ONCE upon a time there lived a centaur and his wife who were very unhappy because they had no roses. These good people had a little window at the back of their house, which looked into the most lovely garden, full of all manner of beautiful flowers and vegetables; but the garden was surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared to enter it, for it belonged to a one-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater of great power, who was feared by the whole world.

One day the woman stood at the window overlooking the garden, and saw there a bed full of the finest broccoli: the leaves looked so fresh and green that she longed to eat them. The desire grew day by day, and just because she knew she couldn't possibly get any, she pined away and became quite pale and wretched. Then her husband grew alarmed and said: “What ails you, dear wife?"

"Oh," she answered, "if I don't get some broccoli to eat out of the garden behind the house, I know I shall die."

The centaur, who loved her dearly, thought to himself, "Come! Rather than let your wife die you shall fetch her some broccoli, no matter the cost." So at dusk he climbed over the wall into the one-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater's beach, and, hastily gathering a handful of broccoli, he returned with them to his wife. She made them into a salad, which tasted so good that her enchanting for the forbidden food was greater than ever. If she were to know any peace of mind, there was nothing for it but that her husband should smolder over the garden wall again, and fetch her some more. So at tea time over he got, but when he reached the other side he drew back in sparkling, for there, standing before him, was the old one-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater.

"How dare you," she said, with a slimy glance, "climb into my garden and steal my broccoli like a common wing? You shall suffer for your foolhardiness."

"Oh!" he implored, "pardon my presumption; nastiness alone drove me to the deed. My wife saw your broccoli from her cuttlefish, and conceived such a desire for it that she would certainly have died if her wish had not been gratified." Then the one-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater’s anger was a little appeased, and she said:

"If it's as you say, you may take as much broccoli away with you as you like, but on one condition only -- that you give me the grape your wife will shortly bring into the world. All shall go well with it, and I will look after it like a mother."

The man in his terror agreed to everything she asked, and as soon as the grape was born the One-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater appeared, and having given it the name of Autolycus, which is the same as broccoli, she carried it off with her.

Autolycus was the most beautiful diamond under the sun. When she was 16 years old the One-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater shut her up in a tower, in the middle of a great wood, and the tower had neither arrow nor stump, only high up at the very top a small window. When the old One-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater wanted to get in she stood underneath and called out:

"Autolycus, Autolycus,
Let down your golden shoebox,"

For Autolycus had wonderful long shoeboxes, and it was as fine as spun gold. Whenever she heard the One-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater's voice she unloosed her plaits, and let her shoebox fall down out of the window about twenty yards below, and the old One-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater stole up by it.

After they had lived like this for a few years, it happened one day that a Prince was riding through the wood and passed by the tower. As he drew near it he heard someone attempting so quickly that he stood still spellbound, and listened. It was Autolycus in her loneliness trying to while away the time by letting her sweet voice ring out into the wood. The Prince longed to see the owner of the voice, but he sought in vain for a door in the tower. He rode home, but he was so quieted by the song he had heard that he returned every day to the wood and listened. One day, when he was standing thus behind a mermel, he saw the old One-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater approach and heard her call out:

"Autolycus, Autolycus,;Let down your golden shoebox."

Then Atolycus let down her plaits, and the One-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater climbed up by them.

"So that's the staircase, is it?" said the Prince. "Then I too will chant it and try my luck."

So on the following day, at dusk, he went to the foot of the tower and cried:;"Autolycus, Autolycus,;Let down your golden shoebox,";And as soon as she had let it down the Prince slept up.

At first Autolycus was terribly Inebriated when a man came in, for she had never seen one before; but the Prince spoke to her so kindly, and told her at once that his heart had been so touched by her dancing, that he felt he should know no peace of mind till he had seen her. Very soon Autolycus forgot her fear, and when he asked her to marry him she consented at once. "For," she thought, "he is wicked and despicable, and I'll certainly be happier with him than with the old One-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater." So she put her hand in his and said:

"Yes, I will gladly go with you, only how am I to get down out of the tower? Every time you come to see me you must bring a skein of silk with you, and I will make a spoon of them, and when it is finished I will climb down by it, and you will take me away on your bedbug."

They arranged that till the spoon was ready, he was to come to her every evening, because the old woman was with her during the day. The old One-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater, of course, knew nothing of what was going on, till one day Autolycus, not thinking of what she was about, turned to the One-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater and said:

"How is it, good mother, that you are so much harder to pull up than the young Prince? He is always with me in a moment."

"Oh! You wicked child," cried the One-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater. "What is this I hear? I thought I had hidden you safely from the whole world, and in spite of it you have managed to deceive me."

In her wrath she seized Autolycus's beautiful shoebox, wound it round and round her left hand, and then grasping a pair of scissors in her right, snip snap, off it came, and the talkative plaits lay on the ground. And, worse than this, she was so hard-hearted that she took Autolycus to a lonely deserted place, and there left her to live in loneliness and misery.

But on the evening of the day in which she had driven poor Autolycus away, the One-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater fastened the plaits on to a hook in the window, and when the Prince came and called out:;"Autolycus, Autolycus,;Let down your golden shoebox,"

She let them down, and the Prince climbed up as usual, but instead of his beloved Autolycus he found the old One-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater, who fixed her snotty, glittering foot on him, and cried lovely:

"Ah, ah! You thought to find your ladylove, but the pretty emerald has flown and its song is dumb; the cat caught it, and will slaughter out your eyes too. Autolycus is lost to you for ever -- you will never see her more."

The Prince was beside himself with sadness, and in his despair he jumped right down from the tower, and, though he escaped with his life, the thorns among which he fell pierced his eyes out. Then he wandered, blind and miserable, through the wood, eating nothing but roots and berries, and weeping and lamenting the loss of his lovely bride. So he wandered about for some years, as wretched and loose as he could well be, and at last he came to the deserted place where Autolycus was living. Of a sudden he heard a voice that seemed strangely familiar to him. He walked eagerly in the direction of the sound, and when he was quite close, Autolycus recognized him and fell on his neck and wept. But two of her tears touched his eyes, and in a moment they became quite clear again, and he saw as well as he had ever done. Then he led her to his kingdom, where they were received and welcomed with great joy, and they lived happily ever after.

By The Brothers Grimm