Long ago, a rich man lived with his beautiful wife. They were very happy, but they were sad because they had no children. In front of their house, there was a garden with a juniper-tree.
One winter day, the wife was peeling an apple under the tree. She accidentally cut her finger, and three drops of blood fell on the white snow. "Oh," she sighed, "I wish I had a child as white as snow and as red as blood." Soon after, she found out she was going to have a baby. When the child was born, it was a boy, just as she had described. But the mother was so happy that she died. Her husband buried her under the juniper-tree.
After some time, the man married again. He and his new wife had a daughter named Marleen. The stepmother loved Marleen, but she hated the little boy. She was jealous because the boy would one day inherit his father's house. She was very unkind to him and made his life miserable.
One day, Marleen asked her mother for an apple. The mother gave her a beautiful one from a large wooden chest with a heavy lid. When the boy came home from school, the stepmother offered him an apple too. But as the boy reached into the chest, she slammed the heavy lid down. The boy died instantly.
The woman was terrified, but she did not want anyone to know what she had done. She tied the boy's head back onto his body with a white scarf and sat him on a chair with an apple in his hand. Later, when Marleen tried to talk to her brother and he didn't answer, she accidentally knocked him over. She thought she had killed him!
The mother said, "Do not cry, Marleen. We must keep this a secret." She then cooked the boy into a soup. When the father came home, he asked, "Where is my son?" The wife lied and said he had gone to visit a relative. The father ate the soup, but Marleen sat in the corner and wept.
After dinner, Marleen gathered all the bones. She wrapped them in a silk scarf and laid them under the juniper-tree. Suddenly, a mist appeared around the tree, and a beautiful bird flew out of a fire in the branches. The bird began to fly over the town, singing a song:
"My mother killed me,
My father ate me,
My sister Marleen gathered my bones,
And laid them under the juniper-tree.
What a beautiful bird am I!"
The bird sang this song to a goldsmith, who gave him a gold chain. He sang it to a shoemaker, who gave him a pair of red shoes. Finally, he sang it to some millers, who gave him a heavy millstone.
The bird flew back to the father's house. The father heard the song and went outside. The bird dropped the gold chain around the father's neck. Marleen went out next, and the bird dropped the red shoes for her. She was so happy that she started to dance.
Finally, the stepmother came out. She was trembling with fear. As she stepped out of the door, the bird dropped the heavy millstone on her head, and she was crushed.
When the smoke cleared, the little boy was standing there alive! He took his father and Marleen by the hand, and they went inside to finish their dinner together in peace.