The Bremen Town Musicians

7-9 min read
16 pages

The Bremen town musicians, the Brothers Grimm tale to read aloud. Four animals too old to be useful set off to become a band, and never arrive.

A donkey had carried sacks to the mill for so many years that his back had gone stiff, and he heard his master in the yard saying that a donkey who cannot carry is not worth his hay.

So the donkey left that night. He had thought about where to go and he had decided: Bremen. In Bremen they had town musicians, and he had a good loud voice, and he did not see why they should not want him.

On the road he found a dog lying in the ditch with his sides going in and out. «Too old to hunt,» said the dog. «They were sharpening something when I left.» «Come to Bremen,» said the donkey. «I bray, you bark. That's two.»

Further on a cat sat on the wall with a face like three wet weeks. «My teeth are blunt,» she said, «and there's talk of the water butt.» «Night music,» said the donkey. «You're exactly what we need.»

At the next farm a rooster was crowing as hard as he could from the gatepost. «Sunday's coming,» he said, «and there's soup in it, and the soup is me.» «Come with us,» said the donkey. «Anything with a voice like that is wasted in soup.»

They walked all day and Bremen was still a long way off, so they turned into the wood to sleep. The donkey and the dog lay under a big tree, the cat got into the branches, and the rooster flew to the top, because he liked to see what was coming.

From up there he saw a light. «There's a house,» he called down. «Not far.» So they went towards it, and it was a small house with the shutters open and the lamp burning.

The donkey, who was tallest, looked in at the window. Inside, four robbers were sitting at a table with more food on it than the four animals had seen in their lives put together.

They talked about it quietly outside. Then they worked out a plan, which was mostly the donkey's, and it was not a clever plan but it used what they had.

The donkey put his front feet on the sill. The dog got on the donkey's back, the cat got on the dog, and the rooster flew up and stood on the cat's head. And then, all at the same moment, they began.

What came through that window was not a donkey and a dog and a cat and a rooster. It was one enormous noise with no name, and there was a shape behind it with four heads that reared up against the glass.

The robbers went out of the back door without their hats. They did not stop until they were well into the wood, and they told each other things about what they had seen that got worse as the night went on.

The animals went in and sat down at the table and ate everything, in the order they came to it, and did not talk much because their mouths were full.

Then they put out the lamp and each found the place that suited him: the donkey on the straw in the yard, the dog behind the door, the cat in the warm ashes of the hearth, the rooster up on the beam.

Near midnight one robber came back to see whether it had all been imagination. He came in in the dark, and he saw the cat's eyes in the ashes and took them for coals, and put a match to them. What happened after that took about four seconds and involved every animal in the house, and he ran out of that door telling the others there was a witch in the kitchen.

The robbers never went back, and the four animals never went to Bremen. The house was warm and the beds suited them and there was no one to tell them they were too old for anything. They are supposed to be living there still.

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Text source: Plot by the Brothers Grimm (1812), public domain. The text was written anew for Marytale — it is not a reprint of anyone else's version.

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The Bremen Town Musicians

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