The Three Army-Surgeons

The one with the thief's hand walked round about him, made a sudden movement twice with his arm, and at last when the stranger turned away, he snatched at the pile of money, and took a handful from it. One of them saw this, and said, "Comrade, what art thou about? Thou must not steal—shame on thee!" "Eh," said he, "but how can I stop myself? My hand twitches, and I am forced to snatch things whether I will or not."

After this, they lay down to sleep, and while they were lying there it was so dark that no one could see his own hand. All at once the one with the cat's eyes awoke, aroused the others, and said, "Brothers, just look up, do you see the white mice running about there?" The two sat up, but could see nothing. Then said he, "Things are not right with us, we have not got back again what is ours. We must return to the innkeeper, he has deceived us." They went back therefore, the next morning, and told the host they had not got what was their own again; that the first had a thief's hand, the second cat's eyes, and the third a pig's heart. The innkeeper said that the girl must be to blame for that, and was going to call her, but when she had seen the three coming, she had run out by the backdoor, and not come back. Then the three said he must give them a great deal of money, or they would set his house on fire.* He gave them what he had, and whatever he could get together, and the three went away with it. It was enough for the rest of their lives, but they would rather have had their own proper organs.

* "Sonst liessen sie ihm den rothen Hahn übers Haus fliegen." The symbol of a red cock for fire is of remote antiquity. (See Völuspá, 34, 35.) "I will set a red cock on your roof," is the incendiary's threat in Germany, where fire is compared to a cock flying from house to house.—Grimm's 'Deutsche Mythologie,' p. 568. Red cock-crawing— a cant phrase for fire-raising in the south of Scotland. See Jamieson's Et. Dict., where also the following extract from Guy Mannering, i.