The Story
Once upon a time, there was a donkey who had served his master faithfully for many years, carrying sacks of grain from the farm to the mill and never once complained. But as he grew old, his back ached and his legs were not as strong as they had been, and his master began to mutter that a donkey who could not work was a donkey that cost too much to feed.
The donkey overheard these mutterings. He thought the matter over for exactly one night. Then, before sunrise, he untied himself from the post and set off down the road toward the town of Bremen, for he had always heard that in Bremen, music was welcome, and he believed he had a fine voice for braying.
Before he had gone far, he came upon an old hound dog lying by the side of the road, panting as if he had run a very long way. The dog looked up at the donkey with sad brown eyes.
"Why do you lie here sighing, friend?" asked the donkey.
"I am old," said the dog, "and I can no longer run with the hunt as I used to. My master has decided I am no longer useful and I ran away before worse befell me. Now I do not know what is to become of me."
"Come with me to Bremen," said the donkey cheerfully. "I am going to be a musician there. You can play the drums. A dog with your deep, resonant bark would be an asset to any orchestra."
The dog's tail gave a single wag of hope, and he got up and walked alongside the donkey.
A little further along the road they found a cat sitting on a gatepost, wearing the expression of someone attending her own funeral. Her grey whiskers drooped. Her green eyes were dull.
"What makes you look so downcast, old whisker-face?" asked the donkey.
"I am no longer young enough to chase mice," said the cat, "and my mistress wanted to drown me. I ran away, but where am I to go? What is there for an old cat who cannot earn her keep?"
"Come to Bremen!" said both the donkey and the dog together. "You shall make music with us. No one in the world can hold a note like a cat in full voice. You will be the greatest singer in the ensemble."
The cat's ears perked up, and she jumped down from the gatepost and joined them.
As the three companions were passing a farmyard gate, they heard a rooster sitting on the fence post, crowing with all his might and with a note of absolute desperation in his voice.
"What in the world are you crowing about?" asked the donkey. "It is the middle of the afternoon."
"I am crowing while I still can," said the rooster dolefully. "Tomorrow is Sunday, and guests are coming for dinner, and the cook says I am to be put in the soup. So I am crowing while I have breath to crow with."
"Nonsense," said the donkey. "A voice like that! Come with us to Bremen. We shall be the four greatest musicians the town has ever heard."
The rooster stretched his wings and crowed once more — with joy this time — and flew down from the fence to join them.
The four animals walked together all day, talking and planning their musical careers, and in the late afternoon they came to a forest. It was too far to Bremen to reach by nightfall, and so they agreed to rest in the woods. The donkey and dog lay down under a large tree, the cat climbed into the branches, and the rooster flew to the very top, where he could look out over the treetops.
From his high vantage, the rooster saw, not far through the trees, the glow of a window. "There may be shelter nearby," he told the others.
They made their way toward the light and came to a little house, its windows blazing warmly. The donkey, being the tallest, looked through the window first. Inside, around a table laden with roasted meat and bread and wine, sat a band of robbers counting their stolen money. Their faces were rough and their coats were dirty and they laughed very loudly.
"That would suit us nicely," murmured the donkey. A plan formed quickly among the four musicians.
The dog climbed on the donkey's back. The cat climbed on the dog's back. The rooster flew up and perched on the cat's head. And when they were all in position, the donkey nodded, and all together they burst into their music: the donkey brayed, the dog barked, the cat yowled, and the rooster crowed at the top of his lungs. Then the donkey put his front feet through the window, and the whole tower of animals tumbled crashing into the room.
The robbers leapt to their feet in pure terror. In the dark and the noise they thought some monstrous creature had fallen upon them, and they fled into the forest screaming, leaving everything behind them.
The four musicians sat down to the robbers' dinner and ate until they were full. Then they put out the lamp and settled in for the night — the donkey on the hay outside, the dog behind the door, the cat by the warm embers, the rooster on the rooftop.
Sometime in the deep of night, the robber captain sent his boldest man back to investigate. The robber crept into the house and moved through the dark. He saw two coals glowing by the fireplace and reached toward them to light his candle — and the cat scratched his hand with all four paws. He stumbled backward toward the door, and the dog bit him on the leg. He fled through the yard, and the donkey gave him a tremendous kick that sent him flying. The rooster woke on the roof and crowed: "Cock-a-doodle-doo!"
The robber ran all the way back to his companions. "There is a terrible witch in the house," he gasped, "who clawed my hand with long nails. By the door a man stabbed me in the leg. In the yard a giant hit me with a club. And on the roof a judge screamed 'Bring the rogue to me!'"
The robbers never went back. And the four Bremen musicians found the little house in the forest so agreeable — warm and comfortable and full of food — that they never went on to Bremen either. But if you should pass that way at night and hear a sound like braying and barking and yowling and crowing all at once, you will know they are still there, practicing.