The Spirit in the Bottle
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The Spirit in the Bottle (German: Der Geist im Glas) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 99. It is Aarne-Thompson type 331.
[edit] Synopsis
A woodcutter saved his money and sent his son to school, but before his son's studies were complete, his money ran out. The son insisted on borrowing an axe from a neighbor and coming to help his father in the woods. When his father rested, he walked about and discovered a bottle with a voice coming from it. He opened it, and a spirit sprang out and declared it would break his neck. The son said first he had to see that the spirit really came out of the bottle; the spirit went back in to show him, and the son stopped it up again.
The spirit pleaded with him and offered to make him rich. The scholar decided it was worth the risk and opened it. The spirit gave him a plaster that would cure all wounds and a stick that would turn iron to silver. He tried the plaster by cutting a tree and using it, and it worked. He turned the axe to silver, and it bent on a tree. He persuaded his father to come home with him, because he did not know the way, and sold the silver for far more money than was needed to repay the neighbor for the axe.
He went back to his studies, and with the plaster became a famous doctor.
