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Updated: June 6, 2025
As time went on Griet grew old, and though she would now have been content with a simple man for her sweetheart, not even such a one condescended to ask her to become his wife. Little by little Griet gave up all hopes of ever marrying, and had to look out for a living to keep her in her old age from starving. Therefore she started a fruit stall at one of the large gateways of Cologne.
When the yells were loudest, she suddenly opened the door to see her visitors, but she came too late. Not a single goblin was left behind. Since that time the friendly dwarfs have never more been seen in Cologne, and in other places also they have entirely disappeared. Jan and Griet
"There lived at Cologne on the old farm of Kümpchenshof a peasant who had a maid called Griet and a man-servant called Jan." Thus begins the old well-known Rhenish song of "Jan van Werth," the celebrated general of the imperial cavalry at the time when the Swedes and French were taking advantage of the civil war in Germany.
Let us now look back and see what happened in the meantime to Griet. She had waited month after month and year after year for the rich farmer. But the longed-for suitor never made his appearance. Even in those by-gone days red cheeks and bright eyes were much less thought of than ducats and glittering gold.
One day the good inhabitants of this town were in great excitement, and crowded in their best Sunday-clothes round the gate of St. Severin, where Griet sat at her apple-stall. They had come to meet Jan van Werth, the celebrated general, who was returning victorious at the head of his regiment. There he was sitting on a powerful charger which was gorgeously covered with gilded trappings.
It was erected there in memory not only of the heroic deeds of the brave general, but also as a warning to all Cologne maidens not to reject their suitors because they are poor, for one day, like Jan van Werth, they may become famous, and then they will not, like Griet, have to sigh over things that "might have been." The Cathedral-Builder of Cologne
Many a girl would not have rejected him as a sweetheart, but Jan's tender heart had long been captivated by the good looks of pretty Griet, the comely maid of the Kümpchenshof. His love could not long remain a secret. One day he confessed to her with sobs that he loved her dearly, and would with pleasure work and toil for her twice as much as he then did for his master.
When the celebrated general passed the gate, he stopped his horse just in front of Griet's apple baskets, and looking down upon the old wrinkled woman, met her questioning glance with an odd smile. "Ah Griet," said he slowly; "whoever would have thought it?"
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