My twin brother and I are both made of gold. When we decided to travel the world, and we arrived in town, we were so jeered by the villagers that my brother turned back home.

I went forth to a great forest, and the people who lived near it said, “Don’t go in there because the wood is full of robbers, and when they see that you are made of gold, they will kill you.”

I would not allow myself to be frightened. I covered myself in a bearskin, and, because I looked poor as a church-mouse, nobody touched me.

I never felt so liberated as I did in the safety of that bearskin. I don’t think I will ever take it off.

Man Made of Gold in the Gold-Children, Grimms. Illustration by Arthur Rackham.