Die Sterntaler

The Star Money

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A little girl whose father and mother have died is so poor that she has no room and no bed, only the clothes on her body and a piece of bread that a kind heart gave her. She is good and pious, and trusting in God she walks out into the fields. She gives her bread to a hungry poor man, her cap to a child whose head is cold, her bodice to a freezing child and her little skirt to another. In the dark forest one more child asks for a shirt, and she thinks: it is dark night, no one sees you, you can give your shirt away too. As she stands there with nothing left, the stars fall from the sky as hard shining silver coins, and she is wearing a new shirt of the finest linen. She gathers the coins into it and is rich for the rest of her life.

Retold from Kinder- und Haus-Märchen, Band 2, 7. Auflage (Ausgabe letzter Hand, 1857), KHM 153 by Brüder Grimm (public domain).