the spot. He brought them both back to the palace with him and wanted to make the sister his queen. But Tatterhood said no: the king could not have her sister at all unless his son was willing to take Tatterhood. You can imagine how much the prince disliked the idea, since Tatterhood was such an ugly creature. But at last the king and everyone else in the palace talked him into it, and he gave in and promised to take her for his wife. It went sorely against the grain, though, and he was gloomy about it. Then they began to get ready for the wedding, brewing and baking, and when everything was ready they set off for the church. But the prince thought it the dreariest ride to church he had ever had in all his life. First went the king with his bride, and she was so lovely and so grand that all along the road people stopped to look after her and stared until she was out of sight. After them came the prince on horseback beside Tatterhood, who trotted along on her goat with her wooden spoon in her fist. To look at him, you would have thought he was riding to a funeral rather than a wedding, and his own funeral at that, so sorrowful he seemed, and he didn’t say a single word. “Why don’t you talk?” asked Tatterhood, when they had ridden a little way. “Why, what should I talk about?” answered the prince. “Well, you might at least ask me why I ride on this ugly goat,” said Tatterhood. “Why do you ride on that ugly goat?” asked the prince. “Is it an ugly goat? Why, it’s the finest horse a bride ever rode,” answered Tatterhood. And in a twinkling the goat became a horse, the finest the prince had ever laid eyes on. They rode on a little way, but the prince was just as gloomy as before and couldn’t get a word out. So Tatterhood asked him again why he didn’t talk, and the prince answered that he didn’t know what to talk about. “Well, you might at least ask me why I ride with this ugly spoon in my fist,” said Tatterhood. “Why do you ride with that ugly spoon in your fist?” asked the prince. “Is it an ugly spoon? Why, it’s the finest silver wand a bride ever carried,” answered Tatterhood. And in a twinkling it became a silver wand, so dazzling bright that the sunbeams glinted off it. So they rode on a little farther, but the prince was just as sorrowful and said not a word. After a while Tatterhood asked him again why he didn’t talk. “Well, you might at least ask me why I wear this ugly gray hood on my head,” she said. “Why do you wear that ugly gray hood on your head?” asked the prince. “Is it an ugly hood? Why, it’s the finest golden crown a bride ever wore,” answered Tatterhood. And on the spot it became a golden crown. Now they rode on again for a long while, and the prince was so woeful that he sat without a sound or a word, just as before. So his bride asked him once more why he didn’t talk. “Well, you might at least ask me why my face is so ugly and ashen gray,” she said. “Ah,” said the prince, “why is your face so ugly and ashen gray?” “Is it ugly?” said the bride. “You think my sister is pretty, but I am ten times prettier.” And when the prince looked at her, she was so lovely that he thought there had never been such a lovely woman in all the world. After that, I expect the prince found his tongue again, and he didn’t ride along with his head hanging anymore. So they held the wedding feast and drank deep and long, and afterward the prince and the king set out with their brides for the palace of the princesses’ father. There they had another wedding feast and drank again, deep and long. There was no end to the merrymaking, and if you hurry and run to the king’s palace, I suppose you’ll find there’s still a drop of the wedding ale left for you. --- - Read online: https://talerie.com/en/tales/tatterhood-original - Version: longer, more faithful retelling; the gentler retelling: https://talerie.com/en/tales/tatterhood.md - Author's country: Norway (https://talerie.com/en/tales/country/norway) - Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7688399 - Tale type: ATU 711 (per Wikidata) - Source: Popular Tales from the Norse, Asbjørnsen og Moe, trans. George Webbe Dasent (Project Gutenberg #8933) (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8933) - Public-domain basis: Talerie contemporary retelling (CC0 2026), based on: Popular Tales from the Norse, Asbjørnsen og Moe, trans. George Webbe Dasent (Project Gutenberg #8933) — translation: author died 1882/1885 (+70 passed); translator George Webbe Dasent died 1896 (+70 passed) - License: CC0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)