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The Goose-Girl at the Well
Tale of the Brothers Grimm translated by M. Hunt [1884]
Interpretation by Undine & Jens in green [2024]
After the “gooseherd”, we now want to think about the female side, about nature and her pure soul, i.e., the “goose girl”, who guards the wholeness. This fairy tale is particularly interesting because here we encounter the infamous “witch” from a slightly different perspective.
There was once upon a time a very old woman, who lived with her flock of geese in a waste place among the mountains, and there had a little house. The waste was surrounded by a large forest, and every morning the old woman took her crutch and hobbled into it.
We first find Mother Nature, who is “very old”, i.e., at least as old as cosmic matter itself, and lives in this “waste” of the natural universe. The chaos at the beginning of the biblical creation is similar, when everything was still desolate and empty. She now lives there with “her flock of geese” and builds herself a “little house between the mountains” of piled-up matter, reminiscent of our little body house, where we live with our senses and thoughts like with a flock of cackling geese. This “waste” or wholeness, in which everything is possible, is then limited and shaped by the forest of our ideas, so that a certain order is also brought into the chaos of limitless possibilities. This motherly nature now goes into this forest “every morning”, when the external light of consciousness awakens, on her “crutches” of limited senses and thoughts, in search of food. And we all know how shaky this matter is.
There, however, the dame was quite active, more so than anyone would have thought, considering her age, and collected grass for her geese, picked all the wild fruit she could reach, and carried everything home on her back. Anyone would have thought that the heavy load would have weighed her to the ground, but she always brought it safely home.
So, Mother Nature has been bringing all forms of food and available fruits “home” to the houses of all creatures since ancient times, and has not grown tired of doing so to this day. But now it gets interesting: what was previously a holistic being now encounters other beings that “meet” her.
If anyone met her, she greeted him quite courteously. “Good day, dear countryman, it is a fine day. Ah! you wonder that I should drag grass about, but everyone must take his burthen on his back.”
Thus, nature is always friendly in her essence and welcomes every being as a “countryman”, because we all basically come from the same country, and reminds us that it is always “a fine day” in nature and we all have to bear our burdens.
Nevertheless, people did not like to meet her if they could help it, and took by preference a round-about way, and when a father with his boys passed her, he whispered to them, “Beware of the old woman. She has claws beneath her gloves; she is a witch.”
But not every being that looks at nature is happy to meet her. So here the “father” is spoken of as a spiritual being who meets the mother and warns his son, as a growing ego-mind, about the female side of nature, which can of course also bring us much unpleasantness, much misfortune, pain, loss and even death, and which can cast a spell on the spirit and thus enchant or bewitch him. Which brings us back to the concept of the “witch”, which appears above all when spirit and nature are separated. Because it is precisely at this boundary that our five physical senses appear and work with thoughts, which are so easily deceived and enchanted, and seem to separate the witnessing spirit from an external nature. And when this separation disappears, the witch disappears too, as we will read in this fairy tale later.
As Goethe writes in Faust II:
Nature and Mind
to Christians we don’t speak so.
Thence to burn Atheists we seek so,
For such discourses very dangerous be.
Nature is Sin, and Mind is Devil:
Doubt they beget in shameless revel,
Their hybrid in deformity.
(translated by BAYARD TAYLOR)
Here ends, so to speak, the introduction to the fairy tale, and we now find the male spirit being as a young nobleman and the pure soul of the female nature being as a goose-girl who serves Mother Nature and looks after the geese in the wholeness of nature.
One morning, a handsome young man was going through the forest. The sun shone bright, the birds sang, a cool breeze crept through the leaves, and he was full of joy and gladness. He had as yet met no one, when he suddenly perceived the old witch kneeling on the ground cutting grass with a sickle. She had already thrust a whole load into her cloth, and near it stood two baskets, which were filled with wild apples and pears. “But, good little mother,” said he, “how canst thou carry all that away?” “I must carry it, dear sir,” answered she, “rich folk’s children have no need to do such things, but with the peasant folk the saying goes, don’t look behind you, you will only see how crooked your back is!”
So, our growing ego-mind goes through the forest of the world as a “carefree young man” or rather through the forest of his ideas about the world, and nature means well with him and shows herself in her friendly nature. This is how one feels when one is still one with nature. But then it suddenly happened that nature met him as an external being that now consciously faced him. And what had previously been a whole suddenly splits into spirit and nature, subject and object, and the mind sees how nature laboriously provides for our food and wonders how she has done it all by herself up to now. Just as a child at some point realizes that it has been fed and cared for by its parents up to now. And Mother Nature says that it is her natural task to do this without looking for someone else, but the child of “rich parents” does not need to do this. And now we ask ourselves: Are we a child of rich parents who does not have to strive for his own food, a child of divine wholeness in pure consciousness? Or should we be afraid of dying of hunger and thirst?
