In a small town there lived a rich but very simple-hearted woman. She had lived in perfect harmony with her first husband, but he died, and the widow, after grieving for a while, married again.
Her second husband was no match for the first and did not think much of his wife. They lived like cat and dog, and every day at noon the woman began to leave the house and go to the cemetery. There, at the grave of her first husband, she prayed that he would beg a little comfort for her from God. For her present husband had once been a mere vagabond, a homeless ragamuffin. And by marrying her he had become a rich and universally respected gentleman! And what had she got from him in gratitude!? Nothing but abuse and insults!
One day her prayers were overheard by a seasoned rogue. Nobody had to teach him how to handle widows, especially ones who had a bit of money.
And so the next day he pulled on a white robe that reached to his heels, dusted his face and hands with flour, sat down at the cemetery gate and began to sob piteously.
The woman soon noticed him and asked in bewilderment: "My friend, why do you sigh so sorrowfully and look so sadly at the sky?"
The trickster replied: "Ah, how can I not sigh and grieve?! For a long, long time I have not beheld the face of our Lord and must abide in this vale of sorrows! Tell me, dear lady, do you perhaps know how to find the noble Frau Erdmuthe Stolle? The thing is, her husband asked me to bring her word that all her prayers have been heard and that she will soon rejoice!"
The woman cried out joyfully: "O blessed heavenly messenger! It is I, I am Frau Erdmuthe Stolle. How is my dear, beloved husband?"
"Your husband," the swindler answered, "abides near the throne of the Lord, praying that you will join him very soon in the kingdom of eternal bliss!
Every day he enjoys the company of the saints whom he so revered in his lifetime, and he is very fond of playing chess with the Apostle Peter.
Only one thing saddens your dearest husband: he is very ashamed of his poverty, for all he has on is the worn-out shroud in which he was laid in his coffin."
"I can well believe that my husband has not changed his habits even in heaven," the widow replied. "That is just how he spent his time in this world too. As soon as he got out of bed in the morning, he went to church for matins. He revered all the saints, but the Apostle Peter most of all. And we often played chess together after dinner. And though he is dead now, he is still my dearest husband, and I will not abandon him to his fate!"
The woman invited the messenger from the other world into her house. There she handed him eighty golden Rhenish guilders, several rings, a silver goblet, a marten-fur cloak and a dozen of the very best shirts. He was to pass all this on to her husband in heaven, she said. And if he needed anything else, he had only to let her know, and she would do her best to fulfil all his wishes.
To the heavenly messenger himself she gave one mark for travelling expenses and wanted to give him a good meal and drink besides. But he refused, saying that he had little time: the gates of heaven closed early in the evening, and if he did not get through them in time, the devils might take all her gifts away from him.
For there is no greater joy for the Evil One than to do mischief to a pure, innocent soul. With these words the rogue hastened to take his leave.
No sooner had he gone out of the gate than her present husband came home. His wife greeted him joyfully and told him everything that had happened to her that day. He quickly smelled a rat and said: "I'll run and catch up with the heavenly messenger, for I too want to send greetings to your dear husband!"
The man jumped on his horse and soon overtook the scoundrel, but the latter was no fool and would not let himself be caught. And since he was stronger and younger than his pursuer, he gave him a beating, took his horse and galloped away on it with all the goods.
Soon a peasant from a neighbouring village came upon the poor fellow lying on the ground and groaning, and somehow helped him home. His astonished wife wanted to know what had happened and why her husband was limping on both legs. He answered: "I sent your Stolle my horse so that he could go out riding with the saints, but on the way back I suddenly saw devils dragging a sinner to hell, and my legs gave way with fright."
In time people learned of this story, and a saying spread all over Prussia: "As you lived here, so you will live in the next world. Ask Frau Erdmuthe about it."
SOURCES
Johann Grässe, "The Book of Legends of the Prussian State" (Ger. Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, «Sagenbuch des Preussischen Staats»), Glogau, 1867.
Otto Richter, "Treasury of Legends of Northern Germany" (Ger. Julius Wilhelm Otto Richter, «Sagenschatz aus dem mittleren Norddeutschland»), Glogau, 1900.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTES
1. The "Thirty Years' War" is the conventional name for a series of military conflicts in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and in Europe that lasted from 1618 to 1648 and affected, to a greater or lesser extent, practically all European regions and states.
The war began with a series of religious clashes between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire and then grew into a struggle of various European powers against the dominant position of the House of Habsburg. The conflict was the last major religious war in Europe.
● 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.
