The Robber Bridegroom
By The Brothers Grimm

• Characters
• Miller
• Had a beautiful daughter
• Wanted her to be well married
• Daughter
• Beautiful
• Robber bridegroom
• Rich
• Had house in dark forest
• Bird
• Old Woman
• Robbers

 

• Basic Plot Points

• A miller who had a beautiful daughter, wanted to find his daughter a suitor. When one turned up who seemed to have nothing wrong with him, the miller promised him his daughter.
• The daughter didn’t like him and made excuses not to visit him but one day she had to go to the mans house in a dark forest. The man made a trail of ash for her to follow and at every step the girl also threw some peas on the ground to make her own trail.
• When she got to the house a bird cried out a warning:

                                    “Turn back, turn back, my pretty young bride,
                                      In a house of murders you’ve arrived”

• She found an old woman, who told her this was the den of murders and cannibals. The woman hid her in a barrel.
• Just then the robbers came home dragging a woman. They chopped her into pieces. One of the them saw a ring on the woman’s finger. When he couldn’t get it off he chopped the finger of. The finger flew into the air and landed in the barrel on the daughters lap.
• The robbers went to eat and then they fell asleep. The daughter and the old woman escaped and followed the trail of peas back home where the daughter told her father everything that had happened.
• The robber appeared for the day of the wedding celebration with his friends. The daughter began telling of a dream she had. She described everything which she had seen at the house and when she got to the part about the finger she pulled out the finger which had landed on her lap.
• The daughter’s guests grabbed the robber and turned him over to the authorities. All of the robbers were executed.