“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? (Matthew 6:26)”
“Will you help me?” she said, as he remained standing by her. “You have still a straight back and young legs, it would be a trifle to you. Besides, my house is not so very far from here, it stands there on the heath behind the hill. How soon you would bound up thither.” The young man took compassion on the old woman. “My father is certainly no peasant,” replied he, “but a rich count; nevertheless, that you may see that it is not only peasants who can carry things, I will take your bundle.”
Well, the young man was obviously no longer a pure child, he let himself be moved by the more flattering and challenging speech and “felt compassion”. The term “compassion” is something to think about a lot. It literally means “to suffer together”. People like to say: “A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved.” But experience with the ego mind shows: “a shared sorrow is a sorrow doubled.” Because the ego lives from separation, and the fact that the ego grows and speaks in the separation between spirit and nature is already indicated by the last sentence: “I will...”
“If you will try it,” said she, “I shall be very glad. You will certainly have to walk for an hour, but what will that signify to you; only you must carry the apples and pears as well?” It now seemed to the young man just a little serious, when he heard of an hour’s walk, but the old woman would not let him off, packed the bundle on his back, and hung the two baskets on his arm. “See, it is quite light,” said she. “No, it is not light,” answered the count, and pulled a rueful face. “Verily, the bundle weighs as heavily as if it were full of cobble stones, and the apples and pears are as heavy as lead! I can scarcely breathe.”
Not that it is wrong to help others. However, the motivation behind is crucial, because the effect depends on it. When we as humans want to help nature, we usually want to do it much better than nature herself, at least from our limited perspective, what we understand as “better”, because we do not know the real goal of nature, just as the young man in the fairy tale does not know what role the old woman plays. In this way the “compassionate help” often becomes a painful experience and creates many problems for us where nature has previously worked effortlessly and perfectly on the whole. Just think of the many chemical poisons with which we want to help nature. With this, people place a burden on themselves that will weigh them down painfully for a long time to come.
He had a mind to put everything down again, but the old woman would not allow it. “Just look,” said she mockingly, “the young gentleman will not carry what I, an old woman, have so often dragged along. You are ready with fine words, but when it comes to be earnest, you want to take to your heels. Why are you standing loitering there?” she continued. “Step out. No one will take the bundle off again.” As long as he walked on level ground, it was still bearable, but when they came to the hill and had to climb, and the stones rolled down under his feet as if they were alive, it was beyond his strength. The drops of perspiration stood on his forehead, and ran, hot and cold, down his back. “Dame,” said he, “I can go no farther. I want to rest a little.” “Not here,” answered the old woman, “when we have arrived at our journey’s end, you can rest; but now you must go forward. Who knows what good it may do you?” “Old woman, thou art becoming shameless!” said the count, and tried to throw off the bundle, but he laboured in vain; it stuck as fast to his back as if it grew there. He turned and twisted, but he could not get rid of it. The old woman laughed at this, and sprang about quite delighted on her crutch. “Don’t get angry, dear sir,” said she, “you are growing as red in the face as a turkey-cock! Carry your bundle patiently. I will give you a good present when we get home.”
So, man often receives only ridicule from nature and tries in vain to throw off the burden that he has placed on himself. Why can’t he throw off this burden? Because he has separated himself from nature and thereby lost his pure soul. He has thus become a separate living being, an ego with his own mind and body, and burdens himself with his own personal load. Then it is extremely difficult for the ego to let go of what he owns, be it happiness or suffering. But Mother Nature knows her task and what to do when we burden ourselves with such loads.
Christ also says this to his disciples: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (Matt. 16.24)”
What could he do? He was obliged to submit to his fate, and crawl along patiently behind the old woman. She seemed to grow more and more nimble, and his burden still heavier. All at once she made a spring, jumped on to the bundle and seated herself on the top of it; and however, withered she might be, she was yet heavier than the stoutest country lass. The youth’s knees trembled, but when he did not go on, the old woman hit him about the legs with a switch and with stinging-nettles. Groaning continually, he climbed the mountain, and at length reached the old woman’s house, when he was just about to drop.
Yes, in the end we even have to suffer the whole of nature, all the suffering that the world has ever accumulated, in order to finally climb up the mountain from the valley into which we have fallen, to raise our consciousness and to rediscover the holistic or divine consciousness.
Master Eckhart says about this:
In full truth: If there were a person who wanted to suffer for God and purely for God’s sake, and all the suffering that all people have ever suffered and that the whole world bears together fell on him, it would not hurt him and would not be heavy for him, because God would bear the burden. If someone put a centner on my neck and then someone else held it on my neck, I would just as happily load myself with a hundred as with one, because it would not be heavy for me and would not hurt me. In short: Whatever a person suffers for God and for God’s sake alone, God makes it easy and sweet for him. (Sermon 2)
Well, the burden is not the big problem, but who bears the burden. Who is the bearer? Who is the sufferer? - But what do we do? We invent machines to carry our burdens and become slaves to the machines. Then we have to put up with the machines and end up living like machines ourselves. How are we ever going to get to the top of the mountain where the white geese, or rather our senses and thoughts, are looked after and where nature is calling us?
