The Swineherd

Once upon a time there was a poor prince. His kingdom was very small, but it was big enough to marry on, and marry he would. It was rather bold of him to go straight to the emperor’s daughter and ask, “Will you marry me?” But he dared, because his name was known far and wide, and there were hundreds of princesses who would gladly have said yes. Would she? We’ll see.

On the grave of the prince’s father grew a rosebush, the loveliest of its kind. It bloomed only once in five years, and even then it bore only a single rose. But what a rose! It smelled so sweet that anyone who breathed it in forgot every sorrow and trouble at once. The prince also had a nightingale that could sing as if every lovely melody in the world sat in its throat. He wanted the princess to have the rose and the nightingale, so both were placed in big silver cases and sent to her.

The emperor had them carried into the great hall, where the princess was playing “Visitors Are Coming” with her ladies-in-waiting. When she saw the big cases, she clapped her hands for joy.

“I hope it’s a little kitten,” she said. But out came the rosebush with its beautiful rose.

“Oh, how nicely it’s made!” cried the ladies.

“It’s more than nice,” said the emperor. “It’s charming.”

The princess touched it and nearly burst into tears.

“Oh, Papa, how awful!” she said. “It isn’t made at all. It’s real!”

“How awful,” all her ladies said. “It’s real.”

“Let’s see what’s in the other case before we get cross,” said the emperor. Then the nightingale was taken out, and it sang so beautifully that nobody could find a single unkind thing to say about it.

“Superbe! Charmant!” said the ladies, for they all chattered French, each one worse than the last.

“How that bird reminds me of the music box that belonged to our late empress,” said an old courtier. “The very same tone, the very same touch.”

“So it does,” said the emperor, and he began to cry like a little child.

“I do hope it isn’t real,” said the princess.

“Oh yes, it’s a real bird,” said the men who had brought it.

“Then let it fly away,” said the princess, and she would not hear of letting the prince come.

But the prince was not so easily put off. He smeared his face brown and black, put on plain, rough clothes, pulled his cap down over his forehead, and came back to the palace.

“Good day, Emperor!” he said. “Could you give me some work here at court?”

“Well, so many people come here looking for work,” said the emperor, “that I have nothing just now. But I’ll keep you in mind. Wait a moment, though. It occurs to me that I need someone to look after the pigs. I have a great many pigs.”

So the prince became the imperial swineherd. He was given a miserable little room beside the pigsty, and there he worked all day long. By nightfall he had made a pretty little pot. All around its rim hung tiny bells, and when the water in the pot began to boil, the bells rang out the old tune:

Ach, du lieber Augustin,alles ist hin, hin, hin!

But the most wonderful thing about it was this: if you held a finger in the steam that rose from the pot, you could smell at once what was cooking on every stove in the whole town. That was a good deal cleverer than the rose.

Just then the princess came walking by with her ladies. When she heard the tune, she stopped and looked very pleased, because she could play it too. In fact, it was the only tune she could play, and she played it with one finger.

“Why, that’s my tune!” she said. “He must be a very well-educated swineherd. Go and ask him what he wants for his instrument.”

So one of the ladies had to go down to the pigsty, though first she put on wooden clogs to keep her feet clean.

“What will you take for that pot?” she asked.

“Ten kisses from the princess,” said the swineherd.

“Heaven forbid!” said the lady.

“Well, I can’t sell it for less,” said the swineherd.

The lady hurried back to the princess, who asked, “Well, what did he say?”

“I really can’t tell you,” said the lady.

“Then whisper it in my ear.”

The lady whispered it.

“How very rude of him!” said the princess, and she walked away.

But she had not gone far when the little bells began to ring again, so sweetly:

Ach, du lieber Augustin,alles ist hin, hin, hin!

“Go and ask him,” said the princess, “whether he will take ten kisses from one of my ladies.”

“No, thank you,” said the swineherd. “Ten kisses from the princess, or I keep my pot.”

“How tiresome!” said the princess. “Well then, all of you, stand in front of me so that nobody can see.”

The ladies stood around her and spread out their skirts. Then she gave the swineherd ten kisses, and she got the pot.

What fun they had with it! Day and night the water in the little pot kept boiling. There was not a stove in the whole town they didn’t know about, from the chamberlain’s to the shoemaker’s. The ladies danced and clapped their hands.

“We know who’s having soup and pancakes! We know who’s having porridge and chops! Oh, how fascinating!”

“Most fascinating,” said the princess. “But not a word to anyone, for I am the emperor’s daughter.”

“Of course not,” they all said.

The swineherd, who was really the prince, though nobody knew it, never let a day go by without making something. Next he made a rattle. When you swung it around, it played every waltz, galop, and polka that had been heard since the world began.

“Now that is superbe!” said the princess as she passed by. “I’ve never heard lovelier music. Go down and ask him what he wants for it. But I won’t kiss him again.”

“He wants a hundred kisses from the princess,” said the lady who had gone down to ask.

“The man must be mad!” said the princess, and she walked off. But she soon stopped. “One must encourage the arts,” she said. “After all, I am the emperor’s daughter. Tell him he can have ten kisses from me, like last time, and my ladies can give him the rest.”

“Oh, but we don’t want to kiss him!” said the ladies.

“Nonsense,” said the princess. “If I can kiss him, so can you. Remember, it’s I who feed you and keep you at court.”

So the lady had to go down to the pigsty once more.

“A hundred kisses from the princess,” said the swineherd, “or each of us keeps what we’ve got.”

“Stand in front of me,” said the princess. The ladies did as they were told, and the princess began to kiss him.

The emperor had just stepped out onto his balcony. “What is that crowd down by the pigsty?” he wondered. He rubbed his eyes and put on his spectacles. “Those ladies of the court are up to some mischief, I think. I’d better go down and see.”

He pulled up the backs of his slippers, which he had trodden flat, and hurried off. When he reached the courtyard, he crept along very softly. The ladies were so busy counting the kisses, to make sure everything was fair, that not one of them noticed him. The emperor stood on tiptoe.

“What is the meaning of this?” he cried when he saw his daughter kissing the swineherd. He took off a slipper and hit them both on the head with it, just as the swineherd was getting his eighty-sixth kiss.

“Out of my sight!” said the emperor, for he was very angry. And both the princess and the swineherd were sent out of his empire.

So there she stood outside, crying, while the swineherd scolded her and the rain poured down.

“Oh, poor miserable me!” said the princess. “If only I had taken the handsome prince! Oh, how unhappy I am!”

The swineherd stepped behind a tree, wiped the paint from his face, threw off his rough clothes, and came out again dressed as a prince. He looked so splendid that the princess could not help curtsying to him.

“I have come to despise you,” he said. “You would not have an honest prince. You did not care for the rose or the nightingale. But you were quite willing to kiss a swineherd for a toy. You have no one to blame but yourself.”

Then he went home to his own kingdom and left her behind. Now she could stand outside alone and sing as much as she liked:

Ach, du lieber Augustin,alles ist hin, hin, hin!