Mother Holle or Old Mother Frost

A widow had two daughters, one of whom was beautiful and hardworking, the other ugly and lazy. But she much preferred the ugly and lazy one, because she was her right daughter, and the other one had to do all the work and be the Cinderella in the house. The poor girl had to sit down every day on the big road near a well, and had to spin so much that the blood flowed from her fingers. Now it happened that the bobbin was once all bloody, so she bent down with it into the well and wanted to wash it off. But it jumped out of his hand and fell down. He cried, ran to his stepmother and told her about the misfortune. But she scolded him so severely and was so merciless that she said, "If you have let the spool fall down, bring it out again." So the girl went back to the well, not knowing what to do. And in her anguish of heart she jumped into the well to get the spool. She lost her senses. And when it awoke and came back to itself, it was in a beautiful meadow where the sun was shining and there were many thousands of flowers. On this meadow it went on and came to an oven, which was full of bread; the bread however called: "oh, pull me out, pull me out, otherwise I burn. I have long since been baked out." So it stepped up and pulled out everything one by one with the bread pusher. Then it went on and came to a tree. It hung full of apples, and called out to it, "oh shake me, shake me, we apples are all ripe together." Then it shook the tree so that the apples fell as if it were raining on them. It shook until there were none left on top. And when it had put them all together in a pile, it went on again.