And then one day it happened that one of the Prussians encamped before Bartenstein caught a great many fish in a nearby pond, but he had no pot to cook them in. He went from his own camp to another, where his sister was, and asked her to lend him a pot. The woman refused, so her brother took the pot from her by force and hurried back with it, while his sister ran after him wailing.
When the woman's husband saw this, he hurried with his comrades to his wife's aid, to help her get the pot back from the impudent fellow.
But the Prussian dragging the heavy load back to his camp was joined by his fellows, who had been impatiently waiting for him to return with the pot so that they could start cooking the fish.
In short, help for the brother and the sister came running from both sides, until at last all the Prussians laying siege had gathered in one spot. At once a terrible din arose: shouting, cursing, scuffles. And it looked as if a real battle had begun beneath the walls of the fortress. But not one of the Prussians settling scores among themselves had a weapon on him.
When Henning von Stalenberg saw all this, he instantly sallied out of Bartenstein with his fighters, slew the bewildered Prussians at one stroke, burned all their fortifications and thus freed the fortress.
SOURCE
Tettau/Temme. 1837. Folk Legends of East Prussia, Lithuania and West Prussia. (Tettau/Temme. 1837. Die Volkssagen Ostpreussens, Litauens und Westpreussens).
● Editor's note: Read on VisitPrussia.com an interview with the translator of German and, in particular, Prussian fairy tales, our regular contributor Tatyana Kolivay, who runs her own blog, where countless other parables, legends and fairy tales in her translations have been published.
Translated from Russian with the help of AI (Claude, Anthropic), October 2026.