When the geese perceived the old woman, they flapped their wings, stretched out their necks, ran to meet her, cackling (their “Wulle, Wulle”) all the while.
The “Wulle, Wulle” can be found in old books as a call for geese. This probably refers to the old Mother of Nature, who uses it to lure our five senses with the thought of feeding. There is also an old children’s song for this:
Wulle, Wulle, little goose,
wag your tail.
Do you know who I am?
I am your queen,
you are my children,
gi, ga, gack!
Look, there they go, all five of them
without shoes and without socks.
Hey, how beautiful life is,
when the geese go barefoot,
even in cold winter,
gi, ga, gack!
Beak and pecker, pluck and pick,
dinner, lunch and breakfast:
Whatever the little goose likes,
it finds all day long:
green leaves, fresh grass,
gi, ga, gack!
The song reminds us of the goose girl and soul of nature, who as queen guards our five senses and thus also our thoughts. All that is missing is the king.
Behind the flock walked, stick in hand, an old maid, strong and big, but ugly as night. “Good mother,” said she to the old woman, “has anything happened to you, you have stayed away so long?” “By no means, my dear daughter,” answered she, “I have met with nothing bad, but, on the contrary, with this kind gentleman, who has carried my burthen for me; only think, he even took me on his back when I was tired. The way, too, has not seemed long to us; we have been merry, and have been cracking jokes with each other all the time.” At last, the old woman slid down, took the bundle off the young man’s back, and the baskets from his arm, looked at him quite kindly, and said, “Now seat yourself on the bench before the door, and rest. You have fairly earned your wages, and they shall not be wanting.”
So, the youth or young spirit comes to the mystical mountain where the old Mother Nature is at home, as well as the pure soul of nature as her “little daughter”, which the spirit had lost when he recognized himself as separate from nature. It is also clearly stated once again that nature sees the carried burden and the suffering from a completely different perspective, namely more like a fun game than a bitter seriousness. The ego mind will protest here, but we know this view as a “game of life” or “play of the senses” from the European stories of the gods, as well as from the Indian ones, where they even speak of the divine game “Lila”, a pure game of consciousness. And here, at the height of consciousness, this burden is finally taken away from him: the bundle of food for the senses and the baskets full of fruit for the ego mind, as well as the whole of external nature herself, which he had recognized as separate from himself and which has placed herself on top. It only becomes so heavy that you don’t completely break under it, because that is of course not the goal. It is important to note that we cannot throw off this burden ourselves, but that nature as a whole or the divine will take it from us at the right time. In this way, “the wages will not be wanting,” because the spirit is on the right path and actually already close to the goal, but he cannot yet recognize the true essence of nature and the pure soul behind the external forms of transience and apparent ugliness.
Then she said to the goose-girl, “Go into the house, my dear daughter, it is not becoming for thee to be alone with a young gentleman; one must not pour oil on to the fire, he might fall in love with thee.” The count knew not whether to laugh or to cry. “Such a sweetheart as that,” thought he, “could not touch my heart, even if she were thirty years younger.” In the meantime, the old woman stroked and fondled her geese as if they were children, and then went into the house with her daughter. The youth lay down on the bench, under a wild apple-tree. The air was warm and mild; on all sides stretched a green meadow, which was set with cowslips, wild thyme, and a thousand other flowers; through the midst of it rippled a clear brook on which the sun sparkled, and the white geese went walking backwards and forwards, or paddled in the water. “It is quite delightful here,” said he, “but I am so tired that I cannot keep my eyes open; I will sleep a little. If only a gust of wind does not come and blow my legs off my body, for they are as rotten as tinder.”
No, great love has not awakened yet. But like the geese, the youth’s senses and thoughts at least delight in the lovely beauty of nature at this carefree height. But he has not yet been able to use the “cowslips” (in German: Himmelsschlüsselchen - key of heaven) and the ethereal effect of the “wild thyme” to move from the external to the internal. And so, the spirit becomes tired, thinks of his physical nature and falls asleep. Although it would be the greatest blessing if a pure wind or spirit came and blew away his physical nature. Then he would certainly have been able to recognize the pure soul of nature...
When he had slept a little while, the old woman came and shook him till he awoke. “Sit up,” said she, “thou canst not stay here; I have certainly treated thee hardly, still it has not cost thee thy life. Of money and land, thou hast no need, here is something else for thee.” Thereupon she thrust a little book into his hand, which was cut out of a single emerald. “Take great care of it,” said she, “it will bring thee good fortune.”
But Mother Nature won’t let us sleep for too long, because she knows what task we still have to fulfil. And she drives us to do it with “carrot and stick”, so to speak. The reward is a wonderful symbol: a box with a lid made from a whole, a green emerald that reminds us of the wholeness of green nature, as well as the famous “philosopher’s stone”, and also contains a very important memory, as we will see.
