Fairy Tales by Friedrich Wilhelm Hackländer - Rediscovering a Lost Treasure
Fairy tales have an everlasting charm, weaving fantasy and profound truths together in ways that captivate readers of all ages. One such forgotten gem, recently translated into English for modern audiences, is Fairy Tales by Friedrich Wilhelm Hackländer.
Originally published in 1843 in Stuttgart, Germany, Hackländer's collection blends whimsical imagination with subtle humor and insightful reflections on human nature. This fresh translation by Rade Kolbas faithfully captures the authentic voice and cultural nuances of Hackländer's original text, including a previously untranslated story, "The Christmas Tale."
Hackländer’s tales are distinctively charming, reminiscent of the modern storytelling mastery found in authors like Neil Gaiman. Much like Gaiman, Hackländer skillfully balances the magical with the mundane, allowing readers to find deeper meanings beneath the enchanting narratives. If you enjoy Gaiman’s ability to uncover hidden wisdom within fantastical elements, Hackländer’s fairy tales will similarly resonate, offering both entertainment and reflective depth.
About the Author: Friedrich Wilhelm Hackländer
Friedrich Wilhelm Hackländer (1816–1877) was a celebrated German author whose works were widely read and admired during the 19th century. Known for his engaging prose and gentle wit, Hackländer had a unique talent for capturing everyday life and human emotions through a fairy-tale lens. His stories have an enduring charm, making them relevant even today as they explore timeless themes of love, bravery, kindness, and moral integrity.
Introducing "The Dwarf’s Nest"
Among the collection is the intriguing tale titled "The Dwarf's Nest," a story filled with elements of folklore and magic realism. It begins with Conrad, a humble weaver who, rejected by his community, is forced to seek refuge in an old, mysterious dwelling known locally as the Dwarf’s Nest. Legends warn him about mischievous dwarves known to disrupt human lives, yet Conrad bravely chooses to live there.
What unfolds is a delightful blend of adventure and morality, where magical beings intersect vividly with human existence. Conrad’s interactions with these creatures reveal profound truths about community, acceptance, and resilience in the face of adversity.
Dive into "The Dwarf’s Nest" below, a tale where enchantment meets heartfelt lessons, and discover why Hackländer’s storytelling is timelessly engaging.
The Dwarf’s Nest
Once there was a man who was by trade a weaver, which means he received silk and wool from merchants in the city, from which he knew how to make beautiful fabrics at home on his loom. Since life in the city, even with the poorest fare and the worst lodging, would have been too expensive for his meager earnings, he had looked around for another dwelling outside and finally found one that, though nothing less than comfortable or good-looking, protected him quite well against heavy rain and rough weather.
This dwelling of his stood namely near a neighboring village and was a dilapidated, poor hut that was attached to an old masonry wall. Of the masonry, it was said that in ancient times it had been a prison tower and belonged to an extensive castle, whose ruins could still be seen on a neighboring rock. Against this prison tower, the village shepherd had earlier built a small house from old beams and poor boards and lived there to oversee his sheep, which liked to roam around between the old walls and seemed to enjoy the foot-high, juicy grass between the black, half-burned stones.
Yet the shepherd had not lived here very long when quite worrisome circumstances forced him to leave his small dwelling. Often in the middle of the night, his flock of sheep, which had settled partly near his hut, partly in the old castle courtyard, got into such confusion and such uproar as if a dozen wolves had gotten among them. The poor sheep bleated pitifully and scattered in true mortal fear, here and there, wherever an opening in the walls of the old castle allowed them passage. Then the shepherd had to call and whistle with all his might, but despite this, none of the otherwise so obedient animals would heed his call and return. Rather, in their fear they did not look where they were going, and it happened not infrequently that they fell between the rocks and perished miserably. The shepherd’s dogs, which during the day had often thoroughly mauled and driven back the wolf, tucked their tails in during this spectacle that broke out in the middle of the night, howled in fear, and were not to be induced either by beatings or kind words to go among the sheep and bring them back properly.
