fire at night which made the flesh creep, the listeners sometimes
said: 'Oh, it makes us shudder!' The younger sat in a corner and
listened with the rest of them, and could not imagine what they could
mean. 'They are always saying: "It makes me shudder, it makes me
shudder!" It does not make me shudder,' thought he. 'That, too, must
be an art of which I understand nothing!'

Now it came to pass that his father said to him one day: 'Hearken to
me, you fellow in the corner there, you are growing tall and strong,
and you too must learn something by which you can earn your bread.
Look how your brother works, but you do not even earn your salt.'
'Well, father,' he replied, 'I am quite willing to learn something--
indeed, if it could but be managed, I should like to learn how to
shudder. I don't understand that at all yet.' The elder brother smiled
when he heard that, and thought to himself: 'Goodness, what a
blockhead that brother of mine is! He will never be good for anything
as long as he lives! He who wants to be a sickle must bend himself
betimes.'

The father sighed, and answered him: 'You shall soon learn what it is
to shudder, but you will not earn your bread by that.'

Soon after this the sexton came to the house on a visit, and the
father bewailed his trouble, and told him how his younger son was so
backward in every respect that he knew nothing and learnt nothing.
'Just think,' said he, 'when I asked him how he was going to earn his
bread, he actually wanted to learn to shudder.' 'If that be all,'
replied the sexton, 'he can learn that with me. Send him to me, and I
will soon polish him.' The father was glad to do it, for he thought:
'It will train the boy a little.' The sexton therefore took him into
his house, and he had to ring the church bell. After a day or two, the
sexton awoke him at midnight, and bade him arise and go up into the
church tower and ring the bell. 'You shall soon learn what shuddering
is,' thought he, and secretly went there before him; and when the boy
was at the top of the tower and turned round, and was just going to
take hold of the bell rope, he saw a white figure standing on the
stairs opposite the sounding hole. 'Who is there?' cried he, but the
figure made no reply, and did not move or stir. 'Give an answer,'
cried the boy, 'or take yourself off, you have no business here at
night.'

The sexton, however, remained standing motionless that the boy might
think he was a ghost. The boy cried a second time: 'What do you want
here?--speak if you are an honest fellow, or I will throw you down the
steps!' The sexton thought: 'He can't mean to be as bad as his words,'
uttered no sound and stood as if he were made of stone. Then the boy
called to him for the third time, and as that was also to no purpose,
he ran against him and pushed the ghost down the stairs, so that it
fell down the ten steps and remained lying there in a corner.
Thereupon he rang the bell, went home, and without saying a word went
to bed, and fell asleep. The sexton's wife waited a long time for her
husband, but he did not come back. At length she became uneasy, and
wakened the boy, and asked: 'Do you know where my husband is? He
climbed up the tower before you did.' 'No, I don't know,' replied the
boy, 'but someone was standing by the sounding hole on the other side
of the steps, and as he would neither gave an answer nor go away, I
took him for a scoundrel, and threw him downstairs. Just go there and
you will see if it was he. I should be sorry if it were.' The woman
ran away and found her husband, who was lying moaning in the corner,
and had broken his leg.

She carried him down, and then with loud screams she hastened to the
boy's father, 'Your boy,' cried she, 'has been the cause of a great
misfortune! He has thrown my husband down the steps so that he broke
his leg. Take the good-for-nothing fellow out of our house.' The
father was terrified, and ran thither and scolded the boy. 'What
wicked tricks are these?' said he. 'The devil must have put them into
your head.' 'Father,' he replied, 'do listen to me. I am quite
innocent. He was standing there by night like one intent on doing
evil. I did not know who it was, and I entreated him three times
either to speak or to go away.' 'Ah,' said the father, 'I have nothing
but unhappiness with you. Go out of my sight. I will see you no more.'

'Yes, father, right willingly, wait only until it is day. Then will I
go forth and learn how to shudder, and then I shall, at any rate,
understand one art which will support me.' 'Learn what you will,'
spoke the father, 'it is all the same to me. Here are fifty talers for
you. Take these and go into the wide world, and tell no one from
whence you come, and who is your father, for I have reason to be
ashamed of you.' 'Yes, father, it shall be as you will. If you desire
nothing more than that, I can easily keep it in mind.'

When the day dawned, therefore, the boy put his fifty talers into his
pocket, and went forth on the great highway, and continually said to
himself: 'If I could but shudder! If I could but shudder!' Then a man
approached who heard this conversation which the youth was holding
with himself, and when they had walked a little farther to where they
could see the gallows, the man said to him: 'Look, there is the tree
where seven men have married the ropemaker's daughter, and are now
learning how to fly. Sit down beneath it, and wait till night comes,
and you will soon learn how to shudder.' 'If that is all that is
wanted,' answered the youth, 'it is easily done; but if I learn how to
shudder as fast as that, you shall have my fifty talers. Just come
back to me early in the morning.' Then the youth went to the gallows,
sat down beneath it, and waited till evening came. And as he was cold,
he lighted himself a fire, but at midnight the wind blew so sharply
that in spite of his fire, he could not get warm. And as the wind
knocked the hanged men against each other, and they moved backwards
and forwards, he thought to himself: 'If you shiver below by the fire,
how those up above must freeze and suffer!' And as he felt pity for


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