160

A Riddling Tale

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

Three women were transformed into flowers which stood in a field. However, one of them was allowed to be in her own house at night. One time when day was approaching, and she would have to go back to her companions in the field and become a flower again, she said to her husband, "If you will come this morning and pick me, I shall be set free and stay with you from then on."

And that is what happened.

Now the question is, how did her husband recognize her, for the flowers were exactly alike, and without any difference?

Answer: While she was in her house during the night and not in the field, the dew did not fall on her as it did on the other two, and by this her husband recognized her.

• Source: Rätselmärchen, Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales -- Grimms' Fairy Tales), final edition (1857), no. 160.

• Translated by D. L. Ashliman. © 2001.

• The Grimms' source: A sixteenth-century folksong.

• This tale was included in the first edition of the Kinder- und Hausmärchen (v. 2, no. 69, 1815). The tale remained essentially unchanged in succeeding editions.

• Aarne-Thompson type 407, The Girl as a Flower.

Related links

• The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales (Fairy Tales).

• The Grimm Brothers' Home Page.

• D. L. Ashliman's folktexts, a library of folktales, folklore, fairy tales, and mythology.

Revised September 16, 2001.