Household Tales · Chapter
Donkey Cabbages explained
A young huntsman receives a wishing-cloak and a bird's heart from an old crone, granting him wealth and travel.
What happens
A young huntsman receives a wishing-cloak and a bird's heart from an old crone, granting him wealth and travel. He falls in love with a maiden under a witch's influence, who tricks him out of his treasures. Stranded on a mountain, he is carried by a cloud to a cabbage garden where he discovers a magical salad that transforms people into donkeys. He uses the salad to punish the witch and her servant, but ultimately forgives the maiden, restores her humanity, and marries her.
Themes in this chapter
Transformation and Redemption
The huntsman uses the magical salad to transform the witch and servant into donkeys as punishment, but later redeems the maiden by restoring her humanity and marrying her.
Virtue Rewarded and Vice Punished
The huntsman's initial kindness to the old crone is rewarded with magical gifts, while the witch's greed and treachery lead to her death as a donkey.
Greed and Its Downfall
The witch's greed for the bird's heart and wishing-cloak drives her to manipulate the maiden, ultimately resulting in her own demise.
Characters to notice
- the huntsman
The young huntsman who receives magical gifts and later uses a transforming salad to exact revenge and forgiveness.
- the maiden
The beautiful maiden under the witch's control who betrays the huntsman but is ultimately forgiven and married.
- the witch
The old witch who manipulates the maiden to steal the huntsman's treasures and is later transformed into a donkey and beaten to death.
- the servant-girl
The witch's servant who also eats the transforming salad and becomes a donkey, later restored.
- the miller
The miller who takes in the transformed donkeys and follows the huntsman's instructions for their treatment.
Key passages
“There was once a young huntsman who went into the forest to lie in wait. He had a fresh and joyous heart, and as he was going thither, whistling upon a leaf, an ugly old crone came up, who spoke to him and said, 'Good day, dear huntsman, truly you are merry and contented, but I am suffering from hunger and thirst, do give me an alms.'”
A cheerful young hunter walking through the forest whistling is approached by an old, ugly woman begging for food and drink.
Introduces the huntsman's generous nature and sets the plot in motion.
“The old woman then said, 'Now we must have the bird's heart, he will never miss it.' She prepared a drink, and when it was ready, poured it into a cup and gave it to the maiden, who was to present it to the huntsman.”
The witch instructs the maiden to give the huntsman a potion that will make him vomit the bird's heart.
Key moment of betrayal orchestrated by the witch.
“The beautiful girl fell on her knees before him, and said, 'Ah, my beloved, forgive me for the evil I have done you; my mother drove me to it; it was done against my will, for I love you dearly.'”
The maiden begs forgiveness, claiming the witch forced her to act against her true feelings.
Climax of the redemption arc, leading to the huntsman's forgiveness and marriage.