The count sprang up, and as he felt that he was quite fresh, and had recovered his vigour, he thanked the old woman for her present, and set off without even once looking back at the beautiful daughter. When he was already some way off, he still heard in the distance the noisy cry of the geese.
He has not yet recognized the pure soul, but he still hears the call of the holistic senses echoing within him for a long time. And whoever comes down from this spiritual height will certainly need some time to find his way back in our ordinary world.
For three days the count had to wander in the wilderness before he could find his way out. He then reached a large town, and as no one knew him, he was led into the royal palace, where the King and Queen were sitting on their throne. The count fell on one knee, drew the emerald book out of his pocket, and laid it at the Queen’s feet. She bade him rise and hand her the little book. Hardly, however, had she opened it, and looked therein, she fell as if dead to the ground. The count was seized by the King’s servants, and was being led to prison, when the Queen opened her eyes, and ordered them to release him, and everyone was to go out, as she wished to speak with him in private.
The young spirit comes back under the rule of the worldly king with his queen in an external nature, bows before them and also dedicates to them the reward he received on the mountain. But it was not an ordinary reward “of money and land”, but a spiritual one, so that the queen remembered her loss. And when the external nature remembers her pure life, then she appears outwardly like a dead shell, but finally opens her eyes, sees a way to life, calls the spirit to herself, asks for release and speaks inwardly “with him in private”.
When the Queen was alone, she began to weep bitterly, and said, “Of what use to me are the splendours and honours with which I am surrounded; every morning I awake in pain and sorrow. I had three daughters, the youngest of whom was so beautiful that the whole world looked on her as a wonder. She was as white as snow, as rosy as apple-blossom, and her hair as radiant as sunbeams. When she cried, not tears fell from her eyes, but pearls and jewels only.
Yes, in the external light of this world we wake up every morning full of “pain and sorrow”, because we live in a transient nature full of transient forms. The queen now laments “al-one”, that is, as a holistic being, but also as the queen of a worldly king who rules as the ruling spirit in an external nature. The queen’s three daughters remind us, as female beings of nature, of three levels of the soul in terms of purity and wholeness. And in the youngest, who is basically always present to us and cannot age, we recognize the pure soul, white as purity, red as love and golden as truth. And her tears are our true wealth, because she cries and mourns because of her separation from the pure spirit, and thus our suffering also takes on a valuable meaning, which can become our greatest wealth in this world, as we will see. - But why did the worldly spirit separate from her? The queen will tell us:
When she was fifteen years old, the King summoned all three sisters to come before his throne. You should have seen how all the people gazed when the youngest entered, it was just as if the sun were rising! Then the King spoke, “My daughters, I know not when my last day may arrive; I will to-day decide what each shall receive at my death. You all love me, but the one of you who loves me best, shall fare the best.” Each of them said she loved him best. “Can you not express to me,” said the King, “how much you do love me, and thus I shall see what you mean?” The eldest spoke. “I love my father as dearly as the sweetest sugar.” The second, “I love my father as dearly as my prettiest dress.” But the youngest was silent. Then the father said, “And thou, my dearest child, how much dost thou love me?” “I do not know, and can compare my love with nothing.” But her father insisted that she should name something. So, she said at last, “The best food does not please me without salt, therefore I love my father like salt.”
Why on the edge of “fifteen years”? As a number game of 1 and 5, we could again think of the thoughts and five senses, which together form the 6 as Latin “sex”, Greek “hexa” or personally hag respectively witch (in German: Hexe), as a separating principle. And this is also the supposed edge or boundary between our inner and outer world, or between spirit and nature, which is guarded like a fence by this hag as “Hagazussa”. In addition, the “fifteen years” are also the age of beginning puberty, when the strange love of “sexuality” or “hex duality” awakens in the growing human being, so that one feels incomplete, recognizes oneself as a separate being and goes in search in the world to find what is missing and to become whole again. And in this youngest daughter, this love appears particularly pure, in contrast to her father. Because the “love” of the ego-mind of a worldly king is revealed in him, who feels threatened by death and loss, wants his love confirmed in the external world, and also wants to entrust his kingdom to this worldly kind of love, which should really be called desire.
Why does the youngest daughter compare her love to salt? Master Eckhart says about this:
The salt is divine love. If we had divine love, we would taste God and all the works that God has ever done, and we would receive all things from God and do all the same works that he does. (Sermon 23)
And Jesus also says in the Bible:
You are the salt of the earth. If then the salt has lost its taste, wherewith shall it be salted? It is no longer of any use, except to be poured out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world... (Matt. 5:13)
When the King heard that, he fell into a passion, and said, “If thou lovest me like salt, thy love shall also be repaid thee with salt.” Then he divided the kingdom between the two elders, but caused a sack of salt to be bound on the back of the youngest, and two servants had to lead her forth into the wild forest.
