The Bremen Town Musicians

A man once had a donkey who had carried sacks of grain to the mill year after year without complaint. But his strength was going, and his master began to think how he might save the cost of feeding him. The donkey saw which way the wind was blowing, slipped out of the gate, and took the road to Bremen.

“In Bremen,” he thought, “I can be a town musician.”

He had not gone far when he found a hound lying beside the road, panting as though he had run himself off his feet.

“What are you panting like that for, old fellow?” asked the donkey.

“Ah,” said the hound, “I am old and grow weaker every day, and I cannot keep up with the hunt any more. My master had it in mind to put an end to me, so I took to my heels. But how am I to earn my bread now?”

“I will tell you what,” said the donkey. “I am going to Bremen to be a town musician. Come with me and take up music too. I will play the lute, and you shall beat the drum.”

The hound agreed, and on they went together.

Before long they came upon a cat sitting by the path, looking as glum as three days of rain.

“Well now, old whiskers, what has gone wrong with you?” asked the donkey.

“Who can be cheerful when his life is at stake?” said the cat. “I am getting on in years, my teeth are worn down to stumps, and I would rather sit by the fire and purr than go chasing after mice, so my mistress made up her mind to drown me. I got away in time, but now I am at my wits’ end. Where am I to go?”

“Come with us to Bremen. You know all about night music. You can be a town musician too.”

The cat thought that a fine idea, and went along.

Soon the three runaways passed a farmyard, where a rooster sat on the gate, crowing with all his might.

“That crow of yours goes right through me,” said the donkey. “What is the matter?”

“I have been promising fine weather,” said the rooster, “but guests are coming on Sunday, and the mistress has no pity: she has told the cook I am to go into the soup tomorrow. So I am crowing at the top of my voice while I still can.”

“Come away with us instead, redcomb,” said the donkey. “We are going to Bremen. You will find something better than death wherever you go. You have a good voice, and if we make music together it is bound to be worth hearing.”

The rooster liked the sound of that, and all four set off together.

They could not reach Bremen in a single day, and by evening they came to a forest where they meant to spend the night. The donkey and the hound lay down under a great tree, the cat climbed into the branches, and the rooster flew to the very top, where he felt safest. Before he slept he looked around on every side and saw a small spark burning far off, and he called down that where there was a light there must be a house.

“Then we had better get up and go on,” said the donkey, “for the lodging here is poor.”

The hound said a few bones with a little meat on them would do him good as well.

They made their way toward the light, and it grew brighter and larger until they stood before a robbers’ house with every window shining.

The donkey, being the tallest, went up and looked in.

“What do you see, old grey?” asked the rooster.

“What do I see?” said the donkey. “A table laid with fine things to eat and drink, and robbers sitting round it, making merry.”

“That would be just the thing for us,” said the rooster.

“Yes indeed,” said the donkey. “How I wish we were sitting there.”

Then the animals put their heads together, and at last they hit on a plan. The donkey would set his forefeet on the windowsill, the hound would jump onto his back, the cat would climb onto the hound, and the rooster would fly up and perch on the cat’s head.

When they were ready, at a given signal they all began their music at once. The donkey brayed, the hound barked, the cat mewed, and the rooster crowed. Then they burst in through the window so that the glass rattled and rang.

At that dreadful noise the robbers sprang up, certain a ghost had come in among them, and ran out into the forest in fright. The four companions sat down at the table and ate what was left as though they would not see food again for a month.

When they had finished, they put out the light, and each looked for a sleeping place to suit himself: the donkey on the dung heap in the yard, the hound behind the door, the cat on the hearth beside the warm ashes, and the rooster on a roof beam. Tired from their long journey, they were soon fast asleep.

Long past midnight the robbers saw from a distance that the light was out and everything was quiet.

“We should never have let ourselves be frightened out of our wits,” said the captain, and he sent one of his men back to look the house over.

The man found it all still. He went into the kitchen to light a candle, and seeing the cat’s eyes glow in the dark he took them for two live coals and held a match to them. But the cat had no patience for jokes: she flew at his face, spitting and scratching. He ran for the back door, where the hound jumped up and bit his leg, and as he raced across the yard past the dung heap the donkey gave him a good kick with his hind foot. The rooster, wide awake now with all the uproar, called down from the beam:

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

The robber ran back to his captain as fast as his legs would carry him.

“There is a horrible witch in that house,” he gasped. “She breathed on me and clawed my face with her long fingers. By the door stands a man with a knife who stabbed me in the leg. In the yard lies a black monster that beat me with a wooden club. And on the roof sits the judge, who called out, ‘Bring the rascal here to me!’ So I got away as best I could.”

After that the robbers never dared go near the house again. But it suited the four musicians of Bremen so well that they never wanted to leave it, and there they stayed.