The Little Golden Leg

 The Little Golden Leg

Germany

A distinguished lady once had a little girl. It cannot even be said how very, very much she loved her. Now the little girl went to school, and she walked on some ice, slipped and fell, and broke off one of her little legs. They picked her up and carried her back to her mother and told her that she had fallen on some ice and broken off one of her little legs. The mother cried many tears and then had the surgeon come and said to him, "If only you could bring the little girl so far that she could walk on her legs again."

The surgeon looked at the little leg from this side and that side and then said, "The girl must have a little golden leg."

So the mother had a little golden leg made and placed on the girl, but it did not help.

A little while later the door opened and Death entered. "Oh!" said the lady. "Are you going to take my dear, dear child away from me?"

"Yes," said Death, "her time and her hour have come. She must go with me."

"Oh!" said the mother to her child. "Are you going to leave me?"

"Mother, dear," said the child, "I must! I would like to stay here, but Death will not allow it."

Then Death took the little girl by the hand and went out the door with her.

When the child was buried the gravedigger broke open the casket and took the little golden leg off the little girl and went home with it. At the hour of midnight, the child came to the gravedigger's bed and said, "Give my little leg! Give me my little leg!"

But the gravedigger pretended that he did not hear her. So the child came the first night, and she came the second night, and she also came the third night, and said, "Give me my little leg! Give me my little leg!"

The third night the gravedigger said, "I do not have your little leg."

But the child did not allow herself to be made a fool of, and she said two times and three times, "Give me my little leg! Give me my little leg! There -- you -- have -- my -- little leg!"

This last sentence is to be suddenly shouted to the child who is anxiously listening. The child will jump with fear, then recover, and then laugh about being frightened. He will seldom ask about the conclusion, but if he does, the story ends thus:

From that hour on, the girl rested peacefully in her grave.