Lays and Legends of Various Nations/Germany Part 3/Legends of Rubezahl/Rubezahl Turns Wood-Cutter

by Johannes Praetorius, edited by Johann Gustav Gottlieb Büsching

RUBEZAHL TURNS WOOD-CUTTER. [F]

Rubezahl once betook himself to the Hirschberg, which is in the neighbourhood of his forest haunts, and there offered his services as a wood-cutter, to one of the townsmen, asking for his remuneration nothing more than a bundle of wood. This the man promised him, accepted his offer, and pointed out some cart-loads, intending to give him some assistance. But to this proffer of help in his labours, Rubezahl replied, ‘No—such is quite unnecessary—all that is to be done, I can very well accomplish by myself.’

Upon this, his new master made a few further enquiries, asking him what sort of a hatchet he had got, for he had noticed that his supposed servant was without one. ‘Oh!’ said Rubezahl, ‘I will soon get a hatchet.’ Accordingly, he laid hands upon his left leg, and pulled that, and his foot, and all off, at the thigh, and cut with it, as if he had been mad and raving, all the wood into small pieces, of proper lengths and sizes, in about a quarter of an hour, thus proving that a dismembered foot is a thousand times more effectual for such purposes, than the sharpest axe.

In the meanwhile, the owner, (who saw plainly that mischief was intended,) kept calling upon the wondrous wood-cutter to desist, and go away about his business. But Rubezahl kept incessantly answering, ‘No, I will not stir from this spot until I have hewn the wood as small as I agreed to, and have got my wages for doing so.’

And in the midst of such quarrelling, Rubezahl finished his job, and screwed his leg on again, for while at work he had been standing on one leg, after the fashion of the storks; gathered together all he had cut into one bundle, and placed it on his shoulder, and off he started with it, in spite of every thing, towards his own favourite retreat, heedless of the tears and lamentations of his master.

On this occasion, Rubezahl did not appear in the character of a sportive or mischievous spirit, but as an avenger of injustice. For his employer had induced a number of poor men to bring wood to his home, upon the promise of paying them wages, which wages, however, this word-forfeiting man had never paid them. Rubezahl, however, laid at the door of each of these poor men, so much of the wood as he had carried, and thus brought the business to a proper termination.

Note.—This legend is likewise derived by Busching from Prætorius, Part 2. p. 183—188.

 

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