Brother and Sister
A boy turned into a roe deer by an enchanted stream, and the sister who never let him go
Page 1
There was once a brother and a sister who loved each other with all their hearts. Their own mother was dead, and their father had married again, and the new wife did not love them at all. She was unkind to them in every little way she could find — short with her words, slow with their food, quick to find fault — and the two children grew thinner and quieter every day they lived under her roof. One evening the brother took his sister's hand. 'I cannot bear this life any longer,' he said. 'Our stepmother treats us worse than she treats her dog. Let us go out into the wide world together.' So they waited until the house was dark and still, and then, while the stepmother slept, they slipped out through the garden gate and walked away from the only home they had ever known, toward the black line of forest at the edge of the fields.
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All night long the brother and sister walked deeper into the forest, following whatever path they could find in the darkness. Branches caught at their clothes and owls called from the black trees above them, but they did not turn back. 'We must keep walking,' the sister said softly, holding tight to her brother's hand. 'By morning we will be far enough away.' They walked until the moon rose high over the treetops and then began to sink again, and still they walked, too frightened and too determined to stop. When at last the sky began to pale with the first grey light of morning, they found themselves in a part of the forest neither of them had ever seen before — no path at all now, only trees crowding close on every side, and the distant sound of water somewhere ahead of them.
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By morning the brother was so thirsty that he could hardly walk another step. 'Let us just drink from this stream,' he said, kneeling at the edge of a clear little brook that ran bubbling over the stones. But as he bent toward the water, his sister heard a strange small voice rising from the current itself. 'Whoever drinks of me,' the stream seemed to whisper, 'will become a tiger.' She caught her brother's arm just in time. 'Don't drink!' she cried. 'If you do, you will turn into a tiger and tear me to pieces!' The brother was so thirsty that tears stood in his eyes, but he trusted his sister completely. 'Then I will wait,' he said, 'however hard it is,' and they walked on together, leaving the whispering stream behind them, deeper into the forest in search of water that was safe to drink.
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They walked on for hours under the trees until the brother's thirst grew unbearable again. This time they came upon a spring bubbling up quietly under a stand of old willows, the water so clear and cool-looking that he could not resist it. He bent down to drink, and once again his sister heard the water whispering as it rose. 'Whoever drinks of me will become a wolf,' it seemed to say, soft and strange among the ripples. 'Brother, no!' she cried, pulling him back from the edge just as his lips nearly touched the water. 'If you drink here you will turn into a wolf and eat me up!' The brother groaned with thirst but stepped back from the spring. 'I will bear it,' he said, though his voice shook. 'I would rather die of thirst than hurt you.' And on they went again, further into the forest, searching for water that would not change him.
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At last they came to a third stream, running swift and bright across an open sunny clearing. The brother could bear his thirst no longer. 'I must drink this time, whatever happens,' he said, and knelt down before his sister could stop him. Once more she heard the water whisper, this time saying, 'Whoever drinks of me will become a roe deer' — but the words came too late, for her brother had already cupped the water in his hands and swallowed it down. The moment he had drunk, he began to change. His hands became slender legs, his face lengthened, soft reddish-brown fur spread over his skin, and in a heartbeat where her brother had knelt there was now a little roe deer looking up at her with his own familiar, gentle eyes. Sister wept and knelt beside him in the grass, and the roe deer pressed his head against her shoulder as if to say that he was still the same brother underneath, whatever shape he now wore.
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Sister did not leave her brother, deer or no deer. She found a little hollow tree deep in the forest and made it into a cosy hut, lining it with moss and soft leaves for a bed, and there the two of them made their home. She tied a band of gold — a little garter she had worn since childhood — around the roe deer's neck, so that she would always know him from any other deer in the forest, and every evening he would lie down beside her and rest his head in her lap while she sang to him softly. She gathered nuts and roots and berries to eat, and the roe deer grazed on the sweet grass outside the door, and so the two of them lived together, content in their strange quiet life, for a long, long time, loving each other just as much as they always had, each day much like the one before it, deep in the green heart of the forest.
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One day the hunt came through that part of the forest, the king's own hunt, with horses and hounds and horns echoing between the trees. The roe deer could not resist it. 'Please let me go just this once,' he had begged his sister that morning, and every morning after, until at last she agreed, so long as he promised to come home to her each evening. All day he ran with the hunt, leaping logs and bounding through the bracken faster than any hound could follow, until at evening he always slipped away and trotted home to the hut. But one evening the king himself caught sight of something glinting at the deer's throat as he bounded past — a flash of gold, like a ribbon, around his neck. Curious, the king followed the deer's trail deeper into the forest than any hunt had gone before, determined to find out where the strange little creature with the golden collar went when the hunting horn fell silent.
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The king followed the deer's trail all the way to the little hollow tree, and there, standing in the doorway with her arms thrown with relief around the roe deer's neck, he found the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen. He asked her how she came to be living alone in the forest with a tame deer for a companion, and she told him everything — the cruel stepmother, the flight into the forest, the three streams, and her brother's enchantment. The king was moved by her story and charmed by her gentle courage, and before he left the clearing that evening he asked her to come and be his queen, and to bring her brother with her, deer or no deer, for he would always have a home wherever she did. Sister agreed, on the one condition that the roe deer would never be parted from her, and the king promised it gladly. So they left the little hut together, the three of them, and went to live in the king's castle.
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Time passed, and the queen gave birth to a baby boy, and everyone in the castle rejoiced — but not the witch, her old stepmother, who had followed them in secret and burned with hate at her stepdaughter's happiness. One night the witch crept into the castle with her own daughter, cast a cruel spell over the sleeping queen that sent her into a sleep as still and cold as death, and put her own daughter in the queen's bed in her place, disguised by magic to look the same. But the true queen's spirit could not rest. Every night at midnight she came gliding silently into the nursery to nurse her baby and to stroke the roe deer's head, then slipped away again before dawn. The old night watchman saw her twice and told the king, who hid himself in the nursery on the third night, and when the queen's spirit appeared he spoke to her gently by name — and the moment he did, the curse broke, and she woke warm and living in his arms.
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When the king asked his true queen who had done this cruel thing to her, she told him everything, and the witch and her false daughter were brought before the whole court. The moment the truth was spoken aloud in front of everyone, the witch's power broke apart like smoke, and she fled the castle that very hour, driven out of the kingdom for good and never seen in that country again. Her daughter, exposed before everyone as a fraud, was sent away in disgrace to make her own way far from the castle she had tried to steal. And at that very moment, as the last of the witch's magic failed, the little roe deer who had lain faithfully beside the queen through everything suddenly became a boy again, whole and well, exactly as he had been before he ever drank from that third enchanted stream. Brother and sister embraced, laughing and crying together, and from that day on the three of them — king, queen and her own dear brother — lived together in the castle, happy and safe, for the rest of their days.
About this story
- Audience: kids (ages 6–12)
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