The shepherd, certainly not the most fearful of men, was in despair over the loss of his sheep and therefore very vigilant and quick to respond whenever such a mad spectacle started again, which mostly happened on a full moon night, and although it was then so bright that he could oversee his entire surroundings, he never saw the slightest thing, neither wolves nor evil people who could have brought his flock into disorder. However, the shepherd thought, when he ran back and forth between the restless animals, that he heard now here now there a soft laugh or the hunting cry: “Halloo, halloo!” as hunters let out when they chase game before them in the forests.
After the shepherd had watched with several people from the village, who at first had suspected the shepherd himself in the loss of their sheep, for many full moon nights and had seen the spectacle with their own eyes, also heard the soft laughter and the halloo cry with their own ears, all had agreed that it was the wichtelmännchen or dwarves who had lived since time immemorial in the neighboring rocks and valleys and were arranging here their own hunting pleasure to the detriment of humans. It was not the first time that the dwarves had come forth and caused such obvious damage to people through their games and loose tricks. Old and also younger people had already seen them frequently, especially those who went to the nearby towns for the fair or had other business in the surroundings. These people namely had to pass by certain places, usually small green forest valleys, which were covered with fresh green moss, surrounded by ancient trees.
If in the middle of one of these places stood a single large tree, whose far-stretched branches formed a kind of leaf tent, such a place was the gathering place of the wichtelmännchen and they came together here in crowds at the first ray of the moon that rose over the mountains to perform their dances. Old hunters had often told that when pursuing a stag late at night they had approached such a place and had seen the most wonderful games of the wichtelmännchen, and could not say enough about the graceful high jumps, the most lovely dance and the arrow-swift turns of the little dwarves and dwarf women. Only such an uninvited spectator had to keep as quiet as possible and be well hidden so that the sharp eye of the dwarves would not spy him, for otherwise these often stopped in the middle of the dance, disappeared and rushed away through the air, making a noise like a strong swarm of bees flying over a field of flowers.
Sometimes it also happened to such a curious person who had approached too carelessly that when the elves disappeared, he received from invisible hands such a number of invisible but very tangible slaps that he fell down stunned and got up the next morning with brown and blue spots.
For a long time the elves had carried on their business quite far from the villages, but as the forests were cleared more and more and especially the old strong trees were cut down, they had set up their dancing places near old masonry that stood on rocky, infertile ground and were left in peace by greedy humans. This now made it harder to watch their nightly dances, for through the driving out of their lonely forest valleys they had become more cautious and rarely danced visible to the human eye, also they became more malicious through human curiosity and it rarely succeeded anymore for a mortal to watch them unnoticed and without being beaten. Through this, belief in the little people had gradually disappeared, and even when a curious lad appeared the next morning beaten black and blue and wanted to tell his adventures that he had had with the wichtelmännchen, he was usually laughed at and people thought the lid of the beer mug must have hit his nose bloody.
But with the incident with the shepherd, people became aware of the little men again, and only saw, after significant damage had been done to the owners of the flocks, that one necessarily had to yield the field to the wichtelmännchen and leave them in peace in their refuge, the lonely masonry. The shepherd accordingly left his hut and was accommodated elsewhere, where it soon showed in his flocks of sheep that the wichtelmännchen were of very reconcilable and basically also good-natured nature, for when they found their play and romping place freed in the previously described way from the bleating and scratching of sheep, they let the village’s herds thrive through secret magic spells or who knows what else in such a way that their owners were soon fully compensated for the lost sheep.
Meanwhile the shepherd’s hut stood empty and since it had not been in very habitable condition before, it fell into ever greater disrepair; the windows were shattered and sun, moon, rain and wind made visits from all sides in its interior. Despite this, the walls, which consisted of pieces of turf, had preserved themselves excellently, for they had grown together into a whole. Moreover, the hut was surrounded by shrubs and herbs in abundance, so that from afar it looked like a green hill or like a large bird’s nest and in connection with the wichtelmännchen was called by the people in the village the dwarf’s nest, and the castle on the neighboring mountain the dwarf castle.
