The Robber Bridegroom (fairy tale)

"The Robber Bridegroom" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 40.Joseph Jacobs included a variant, Mr Fox in English Fairy Tales, but the original provenance is much older; Shakespeare (circa 1599) alludes to the Mr. Fox variant in Much Ado About Nothing, Act 1, Scene 1:

It is Aarne–Thompson type 955, the robber bridegroom. This type is closely related to tales of type 312, such as Bluebeard, and type 311, such as How the Devil Married Three Sisters and Fitcher's Bird.

A miller wished to marry his daughter off, and so when a rich suitor appeared, he betrothed her to him. One day the suitor complained that the daughter never visited him, told her that he lived in the forest, and overrode her reluctance by telling her he would leave a trail of ashes so she could find his home. She filled her pockets with peas and lentils and marked the trail with them as she followed the ashes.

They led her to a dark and silent house. A bird in a cage called out "Turn back, turn back, thou bonnie bride, Nor in this house of death abide". An old woman in a cellar kitchen told her that the people there would kill and eat her unless the old woman protected her and hid her behind a cask. A band of robbers arrived with a young woman whom they killed and prepared to eat. When one chopped off a finger to get at the golden ring on it, the finger and ring flew through the air and landed in the lap of the hiding woman. The old woman discouraged them from searching, because neither the finger nor the ring were likely to run away: they'd find it in the morning.

The old woman drugged the robbers' wine. As soon as they fell asleep, the two living women fled. Wind had blown the ashes away, but the peas and lentils had sprung up into seedlings: the two followed the path of plants and reached the young woman's home.

When the wedding day arrived and the guests were telling stories, the bridegroom urged the young woman to tell a story. She said she would tell a dream she had and told the story of going to the murderers' den, in between each sentence saying, "This was only a dream, my love!" When she told the part of the finger falling into her lap she produced the finger. The robber bridegroom and all his band were put to death.

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