— The Strange Feast
The Brothers Grimm
A blood sausage and a liver sausage had been friends for some time, and the blood sausage invited the liver sausage for a meal at her house. At dinnertime the liver sausage merrily set out for the blood sausage’s house. But when she walked through the doorway, she saw all kinds of strange things. There were many steps, and on each one of them she found something different. There were a broom and shovel fighting with each other, a monkey with a big wound on his head, and more such things.
The liver sausage was very frightened and upset by this. Nevertheless, she took heart, entered the room, and was welcomed in a friendly way by the blood sausage. The liver sausage began to inquire about the strange things on the stairs, but the blood sausage pretended not to hear her or made it seem it was not worth talking about, or she said something about the shovel and the broom such as, “That was probably my maid gossiping with someone on the stairs.” And she shifted the topic to something else.
Then the blood sausage said she had to leave the room to go into the kitchen and look after the meal. She wanted to check to see that everything was in order and nothing had fallen into the ashes. The liver sausage began walking back and forth in the room and kept wondering about the strange things until someone appeared- I don’t know who it was- and said, “Let me warn you, liver sausage, you’re in a bloody murderous trap. You’d better get out of here quickly if you value your life!”
The liver sausage did not have to think twice about this. She ran out the door as fast as she could. Nor did she stop until she got out of the house and was in the middle of the street. Then she looked around and saw the blood sausage standing high up in the attic window with a long, long knife that was gleaming as though it had just been sharpened. The blood sausage threatened her with it and cried out, “If I had caught you, I would have had you!”