Why is the king angry about a divine or holistic love, about a pure light of a pure consciousness? Well, that is our biggest problem. The ego-mind cannot do anything with a whole and thus also with a God, but feels deeply threatened by it, because he is a separating self-consciousness that can only think in opposites. That is probably why there are two servants who are supposed to lead the pure soul “forth into the wild forest” of our ideas. From this perspective, salt would be an interesting metaphor for our consciousness: If it is denied, everything tastes empty and we fall into dark and cold lethargy. If it is desired, we oversalt everything and fall into fiery passion. And yet we cannot live without it, because it is the basis of everything, and without consciousness we could not live at all. Accordingly, we also find in the notes to this fairy tale:
The motif “love like salt” is carried out incompletely. The shame of the old king is missing, who recognizes the value of salt through the unsalted food and admits that his youngest daughter’s assurance that she loves him like salt was not a mockery. (Bolte/Polívka, Volume 3, p. 305)
We all begged and prayed for her,” said the Queen, “but the King’s anger was not to be appeased. How she cried when she had to leave us! The whole road was strewn with the pearls which flowed from her eyes. The King soon afterwards repented of his great severity, and had the whole forest searched for the poor child, but no one could find her. When I think that the wild beasts have devoured her, I know not how to contain myself for sorrow; many a time I console myself with the hope that she is still alive, and may have hidden herself in a cave, or has found shelter with compassionate people. But picture to yourself, when I opened your little emerald book, a pearl lay therein, of exactly the same kind as those which used to fall from my daughter’s eyes; and then you can also imagine how the sight of it stirred my heart. You must tell me how you came by that pearl.”
Yes, the pure soul cannot be found “in the whole forest” of our imagination. She can be eaten by “wild beasts,” but she cannot actually die. So, she hides herself and sends us a precious reminder at the right time in the form of the pearls of her tears that she cries for her separation.
The count told her that he had received it from the old woman in the forest, who had appeared very strange to him, and must be a witch, but he had neither seen nor hear anything of the Queen’s child. The King and the Queen resolved to seek out the old woman. They thought that there where the pearl had been, they would obtain news of their daughter.
The noble youth uses his mind to bring back the memory to the worldly king and his queen and describes the way to the “old woman in the forest”, who still seems threatening to the ego mind. Nature will always remain threatening to us as long as she stands opposite to us and we see ourselves as separate from her. Because we can never fully rely on our senses and thoughts. They are easily deceived and enchanted, and as we know, there is white and black magic. The black magic separates and embodies us even more, until it finally seems to petrify us completely. While the white magic elevates us, revives us and expands our consciousness to pure love, as we know from many old stories and still experience every day.
So, “the old woman now sits in that lonely place”, but spins our thread of life inside, where it is still very dark inside us because we have not yet recognized the true essence of nature.
The old woman was sitting in that lonely place at her spinning-wheel, spinning. It was already dusk, and a log which was burning on the hearth gave a scanty light. All at once there was a noise outside, the geese were coming home from the pasture, and uttering their hoarse cries. Soon afterwards the daughter also entered. But the old woman scarcely thanked her, and only shook her head a little. The daughter sat down beside her, took her spinning-wheel, and twisted the threads as nimbly as a young girl. Thus, they both sat for two hours, and exchanged never a word. At last, something rustled at the window, and two fiery eyes peered in. It was an old night-owl, which cried, “Uhu!” three times. The old woman looked up just a little, then she said, “Now, my little daughter, it is time for thee to go out and do thy work.”
The pure and eternally young soul of nature, which also guards the pure senses and thoughts, naturally helps her mother to spin our life thread as a soul bond of cause and effect, even if she does not yet know exactly what she is spinning, because she is still separated from the pure spirit. In addition, the owl as guardian of the night or the subconscious with the fiery eyes of wisdom is a beautiful symbol for the living clock of nature, to announce the right time when the soul has to fulfil her task in the game of cause and effect.
She rose and went out, and where did she go? Over the meadows ever onward into the valley. At last, she came to a well, with three old oak-trees standing beside it; meanwhile the moon had risen large and round over the mountain, and it was so light that one could have found a needle.
After hearing a lot about the top of the mountain, we go down into the valley, down to the source and the origin. A well with three oak trees already sounds like an old and very mystical place, whose name is still often found today, but hardly any deeper story behind it. The well itself has always been a powerful symbol, because in its depths there is a spring that cannot be seen from the outside, but which provides the water for life, which of course should be drawn with reason, and not denied or desired, like salt. And what kind of spring could it be that nourishes the roots of three mighty trees? Here we can again think of pure consciousness as an eternal fountain of youth, because it itself knows no aging and no transience. From this perspective, it is the water of eternal life, similar to “hydrogen”, which has served as the basis for all matter practically since the Big Bang.
