Once there was a miller who had a beautiful daughter. He wanted her to be well-provided for, so he said, "I will give her to the first suitable man who asks to marry her."
Soon, a rich man appeared. The miller liked him and promised his daughter to him. However, the girl did not like the man. She did not trust him, and every time she looked at him, she felt a cold shiver of fear.
One day, the man said, "You have not visited my house yet."
"I don't know where it is," she replied.
"It is deep in the dark forest," he said. "You must come next Sunday. I have invited guests. To help you find the way, I will leave a trail of ashes on the path."
When Sunday came, the girl felt very afraid. She filled her pockets with peas and lentils to mark her own path. She followed the ashes into the deepest, darkest part of the forest. Finally, she saw a lonely, scary house. She went inside, but it was empty and silent. Suddenly, a bird in a cage on the wall cried out:
"Turn back, turn back, young lady fair,
You are in a murderer's lair!"
The girl kept going from room to room until she reached the cellar. There, she found a very old woman.
"Does my future husband live here?" the girl asked.
"Oh, you poor child," the old woman said. "This is a house of murderers. They will kill you and eat you. I will help you, but you must hide."
The old woman hid the girl behind a large barrel. "Stay as quiet as a mouse," she whispered.
Suddenly, the robbers returned, dragging another young woman with them. They were drunk and did not listen to her cries. The girl behind the barrel watched in horror as they killed the poor woman. One robber saw a gold ring on the dead woman’s finger. He couldn't pull it off, so he took an axe and chopped the finger off. The finger flew through the air and landed right in the lap of the girl hiding behind the barrel!
The robber started looking for it, but the old woman called out, "Come and eat! The finger won't run away. You can find it tomorrow."
The robbers sat down to eat. The old woman had put a sleeping medicine in their wine, and soon they were all snoring loudly on the floor. The girl came out from behind the barrel, stepped carefully over the sleeping men, and escaped with the old woman. The wind had blown away the ashes, but the peas she had dropped had grown into small plants. They followed the plants all night and reached the mill by morning. The girl told her father everything.
On the wedding day, the groom arrived with many guests. As they sat at the table, the miller asked everyone to tell a story. The bride sat silently.
"And you, my love," the groom said, "don't you have a story?"
"I will tell you a dream I had," the bride said. "In my dream, I walked through a forest and found a house. A bird in a cage cried, 'Turn back, turn back, young lady fair, you are in a murderer's lair!'"
The groom turned pale, but said, "It was only a dream, darling."
"I went to the cellar," she continued, "and an old woman told me I was in a den of murderers. She hid me, and I saw the robbers bring in a girl and kill her."
"It was only a dream," the groom repeated, his voice shaking.
"Then," she said, "a robber cut off the girl's finger to get a gold ring. The finger flew through the air and fell into my lap. And here is the finger!"
She pulled out the finger and showed it to everyone. The groom tried to run away, but the guests grabbed him. He and his gang were taken away and punished for their many crimes. The miller's daughter was finally safe.