Der kleine und der große Klaus (1971)

Little Klaus is a small farmer who lives in poverty with his wife and seven children. From Monday to Saturday, he works on the farm of Big Klaus, a large-scale farmer. Only on Sundays does Big Klaus lend him two horses, so Little Klaus can work his field with them and his own horse, Hans. He drives them on by shouting, “Gee up, all my horses, gee up!” This repeatedly annoys Big Klaus, until he kills Little Klaus’s horse with a stone. To keep providing for his family, Little Klaus decides to sell his horse’s hide at the market. On the way there, because of the heavy rain, he wants to spend the night at the miller’s house, but only the miller’s wife is there, and she sends him away. So he crawls onto the floor of the barn and watches from there as the miller’s wife welcomes the sexton, with whom she is having an affair, and serves him a lavish meal. When the miller unexpectedly comes home, his wife hides the food in the oven and the sexton in a chest. Little Klaus asks the miller for a place to sleep and something to eat, and the miller welcomes him in. Little Klaus puts his sack, which contains the horsehide, under the table. He claims there is a magician inside it and proves it by predicting that there is roast meat and cake in the oven, and even “the devil” in the chest. The miller is so impressed that he gives Little Klaus plenty of goods, as well as the chest and a bushel of money, in exchange for the sack. On his way home, Little Klaus lets the sexton out, and, out of gratitude, the sexton gives him his shoes. Back home, Little Klaus asks Big Klaus for a bushel measure. When Big Klaus then finds out how much money Little Klaus seems to have received for the hide of dead Hans, he kills his own horses. He then tries to sell their hides for a high price at the market, but is driven away because of his asking prices. In a rage, he tries to drown Little Klaus in a sack in the river. Before doing so, he wants to “strengthen himself spiritually” in the church and leaves the sack outside. A shepherd passing by frees Little Klaus. They put stones in the sack, so Big Klaus thinks he has really thrown his enemy into the river. A little later, however, he finds Little Klaus unharmed in a meadow beside the flock of sheep. Little Klaus tells him that he met a fairy at the bottom of the river, and that she gave him the animals. Wanting the same for himself, Big Klaus goes into the river and drowns.