Once upon a time, in one of the Danish cities, there were two men, one called Little Claus and the other Big Claus. One day, Little Claus went to Big Claus’s house and asked to work in his field. Little Claus was poor and owned only one horse, while Big Claus was rich and owned four horses.
Little Claus Borrows the Four Horses: Little Claus worked hard in the field while his big brother watched him until he finished his work in the field. As soon as Little Claus finished working in the field, he asked Big Claus to lend him his horses so he could work with them in his small farm. Big Claus agreed to lend them to him for only one day.
But Little Claus felt this was not fair. He had worked for his big brother for a whole week with his small horse, so how could his brother lend him the horses for only one day? Big Claus told him that he had worked with only one horse in his field, while he would lend him four horses to work with in his field.
On the second day, when Little Claus came to borrow the four horses, he was full of enthusiasm. He could pretend that he had five horses for one day. Big Claus did not object to this because he hadn’t worked, and Little Claus walked around proudly with his five horses, shouting: Come on my horses, come on my horses.
Big Claus Kills Little Claus’s Horse: Big Claus heard what Little Claus was doing with the horses. He came out angry and kept beating Little Claus’s horse until it suffered many wounds and died. Little Claus took it and returned home crying. Because he had nothing to do, he skinned the horse’s hide and went to the market to sell it.
As he was walking, he lost his way due to the rain. Little Claus kept crying because he felt lost and alone in the darkness of the road. As he was crying, he looked from afar and saw a light shining from a small house. Little Claus headed toward the house and knocked on the door.
A fat woman lived in the house. He learned that she didn’t care about her husband who worked hard, but she hid food from him. When she heard the knock on the door, she quickly got up from the table and kept hiding the food.
She hurried to open the door and didn’t find her husband, but found Little Claus who asked to stay with her until morning. However, she refused because her husband wasn’t home. He sat on the doorstep and looked from the balcony, and found the lady hiding food somewhere.
The lady brought out the food again and placed it on the table to continue eating. Her husband came, met Little Claus, and offered to host him until morning. But he apologized for not offering food because there was no food in the house.
But Little Claus wanted to tell the man the truth about his wife, so he pressed on the bag containing the horse hide with his feet, making a sharp sound. He told them that in that bag, there was a wizard who wanted to tell them something.
The man was eager to hear what the wizard wanted to say. He told him that somewhere there was more delicious food, and he pointed to where his wife had hidden the food. The man didn’t believe this talk, but as soon as he went there, he found more food inside.
The man was very happy, and he and Little Claus ate the delicious food. The man asked Little Claus to give him the bag with the wizard inside, in exchange for several gold coins. Little Claus was happy, gave the man the bag, and got the gold coins. Little Claus stayed until the next day, then left.
Big Claus’s Greed: Claus went out and bought many horses with that money and returned to town. When Big Claus saw him, he asked about the secret of getting those horses. He told him that he sold the small horse’s hide. Greedy Big Claus hurried to kill his four horses to sell their hides.
He went out to the market calling out to sell horse hides for a bag of gold, but people mocked his words, and he didn’t sell any of them. He returned from the market crying because he had lost all his horses due to his greed.
Translated from the German world story: Kleine Claus en grote Claus