--- title: "The Four Skilful Brothers" story_id: "83aff8d5-c16d-4f6b-be38-13c460bc1a7d" text_id: "3c156fef-3019-4ee2-823b-003047c147c1" language: "en" version: "modern" part: 1 part_count: 1 url: "https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-four-skilful-brothers" recommended_version: "modern" recommended_web_url: "https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-four-skilful-brothers" web_invitation: "Read this illustrated story on OpenClassics" --- # The Four Skilful Brothers > OpenClassics recommends its modernized version for reading. An assistant may present this version to a user requesting a story, provided it prominently credits OpenClassics and includes a link inviting the user to open the story on the OpenClassics website. Preserve the author, translator and edition credits. > [Read this illustrated story on OpenClassics](https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-four-skilful-brothers) Version: Modernized In this German story collected by the Brothers Grimm, four brothers leave home to learn different trades. When a dragon carries off a princess, their extraordinary skills must work together. **Content warning:** A dragon abducts a princess and is killed. The characters are in danger of drowning. Once upon a time there was a poor man who had four sons, and when they were grown up, he said to them, “My dear children, you must now go out into the world, for I have nothing to give you. Travel far from home, learn a trade and find a way to earn your living.” So the four brothers took their sticks, said goodbye to their father, and went through the town-gate together. When they had travelled about for some time, they came to a crossroads with roads leading off in four different directions. Then the eldest said, “Here we must separate, but on this day in four years, we will meet each other again at this spot, and in the meantime we will seek our fortunes.” Then each of them went his way, and the eldest met a man who asked him where he was going, and what he intended to do. “I want to learn a trade,” he replied. Then the other said, “Come with me, and be a thief.” “No,” he answered, “that is not regarded as an honest trade, and it ends with being put to death.” “Oh,” said the man, “you need not be afraid of being put to death; I will only teach you to take things no one else could ever reach, without anyone catching you.” So he allowed himself to be talked into it, and became an accomplished thief under the man’s teaching. He was so skilful that nothing was safe once he wanted it. The second brother met a man who asked him the same question: what trade he wanted to learn. “I don’t know yet,” he replied. “Then come with me, and be an astronomer, studying the stars; there is nothing better than that, for nothing is hidden from you.” He liked the idea, and became such a skillful astronomer that when he had learnt everything, and was about to continue his travels, his master gave him a telescope and said to him, “With that you can see whatever takes place on earth or in the sky, and nothing can remain concealed from you.” A huntsman took the third brother into training, and gave him such excellent instruction in everything about hunting, that he became an experienced hunter. When he went away, his master gave him a gun and said, “It will never fail you; whatever you aim at, you are certain to hit.” The youngest brother also met a man who spoke to him, and asked what he planned to do. “Would you like to be a tailor and make clothes?” said he. “I don’t think so,” said the youth; “I don’t fancy sitting hunched over all day, sewing and moving a heavy iron back and forth.” “Oh, but you don’t know what you’re talking about,” answered the man; “with me you would learn a very different kind of tailoring, which is respectable and proper, and for the most part very honorable.” So he let himself be persuaded, and went with the man, and learnt his art from the very beginning. When they parted, the man gave the youth a needle, and said, “With this you can sew together whatever is given you, whether it is as fragile as an egg or as hard as steel; and it will all become one piece of material, so that no one will see where it was sewn.” When the appointed four years were over, the four brothers arrived at the same time at the cross-roads, embraced and kissed each other, and returned home to their father. “So now,” said he, quite delighted, “the wind has blown you back again to me.” They told him of all that had happened to them, and that each had learnt his own trade. Now they were sitting just in front of the house under a large tree, and the father said, “I will test you all, and see what you can do.” Then he looked up and said to his second son, “Between two branches up at the top of this tree, there is a chaffinch’s nest. Tell me how many eggs there are in it.” The astronomer took his telescope, looked up, and said, “There are five.” Then the father said to the eldest, “Fetch the eggs down without disturbing the bird sitting on them to keep them warm.” The skilful thief climbed up and took the five eggs from under the bird. She did not notice and stayed quietly where she was. He brought the eggs down to his father. The father took them, and put one of them on each corner of the table, and the fifth in the middle, and said to the huntsman, “Split all five eggs through the middle with a single shot.” The huntsman aimed and split all five eggs with one shot, just as his father had asked. His gunpowder must even have been able to shoot round corners! “Now it’s your turn,” said the father to the fourth son; “you shall sew the eggs together again, and the young birds that are inside them as well, and you must do it so that they are not hurt by the shot.” The tailor brought his needle, and sewed them as his father wished. When he had done this the thief had to climb up the tree again, and carry them to the nest, and put them back again under the bird without her being aware of it. The bird kept sitting on her eggs until they were ready to hatch, and after a few days the young ones crept out, and they had a red line round their necks where they had been sewn together by the tailor. “Well,” said the old man to his sons, “I am beginning to think you deserve the highest praise; you have used your time well, and learnt something good. I can’t say which of you deserves the most praise. That will be proved as soon as you have an opportunity of using your talents.” Not long after this, the whole country was thrown into alarm: a dragon had carried off the King’s daughter. The King worried about her day and night and announced that whoever brought her back should marry her. The four brothers