Thus the little house had stood empty for a long time, until the weaver, of whom I told above, returned to his homeland after long years of wandering. Since all his close relatives and acquaintances had meanwhile died and his parents had become poor before their death, the remaining distant relatives would by no means take care of the poor young man and no one did even so much as to rent him a miserable chamber where he could have set up his loom and could have earned his living by the work of his hands. This behavior had indeed another reason, for the weaver’s father, who had been a forest guard, had married the daughter of a charcoal burner who knew very much about medicinal herbs, and was therefore decried by the people as a sorceress and avoided, although she did no one any harm. A good part of this belief had also passed to the son, about whom the other women of the village were already envious and angry when he was still a boy. For while their own children looked miserable and sick, Conrad, for that was the name of the forest guard’s son, was bursting with fullness and health and was the most beautiful child one could see. Since his parents fortunately lived long enough until he had completed his apprenticeship with the master weaver in the city and could go on his wanderings, he had no need to suffer and did not have to care for himself. But hardly had his parents had their joy in his diligently completed apprenticeship, hardly had they received a few letters from him from abroad in which he wrote to them how there too the masters were satisfied with him, when both died quickly one after the other and left him nothing at all; for their few household goods that they still had were seized by the greedy neighbors for the costs of the poor burial.
Finally Conrad, who had meanwhile looked around in many lords’ lands, came back and wanted to set up his loom in his homeland; but as already said, no one wanted to know anything about him, and if the mighty love that binds everyone to their homeland had not been especially strong in him and held him back from leaving the place where his two parents were buried, he would have turned his back on the village again on the first day of his return and gone out into the world anew. But so he patiently ran past the people of the village several times in a row to find a dwelling for himself, and was not rarely dismissed with harsh words by the evil people. Among other things, one said to him: he had no place for him, and if he absolutely wanted to stay in the village, he should go up to the dwarves, they would perhaps gladly and for reasonable rent leave him the dwarf’s nest. Without paying attention to these mockeries, the weaver suddenly remembered the small hut in which he had played so often as a boy and which he had seen with its green roof and walls like before at the prison tower when he entered the village, and suddenly the thought came to him that it might perhaps not be so bad to follow the advice given from an evil heart.
Hurriedly he therefore made his way there, opened the moldy door of the hut, which initially resisted him somewhat, and saw to his great joy that the interior of the little house was indeed very dilapidated but could be restored quite well with some effort and work. Immediately he began to remove the wood debris, leaves and dust from the interior, then went to the city, got some of his old friends from there who were carpenters, glaziers and roofers by trade, and brought with their help the dwarf’s nest soon into such a condition that it got a stately appearance and he could confidently set up his loom in it.
The evil people in the village watched these preparations and arrangements with no small wonder, but laughed into their fists and were glad that poor Conrad would soon move out again when once the dwarves had received news of his presence. Although the weaver himself often remembered the stories that lived in the mouth of the people about the dwarf’s nest, he had through his many wanderings, on which nothing uncanny had ever happened to him, quite come away from the belief in such beings and thought in the first night that he spent in his little house of quite other things than of the appearance of dwarves who might come to disturb him in his small possession.
It was a quite clear full moon night and his thoughts did not let him sleep for long. He heard the church clock strike in the village and finally twelve strikes announced to him that midnight had come. Now he seriously intended to fall asleep, turned around on his bed and wanted to close his eyes, when he heard a soft clearing of throat and coughing in the room. He opened his eyes wide and who describes his amazement when he saw beside him a little man who was hardly a span long. He was dressed in a cinnamon-colored coat, short trousers and black stockings with shoes on which silver buckles were fastened, which however appeared so large against the whole figure that he could hardly comprehend how the little being could manage to drag them along.