The oak itself was a sacred tree in many cultures and stands for constancy, vitality, loyalty, truth and many other virtues. The number three reminds us of the usual three fundamental forces that are at work and can be found everywhere in nature, i.e., two opposites and one direction. Because two opposing forces would just swing back and forth senselessly. A third force is then used for direction, so that symbolically a triangle is created in which the three forces interact. In a similar way, we today also explain the creation of our universe from the interplay of matter and antimatter in the Big Bang, but modern science has still not recognized the third force, why something came into being from this. So far, the world tree basically has three trunks or at least three roots, just as the famous world tree Yggdrasil has three roots, as well as three Norns as goddesses of fate at the holy Urd well.
And here at the bottom of everything there is suddenly light, the full moon of a spiritual light shines in the worldly night over the mountain from the heights down to the valley below, and we see:
She removed a skin which covered her face, then bent down to the well, and began to wash herself. When she had finished, she dipped the skin also in the water, and then laid it on the meadow, so that it should bleach in the moonlight, and dry again. But how the maiden was changed! Such a change as that was never seen before! When the grey mask fell off, her golden hair broke forth like sunbeams, and spread about like a mantle over her whole form. Her eyes shone out as brightly as the stars in heaven, and her cheeks bloomed a soft red like apple-blossom.
Now, the pure soul lays down her transient shell or form at this fountain of youth as a pure source of consciousness and purifies herself again and again in the moonlight of the spiritual light. In this purity appears her golden hair of truth, from which the far-seeing eyes of wisdom flash, as well as her pure, gentle love as a reddish blossom for all the fruits of this world.
But the fair maiden was sad. She sat down and wept bitterly. One tear after another forced itself out of her eyes, and rolled through her long hair to the ground. There she sat, and would have remained sitting a long time, if there had not been a rustling and cracking in the boughs of the neighbouring tree. She sprang up like a roe which has been overtaken by the shot of the hunter. Just then the moon was obscured by a dark cloud, and in an instant the maiden had slipped on the old skin and vanished, like a light blown out by the wind.
This is a particularly wonderful description of a basic problem that meditators know all too well when they look inward into the depths. As soon as a spectator moves in the tree of life and as soon as one thinks “I see something other than myself,” the spiritual light disappears behind the “dark cloud” of ignorance and the vision escapes, so to speak, from the “hunter” of the ego mind. That is, when the truth feels observed, it disappears because one can never see it as something separate and one only ever sees a transient effect. This is wonderfully described here and shows once again how unimaginably far many people were in the past who have passed on such profound stories for such a long time.
With this, the pure soul now flees back to the mountain to her old mother, whom we still see as an external nature that lives in a physical witch’s house, although she is a friendly and holistic being who knows everything that is happening.
She ran back home, trembling like an aspen-leaf. The old woman was standing on the threshold, and the girl was about to relate what had befallen her, but the old woman laughed kindly, and said, “I already know all.” She led her into the room and lighted a new log. She did not, however, sit down to her spinning again, but fetched a broom and began to sweep and scour, “All must be clean and sweet,” she said to the girl.
Now something great happens again: Mother Nature herself takes over the last important cleaning in our house. To do this, she lights a new light inside us shortly before midnight at the “witching hour”, when the external light has gone out, and stops spinning the thread of life, which has now evidently reached an important goal. This describes three essential aspects of a holistic spirit-nature: spinning, knowing and purifying. One could also speak of creation, preservation and dissolution, for which we also know the Indian gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, or from a Christian perspective Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who in truth as a trinity are always only one whole. But our pure soul still does not know what is happening because she is still separated from the pure spirit, and asks:
“But, mother,” said the maiden, “why do you begin work at so late an hour? What do you expect?” “Dost thou know then what time it is?” asked the old woman. “Not yet midnight,” answered the maiden, “but already past eleven o’clock.” “Dost thou not remember,” continued the old woman, “that it is three years to-day since thou camest to me? Thy time is up, we can no longer remain together.”
The girl has now turned 18, which today means “adulthood”. As a game of numbers, 18 is also a relatively holy number, consisting of 2 by 3 by 3, and its digit sum is 9, i.e., 3 by 3, which can be seen in relation to the two triangles of male and female in the living multiplication of their powers. In Hebrew, this number is closely linked to the meaning of “life”, and similarly the numbers 18, 108 and 1008 are revered in India as a variety of scriptures, names and prayers. Accordingly, in German we can think of mindfulness of unity in diversity when reason increasingly awakens in the adult human being as a holistic perspective.
And what do the three years mean? They remind us of an apprenticeship of “herding geese” that is now over, similar to the three years that “the drummer” spent on the Glass Mountain. In the broadest sense, it could also be three longer phases of life: child, teenager and adult, who reach their goal and a certain level of maturity after school, if we have carefully nurtured and nourished our senses and thoughts with our body and mind. And then we might ask ourselves in shock: What comes next? What will happen next? What will become of me?
