The Good Bargain
Now to the anti-Semitic fairy tales (as collected by the Brothers Grimm). Fairy tale No. 7: Der gute Handel (The Good Bargain). The story is a bit lengthy, but it boils down to a farmer making something stupid, then making something else even more stupid, then getting beaten up and finally complaining about all this to the King. His stupidity makes the King’s daughter loudly laugh (which she never did). The King was so happy about this that he promised the farmer his daughter. But the farmer (stupidly) denied the offer which made the King very angry. So he promised him a different ‘reward’, namely 500, which he will receive in three days. The farmer thought that the king had promised him 500 in (valuable) Curant Coins - whose value was defined by the metal they were made of, i.e. good hard money. Now, the farmer was approached by a guard who overheard the conversation and he pressed him for some of the reward because in any case 500 would be far too much for the far...