Household Tales · Chapter
The Two Travellers explained
A kind-hearted tailor, after being set an impossible task by a king, is helped by a stork to bring a prince from a well and wins the princess.
What happens
A kind-hearted tailor, after being set an impossible task by a king, is helped by a stork to bring a prince from a well and wins the princess. His jealous shoemaker companion blinds him, but the tailor regains his sight using dew from a gallows. Later, the tailor becomes court tailor, and the shoemaker, now court shoemaker, plots against him. The tailor is saved by a duck who retrieves a lost crown from a pond, and later by bees who help him copy the royal palace in wax, ultimately overcoming the shoemaker's schemes.
Themes in this chapter
Virtue Rewarded and Vice Punished
The kind tailor is rewarded with marriage and success, while the cruel shoemaker is blinded and dies.
Jealousy and Envy
The shoemaker's jealousy drives him to blind the tailor and later plot against him.
Promises and Their Consequences
The king's promise of his daughter to the tailor sets the story in motion, and the shoemaker's malicious promises lead to his own downfall.
Characters to notice
- the tailor
The kind and lucky tailor who overcomes challenges with help from animals.
- the shoemaker
The jealous and cruel shoemaker who blinds the tailor and later plots against him.
- the King
The king who sets tasks for the tailor and rewards him.
- the princess
The eldest princess who marries the tailor.
- the stork
The stork who helps the tailor by bringing a prince from the well.
- the duck
The duck who retrieves the lost crown from the pond for the tailor.
- the bee
The queen bee who helps the tailor copy the royal palace in wax.
Key passages
“The King commanded the tailor to be summoned, and said, 'If thou causest a son to be brought to me within nine days, thou shalt have my eldest daughter to wife.'”
The king summoned the tailor and promised him his eldest daughter in marriage if he could bring him a son within nine days.
The king sets an impossible task for the tailor.
“The shoemaker had to make the shoes in which the little tailor danced at the wedding festival, after which he was commanded to quit the town forever.”
The shoemaker was forced to make the wedding shoes and then banished from the town.
The shoemaker's punishment after the tailor's success.
“The tailor called to remembrance what his mother had formerly said to him when he had been eating secretly in the pantry. 'Eat what one can, and suffer what one must.'”
The tailor recalled his mother's advice: accept what you can get and endure what you must.
The tailor's mother's wisdom helps him endure hardship.
“The dew which this night has fallen down over us from the gallows, gives everyone who washes himself with it his eyes again.”
The dew from the gallows can restore sight to the blind.
The hanged men reveal the magical property of the dew.
“He, however, who digs a pit for another, falls into it himself.”
Those who scheme against others often end up trapped by their own plans.
A moral lesson about the shoemaker's fate.