The girl was terrified, and said, “Alas! dear mother, will you cast me off? Where shall I go? I have no friends, and no home to which I can go. I have always done as you bade me, and you have always been satisfied with me; do not send me away.” The old woman would not tell the maiden what lay before her. “My stay here is over,” she said to her, “but when I depart, house and parlour must be clean: therefore, do not hinder me in my work. Have no care for thyself, thou shalt find a roof to shelter thee, and the wages which I will give thee shall also content thee.” “But tell me what is about to happen,” the maiden continued to entreat. “I tell thee again, do not hinder me in my work. Do not say a word more, go to thy chamber, take the skin off thy face, and put on the silken gown which thou hadst on when thou camest to me, and then wait in thy chamber until I call thee.”
As long as we live in separation, these fears, worries and questions about becoming are naturally there, because we have not yet arrived at true being, in the wholeness of a pure consciousness or awareness. So now, after the apprenticeship, a little patience is still required.
“But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8.25)”
To do this, we should take off our transitory shell, put on our original garment that we wore when we came into external nature, and wait in the purified space of our consciousness until the time is ripe and we are called, without “hindering nature in her work”. What kind of “silk garment” is this? The soul of nature, which spins the silken threads of cause and effect from which our life story is woven and worked, can wear many different garments in which we rarely recognize her. But here we are of course thinking of her wedding dress, white as snow, as a symbol of purity, wholeness and unity, which is what she was born for, as the queen told us above. Because her bridegroom is on his way to her, which Mother Nature already sees and knows...
And at the same time, from the perspective of the spirit, the following happens:
But I must once more tell of the King and Queen, who had journeyed forth with the count in order to seek out the old woman in the wilderness. The count had strayed away from them in the wood by night, and had to walk onwards alone. Next day it seemed to him that he was on the right track. He still went forward, until darkness came on, then he climbed a tree, intending to pass the night there, for he feared that he might lose his way. When the moon illumined the surrounding country, he perceived a figure coming down the mountain. She had no stick in her hand, but yet he could see that it was the goose-girl, whom he had seen before in the house of the old woman. “Oho,” cried he, “there she comes, and if I once get hold of one of the witches, the other shall not escape me!”
The noble youth still thought that it was his senses that showed him an external world, and felt like he was on a witch hunt in the nightly enchanted forest of his imagination. And yet he had already come a long way, because he went into his inner self and had “strayed away” from the worldly spirit and external nature that rule in the external world. And here he now sees, with great astonishment, the true essence of nature and his soul behind the external shell of transience.
But how astonished he was, when she went to the well, took off the skin and washed herself, when her golden hair fell down all about her, and she was more beautiful than any one whom he had ever seen in the whole world. He hardly dared to breathe, but stretched his head as far forward through the leaves as he dared, and stared at her. Either he bent over too far, or whatever the cause might be, the bough suddenly cracked, and that very moment the maiden slipped into the skin, sprang away like a roe, and as the moon was suddenly covered, disappeared from his eyes.
It is said: “Just one look at our true nature and we are in love.” With this view beyond external forms, true love can now work again, which can overcome any separation and unite everything.
Hardly had she disappeared, before the count descended from the tree, and hastened after her with nimble steps. He had not been gone long before he saw, in the twilight, two figures coming over the meadow. It was the King and Queen, who had perceived from a distance the light shining in the old woman’s little house, and were going to it. The count told them what wonderful things he had seen by the well, and they did not doubt that it had been their lost daughter. They walked onwards full of joy, and soon came to the little house. The geese were sitting all round it, and had thrust their heads under their wings and were sleeping, and not one of them moved. The King and Queen looked in at the window, the old woman was sitting there quite quietly spinning, nodding her head and never looking round. The room was perfectly clean, as if the little mist men, who carry no dust on their feet, lived there. Their daughter, however, they did not see.
The power of pure and true love can now unite everyone on the mountain again, spirit and nature, internal and external, and there is probably no other power that can do that. The inner spirit finds his way through his inner vision, and the external through the light from the windows of the physical senses. But why don’t the geese start to cackle loudly, even though they are more attentive than any watchdog? Well, they are probably not strangers who arrive here. Peace reigns on the mountain, and the geese, or rather senses and thoughts, have withdrawn into themselves and are silent. Mother Nature also shows herself quietly at work. She spins the life threads of cause and effect and does not allow herself to be distracted from it. And this happens in complete purity, even in our own bodies, when we look inside, as if small spirit beings were working there, who know no impurity on their way. Of course, because that is why the pure soul has guarded the white geese of the pure senses and thoughts. But where is she? This is probably the deep meaning of the whole fairy tale: they still see external nature and not their own pure soul.
