Mother Holle

A widow favored her lazy, spoiled daughter over her hardworking stepdaughter, forcing the stepdaughter to spin wool at a well each day until her fingers bled. One day, chasing a dropped spindle, the stepdaughter fell into the well and found herself in a strange, magical world.

Along her path, she passed a fully baked oven of bread begging to be taken out before it burned, and an apple tree heavy with ripe fruit begging to be shaken free — and she stopped, kindly, to help both. She arrived at the home of an old woman called Mother Holle, who asked her to shake out feather pillows each day, causing snow to fall in the world above. The girl worked diligently and kindly for weeks, and when she asked to return home, Mother Holle rewarded her by covering her in gold as she passed back through the gate.

The lazy stepsister, hearing of this fortune, deliberately jumped into the same well hoping for the same reward. But she ignored the pleading bread and apples, and served Mother Holle so lazily and rudely that when she too asked to go home, she was covered instead in thick, sticky tar that never washed away — a reflection, in both cases, of exactly the effort each girl had genuinely given.