This Norwegian folktale is about a young man whose poor father sends him out into the world to earn a living. He joins a group of robbers, and is so good at stealing that he becomes their leader. The Master Thief returns home a rich man and decides to marry the Governor’s daughter. In order to marry the girl, he must prove how good a thief he is. This story goes against the English idiom: Crime doesn’t pay. The moral seems to be that crime does pay… but only if you are very good at it!
Our source for this story was The Red Fairy Book, one of a series of twelve collections of folk and fairy tales for children edited by Andrew Lang. This is the second book in the series, and was first published in 1890. Lang cites his source as a story by the same name in an 1841 book, Norwegian Folktales by Asbjørnsen and Moe.
Original Text / PDF / Audio (6,000 words)
Brothers Grimm Version
This shorter version of the tale was published six years earlier. Our source was Grimms’ Household Tales, translated by British writer Margaret Hunt. The book, which was first published in 1884, contains all 200 Grimm folktales plus 10 legends. This is tale No. 192. The Grimm story differs to Lang’s in two important ways:
- In the Lang story, the Master Thief is a villain who beats his father cruelly when he refuses to go and ask the Governor for his daughter. In the Grimm version, he is painted as a ‘good’ thief and says to his father: Do not imagine that I steal like a common thief, I only take some of the superfluity of the rich. Poor people are safe, I would rather give to them than take anything from them.
- In the Lang story, the Master Thief is set three challenges in order to marry the Governor’s Daughter. In the Grimm version, he must meet the same challenges in order not to “marry the rope-maker’s daughter” (in other words, not to be hung).
Master Thief: Brothers Grimm Original Text / PDF (3,100 words)
Similar Stories
There are many famous thieves in folklore. Some, like Ali-Baba of Arabian Nights fame or England’s Robin Hood, are regarded as heroes for stealing from people who are cruel or dishonest and/or sharing the proceeds of their crimes with the poor. This is not so with the “Master Thief” type stories common in European and Asian folktales. Master Thieves will steal from anyone, either for money or the pleasure of it. There are two very early literary sources in which the basic parts of many modern Master Thief stories can be found. The first is the legendary Autolycus (sometimes referred to as the “Prince of Thieves”) from Greek mythology. The second is the story Rhampsinit and the Master Thief, recorded around 2,500 years ago by the Greek historian Herodutis based on the legend of a fictitious Egyptian pharaoh.
Rhampsinit and the Master Thief Original Text / PDF (1400 words)