Initially the weaver thought he was dreaming and rubbed his eyes quite startled. He thought about this and that, but found that he was completely awake. The little man meanwhile walked back and forth in the room, looked at the new wooden tables, jumped with one leap up to the windows and knocked with a little stick that he carried in his hand with satisfied smile at the new bright window panes. Also the cleanliness of the floor and the fresh white walls seemed to please him, for he rocked his little head contentedly and made known his pleasure through all kinds of murmuring sounds. The weaver, who had watched all this with wonder, now raised himself up from his bed and wanted to make his presence known to the little man through a noticeable clearing of throat and coughing. But this initially did not let himself be disturbed at all, but only waved to him with his hand, as if he wanted to say to him: “Soon, soon!” and continued his investigation. Finally however he seemed to have inspected everything exactly, swung himself with one leap onto the table that stood beside the weaver’s bed, and sat down there on a large loaf of black bread, from which he stuck a small crumb in his mouth from time to time. After both the weaver and the wichtelmännchen had looked at each other silently for a while, the little man said with a fine, crowing voice, while from his seat he once more let his gaze wander around the room: “We are very pleased, my dear friend, to have received a tenant who has put our things in such orderly condition; if you also otherwise fulfill the conditions that we as the owners of this house can rightfully demand from you to our satisfaction, then we will hopefully get along very well with each other.”
The weaver, who had not thought of paying rent here in the formerly so dilapidated dwarf’s nest, listened intently, but was too clever to spoil it with these feared beings, and inquired modestly about the conditions of his new strange landlord. The dwarf told him in brief words the story of the shepherd, whose unreasonable flock had most severely oppressed and molested his entire people, and added that in driving the shepherd from this house the dwarf people had not wanted to exercise malice against the human race, but it had only been about getting peace. Conrad, who through the friendly address of the little man and through the good-natured expression on his face had recovered from his initial consternation, said to him how much he was pleased to unexpectedly make such a distinguished acquaintance, and he hoped that the rental conditions would be set so that he could agree to them; of course money or money’s worth, silver or gold was not to be found with him.
The dwarf broke off a considerable piece of bread and replied to him smiling: “The useless articles that you name to us are not what please or benefit us. With gold and precious stones we are sufficiently provided and therefore a rich people in your eyes. But we lack many things that we can only acquire through the help of good and diligent humans. We have not lost sight of you since your childhood and have seen with pleasure that your heart has remained free from deceit and malice, and this is one reason why we have not opposed your taking possession of our property, the small house here. We dwarves also know how to value human virtues and prefer to stay near pious and diligent humans rather than with those who lack these qualities, to which, by the way, also the shepherd who previously lived here belonged. Therefore remain diligent as you have been until now, work quietly for yourself and you shall not lack our approval and our help. But now hear our rental conditions, which consist in that you leave us your equipment and even your loom for our use once a month on a night when the moon is full. Be not curious in such hours, but retire to your chamber and we will already take care that then a deep sleep befalls you that prevents you from hearing the noise of our work.”
At the last words the face of the dwarf became more serious and he concluded his speech by saying: “Note well that you should not be curious to watch our work, and note also thereby that only as long as your heart is free from the common vices of humans, we are able to put you to sleep in such hours, but that it is not in our power to remove thoughts of evil deeds that you have committed or to free you from pangs of conscience.”
The weaver had heard all this quietly and rejoicing to have obtained such cheap rental conditions, he happily clasped the offered hand of the dwarf, with the promise to want to contribute his part so that the work of the dwarves would never be disturbed.
After this concluded alliance, the little man jumped down from the bread, smiled at the young man once more friendly and disappeared. The weaver lay down on his other side and slept until bright morning.
The next day his first walk was to the city to seek work there, and it was already as if a good spirit accompanied him; for right at the first merchant where he inquired, he was given a good reception, and after the workshop master had properly tested him and thereby seen that the young man was indeed well versed in weaving, he had his name entered in the large book, weighed out silk and cotton for him, which he was allowed to take with him to make a beautiful fabric from it. Having arrived home, the weaver immediately set to work with all diligence and never before had work gone so quickly from his hands, so that he had to wonder about it himself. All the small accidents that otherwise happen to the most skilled master occurred very rarely with him; the threads in the warp rarely broke, and the many cords on his loom never tangled with each other. When he sat at his spool wheel to wind the silk onto the small rolls that are then placed in the weaving shuttle, he often had to wonder at the lightning speed with which the wheel ran around and that the thread never tangled, but always lay smooth on the spool as if it had been wound with the greatest slowness and care. Other weavers had to keep a couple of small boys for this purpose, but he performed this task alone in the evening twilight and had enough such spools ready in a short time for the whole following day.
