GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES - online book

130 Fairy Stories Adapted & Arranged for young people

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*s*
THE TWIN BROTHERS.
So they sat down happily together, and told the king and the young princess all their adventures.
When the king's daughter and her husband were alone, she said to him, " I thought you did not love me the other day, when you came home from the wood, for you never even kissed me."
Then the prince knew how true and honourable his twin brother had been.
A king once had two sons, who were considered clever; yet they wasted their time and money in folly and dissipation, and were scarcely ever at home. They had a younger brother, whom they called stupid because he was quiet and simple, and they used to make sport, and mock him, and say that such a simpleton as he would never fight his way through the world, for they, with all their cleverness, found it a very difficult matter.
One evening, however, they took him for a walk with them, and on their way they met Mgth an ant-hill, and the two elder brothers wanted to overturn the hill, that they might see the little ants running and creeping about in their fright, and carrying their eggs away to a place of safety. But the simpleton said : " No, no; leave the little creatures in peace. I do not like to see them dis­turbed."
The brothers gave way to him, and they went on quietly till they came to a lake on which a large number of ducks were swimming, and the brothers wished to catch one or two for roast­ing ; but the simpleton said : "Leave the poor birds in peace; I cannot endure that you should kill any of them."
So the ducks were left to live, and the three brothers walked on again till at length they came to a bees' nest in a tree, with so much honey that it ran over on the trunk. The two brothers wanted to light a fire under the tree to smother the bees, that they might take away the honey; but the younger brother held them back: " Leave the poor insects in peace," he said; " I cannot bear to think of their being burnt."
Again they listened to him, stupid as they thought him, and the