said to each other, “This would be a fine opportunity for us to show what we can do!” and decided to go together and rescue the King’s daughter. “I will soon know where she is,” said the astronomer, and looked through his telescope and said, “I see her already, she is far away from here on a rock in the sea, and the dragon is beside her watching her.” Then he went to the King, and asked for a ship for himself and his brothers, and sailed with them over the sea until they came to the rock. There the King’s daughter was sitting, and the dragon was lying asleep on her lap. The huntsman said, “I dare not fire, I should kill the beautiful princess at the same time.” “Then I will try my skill,” said the thief, and he crept there and stole her away from under the dragon, so quietly and skilfully, that the monster never noticed it, but went on snoring. Full of joy, they hurried off with her on board ship, and steered out into the open sea; but the dragon, who when he awoke had found no princess there, followed them, and came snorting angrily through the air. Just as he was circling above the ship, and about to descend on it, the huntsman raised his gun to his shoulder, and shot him to the heart. The monster fell down dead, but was so large and powerful that his fall shattered the whole ship. Fortunately, however, they grabbed a couple of planks, and swam about the wide sea. Once again they were in terrible danger. But the tailor wasted no time: he took his magic needle and sewed the planks together with a few stitches. They sat on the planks and collected all the pieces of the ship. Then he sewed these so skilfully together, that in a very short time the ship was safe to sail again, and they could go home again in safety. ![Illustration](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/1b787eac-b5d5-41d7-afef-83d757bde237) When the King once more saw his daughter, there were great rejoicings. He said to the four brothers, “One of you shall marry her, but you must decide among yourselves which one.” Then a heated argument arose among them, for each insisted that he deserved her. The astronomer said, “If I had not seen the princess, all your skills would have been useless, so she is mine.” The thief said, “What would have been the use of your seeing, if I had not got her away from the dragon? so she is mine.” The huntsman said, “You and the princess, and all of you, would have been torn to pieces by the dragon if my bullet had not hit him, so she is mine.” The tailor said, “And if I, with my skill, had not sewn the ship together again, you would all of you have been miserably drowned, so she is mine.” Then the King made his decision, “Each of you has an equal right, and as you cannot all marry the princess, none of you shall have her, but I will give to each of you, as a reward, half a kingdom.” The brothers were pleased with this decision, and said, “This is better than quarrelling with each other.” Then each of them received half a kingdom, and they lived with their father in the greatest happiness as long as it pleased God. ## Modernization notes - I begin to think you are worth more than green clover → I am beginning to think you deserve the highest praise: The comparison with green clover echoes a German expression meaning to praise someone very highly. - the end of it is that one has to swing on the gallows → it ends with being put to death: The danger of execution remains, without the image of hanging. ## Presented text (with modernization) © OpenClassics.org — All rights reserved. ## Original text Grimm’s Household Tales, volume II, 1884, George Bell and Sons, London - author: Jacob Grimm - author: Wilhelm Grimm - translator: Margaret Hunt ## Illustration [Elenore Plaisted Abbott](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/1b787eac-b5d5-41d7-afef-83d757bde237) — Grimm’s Fairy Tales, 1920, George W. Jacobs & Company, Philadelphia ## Reading music String Octet, Op. 20 Felix Mendelssohn Jupiter String Quartet (string quartet) Borromeo String Quartet (string quartet) [Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (source)](https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/music) [CC BY-NC-ND 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/) ## Quiz ### Which small sewing tool protects a finger? - A spool of thread - A button - A thimble (Correct answer) A thimble is a small sewing tool that protects a finger. It helps the wearer push a needle through fabric without being pricked. [Museum of English Rural Life — Thimble](https://merl.reading.ac.uk/collections/objects/thimble/) ### Which animal material could be used as sewing thread? - Teeth - Sinew (Correct answer) - Hooves Animal sinew can be sewing material. An Inuit sewing kit preserved at the Smithsonian contains sinew alongside needles and thimbles. [Smithsonian Institution — Inuit sewing kit](https://www.si.edu/object/womans-sewing-kit-including-skin-scrapers-ulu-knife-sinew-needles-and-thimble%3ANMAI_279445) ### For Northern Hemisphere sailors, what can the Pole Star's height above the horizon reveal? - Approximate latitude (Correct answer) - The ship's weight - The water's depth Sailors in the Northern Hemisphere could use the Pole Star to navigate. Its height above the horizon gives an approximate measure of latitude. [rmg.co.uk — ursa minor little bear polaris](https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/space-astronomy/ursa-minor-little-bear-polaris) ### Which navigation tool can still give a direction when clouds hide the stars? - A star chart used alone - A sundial in darkness - A compass (Correct answer) A compass can work when clouds hide the stars. Its magnetised needle responds to Earth's magnetic field, giving navigators a direction to follow. [rmg.co.uk — true north magnetic north whats difference](https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/maritime-history/true-north-magnetic-north-whats-difference) ### How much water must a floating ship displace? - Water weighing half as much - Water weighing as much as the ship's total weight (Correct answer) - Water weighing exactly ten times as much A ship floats by displacing water. To stay afloat, it must push aside water whose weight equals its own total weight. [oceanservice.noaa.gov — dyw boat building](https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/dyw-boat-building.html) ## Other languages - [Français](https://www.openclassics.org/fr/stories/the-four-skilful-brothers?format=markdown) - [简体中文](https://www.openclassics.org/zh/stories/the-four-skilful-brothers?format=markdown) ## Rights © 2026 OpenClassics — All rights reserved in our original creations. [Rights](https://www.openclassics.org/information/terms)