When the moon became visible again in the evening and the white sickle stood so that one could grasp into it with the left hand, then the moon was waxing and it was approaching the night when Conrad had to pay the dwarves the rent by leaving them his loom. At these times he always managed to arrange it so that his work for the merchant in the city was finished, and he then endeavored to bring the empty loom into the finest order so that the little men would have no cause to complain about him.
On the night when the moon became full, he lay in his window and looked out into the countryside where the blue mists rose so slowly, heard how the crickets sang in the grass, and watched all this contentedly until the sky in the region of the dwarf castle began to grow brighter and brighter and the moon slowly rose. Then he went to his bed and since no evil thoughts troubled him, he soon fell asleep. Sometimes he believed to hear a strange humming and bustling while falling asleep, but since he was not curious by nature, he did not concern himself with it and soon fell into a deep sleep. When he got up for the first time after such a night the next morning and went to his loom, he clearly saw that the dwarves had worked in the night, for here and there between the cords and on the wood hung a small flake of silk of wonderful color and a gold thread glinted at him from the floor. On the weaver’s beam, on which the finished fabrics are rolled up, he noticed a narrow strip of fabric that the dwarves had left hanging when cutting, of such wonderfully beautiful design and color as he had never seen anything similar before. He took it down, examined it carefully, and when he next came to the city, he requested silk in similar colors from the merchant’s workshop master and then set about at home to imitate the work of the dwarves. Even if this did not succeed perfectly, he still produced such a beautiful fabric as the workshop master had never seen and which was paid to him with dear money.
Through this last work, people in the merchant’s factory became more attentive to the young weaver and the gentlemen and workshop masters, who had indeed regarded him as a diligent worker before but had not paid him further attention, occupied themselves with him for the reason of finding out whether the beautiful design of the fabric was really from him and then to use him properly to their advantage, and the poor weaver, who, as we heard earlier, had never been properly noticed since his childhood, much less distinguished, felt extraordinarily flattered by the behavior of the workshop master and the young merchants. These took him along in the evening to their societies, and even if he initially did not feel at home in these circles where much beer and wine was drunk, and where the conversation did not exactly revolve around the cleanest subjects, which was mainly compounded by the fact that his plain doublet stood out quite a bit next to these disciples of Mercury who were primped and pressed, laced and coiffed, yet the fumes of the wine and the artful work of the skilled weaver easily dissolved these differences of status and clothing.
Until now Conrad had been able to live very well with what he earned through his work, without having to strain himself too much at it. But since at these nightly feasts and drinking bouts in the city his money disappeared incomprehensibly quickly, he soon saw himself forced to add a few more to the hours he had previously worked, morning and evening, to increase his earnings and procure the necessary money for the evening entertainments.
Sometimes, when he came home so late at night, it did occur to him that in his current life he was not quite on the right path, and when he then descended through the ruins of the dwarf castle to his dwelling, it sometimes seemed to him as if he saw his little landlord sitting down there on a stone and shaking his head quite sadly at him. But he easily persuaded himself that he had not seen correctly and would not comprehend in his heart why the dwarf could not be satisfied with him; for as often as the moon filled, he continued to put his loom in order as before and had never dared to spend such a night outside the house, which however mainly probably came from the fact that he was eager to take the narrow strip of fabric from the weaver’s beam the next morning that the dwarves regularly left over and according to which he made the artful works that set the workshop master in the city and the gentlemen so much in admiration.
Yet once he might either not have been in order with his calendar, or thought the elves could also finish without him, enough, on the evening before a full moon night he cut his finished work from the loom and brought it to the city, where it was immediately received and his acquaintances would not let him go until the moon stood high in the sky.
On the way home it did fall somewhat anxiously on his heart that he had neglected his landlord by not properly putting the loom in order and staying out of the house for the night. Even if under these considerations the thought arose to hurry home quickly to see the dwarves in their full work, yet he had too much fear of the little beings and too much shyness before his given word not to spy on them; was altogether not yet corrupt enough to throw his promises so to the wind. Since it was also just summer at this time, he spent the rest of the lukewarm night under an old fir tree, where he stretched out in the moss and soon fell asleep.
