The Hare's Bride
The Hare's Bride is a short German fairy tale about a woman and her daughter who live in a pretty little house with a cabbage garden. A hungry hare keeps eating their cabbages all winter. Each day the mother tells the daughter to chase the hare away. The girl finds the hare and says, “Hare, you must go, you are eating all our cabbages!” The hare answers, “Sit on my little hare’s tail and come with me to my little hare’s hut.” The girl refuses, and the hare leaves.
The next day the hare returns and starts eating the cabbages again. The mother sends the daughter to scare him off. The girl again cries, “Hare, you must go, you are eating all our cabbages!” The hare again invites, “Sit on my little hare’s tail and come with me to my little hare’s hut.” The girl refuses once more.
On the third day, the hare comes back to eat the cabbages and repeats his invitation. This time the girl sits on his tail and he carries her away to his hut far from home. There, the hare says they will be married and goes to fetch guests—other hares. A crow acts as the priest and a fox as the sexton, and the wedding takes place under a rainbow. But the girl is unhappy and locks the door of the hut.
The hare pleads to be let in, saying the wedding guests are merry, but she does not open. He leaves and returns again, and still she stays quiet. To fool him, the girl makes a straw doll, dresses it in her clothes, and sits it beside the millet pot, then she runs home.
When the hare returns and finds the door unlocked, he goes inside and discovers the straw doll instead of his bride. Realizing the girl has run away, he sadly leaves.
In many fairy tales, people and animals can talk, and it’s not clear why the girl goes with the hare—whether she’s tricked or thinks she’s preventing the cabbages from being eaten. This tale shares a common theme with stories like Beauty and the Beast, The Frog Prince, and The Little Mermaid, where humans marry beings that are not ordinary humans.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 09:46 (CET).