My shuttle fell into the well and there was nothing to do but go after it. So I jumped in.

I fell and fell. I don’t remember hitting bottom. When I came to my senses, I was in a flowery meadow where everything spoke.

I walked along and came to an oven full of baked bread. The bread cried, “Take me out or I will burn.” I took it out. Then I came to an apple tree that said, “Shake me, my apples are ripe!” I shook the tree.

Finally, I came to a house where an old woman lived. She had large teeth. She told me not to be afraid, and she invited me to work for her—to keep her house and tend to her downy bed. “Shake it through till the feathers fly, for then there is snow on the earth,” she said. “I am Mother Holle.”

The Girl Who Fell Into a Well in Mother Holle, Grimms. Illustration by Walter Crane.