They gazed at all this for a long time, at last they took heart, and knocked softly at the window. The old woman appeared to have been expecting them; she rose, and called out quite kindly, “Come in, I know you already.” When they had entered the room, the old woman said, “You might have spared yourself the long walk, if you had not three years ago unjustly driven away your child, who is so good and loveable. No harm has come to her; for three years she has had to tend the geese; with them she has learnt no evil, but has preserved her purity of heart. You, however, have been sufficiently punished by the misery in which you have lived.” Then she went to the chamber and called, “Come out, my little daughter.” Thereupon the door opened, and the princess stepped out in her silken garments, with her golden hair and her shining eyes, and it was as if an angel from heaven had entered.
This probably means: If we had not cast out the pure soul within us and banished her to the forest of ideas of an external world, then we would have spared ourselves a long journey of fear and suffering. But the pure soul “keeps her purity of heart” of a pure consciousness, guards the pure senses and thoughts and “no harm comes to her”. We can therefore find her again at any time, recognize her and be one with her again. And this is what the ancient Mother Nature is waiting for in her entirety, and when the time is right, she can bring her back out of hiding as her little daughter. Then the door opens that we ourselves have closed to her and we see the soul of nature in her white wedding dress of purity and unity, in which all separation disappears, with her golden hair of truth and her shining eyes of a pure consciousness, like a heavenly and divine being in completely pure and true love.
She went up to her father and mother, fell on their necks and kissed them; there was no help for it, they all had to weep for joy. The young count stood near them, and when she perceived him, she became as red in the face as a moss-rose, she herself did not know why. The King said, “My dear child, I have given away my kingdom, what shall I give thee?” “She needs nothing,” said the old woman. “I give her the tears that she has wept on your account; they are precious pearls, finer than those that are found in the sea, and worth more than your whole kingdom, and I give her my little house as payment for her services.” When the old woman had said that, she disappeared from their sight. The walls rattled a little, and when the King and Queen looked round, the little house had changed into a splendid palace, a royal table had been spread, and the servants were running hither and thither.
In this way, all the tears of sadness at the separation will finally turn into tears of joy when wholeness is found again through the power of love. Then external nature will disappear “from our (eye-) sight” and we will find an inner or spiritual kingdom that no worldly king can give us. Thus, the tears, that the soul of nature cried for the spirit that had turned away from her and separated from her, will turn into pearls of love and wisdom, which are our greatest wealth. And it is not for nothing that the Bible says that we should not cast these pearls before swine, that is, waste them on an external world, as the two elder sisters of the pure soul tried to do. And our little body house will then be transformed into “a splendid palace” where there is no longer any lack because there is no longer any separation and everything is for our good. A happy ending?
The story goes still further, but my grandmother, who related it to me, had partly lost her memory, and had forgotten the rest.
A special ending to a special fairy tale! Of course, this story also continues. But what else can you tell when there is no longer any external nature that can be understood and grasped? How can you paint a picture of a limitless wholeness where everything is as it is? It is not a “state” of standing still in any form that one could “understand”, but rather a supreme mobility, changeability and liveliness that no one can or wants to hold on to anymore, as described above by the servants in the castle of abundance and wholeness.
And yet our ego-mind has its thoughts and ideas about it, and that is probably good for the imagination of children who take this fairy tale with them on their journey through life.
I shall always believe that the beautiful princess married the count, and that they remained together in the palace, and lived there in all happiness so long as God willed it. Whether the snow-white geese, which were kept near the little hut, were verily young maidens (no one need take offence,) whom the old woman had taken under her protection, and whether they now received their human form again, and stayed as handmaids to the young Queen, I do not exactly know, but I suspect it. This much is certain, that the old woman was no witch, as people thought, but a wise woman, who meant well. Very likely it was she who, at the princess’s birth, gave her the gift of weeping pearls instead of tears. That does not happen now-a-days, or else the poor would soon become rich.
Why don’t our tears turn into pearls these days? Perhaps we all have this gift from the ancient and wise mother, and it is only because we cry for many things that we really shouldn’t cry for. And the things that we really should cry for, we don’t cry for.
• ... Table of contents of all fairy tale interpretations ...
• Allerleirauh - (All-kinds-of-Fur) (topic: sick mind, dying nature and healing)
• The Origin of Stories - (topic: material and spiritual world)
• Hans Stupid - (topic: realize wishes)
• The Drummer - (topic: Mind and path to salvation)
• Swan Prince - (topic: soul, spirit and salvation)
• The Six Swans - (topic: senses, thoughts and expansion)
• The poor Girl and the Star-Money - (topic: poverty in spirit)
• Death and the Goose Herder - (topic: geese and wholeness)
• The Fox and the Geese - (topic: mind and wholeness)
• The Goose-Girl at the Well (topic: spirit, soul and nature)
• The Golden Goose - (topic: recognize true wholeness)
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[1884] Grimm's Household Tales. Translated from the German and edited by Margaret Hunt. With an introduction by Andrew Lang, 1884, Vol. 1/2, London: George Bell and Sons |