The Two Weavers
antagonist · human
Two men who arrived in the city with a bag, a story and no wool, and who never once had to raise their voices.
What they are like
- Kind
- 2/10
- Brave
- 7/10
- Clever
- 10/10
- Honest
- 1/10
- Curious
- 6/10
- Patient
- 10/10
How we meet them
Arriving in a city where strangers arrive every day, saying one sentence about a cloth, and then letting everybody else do the rest of the work.
Personality
Patient, tidy and entirely unhurried. They do not oversell. They ask a question and then wait, which is the whole trick, because the silence does the work for them.
What they want
Silk, gold, and a comfortable exit before anybody counts anything.
How they change
Arrive with nothing, are given a hall, a fortune and an official title, and are never mentioned again.
How they speak
Almost nothing. They name two things, the colours and the pattern, and let the other man supply the adjectives. Their longest speech is the joke said out loud: you would think you had nothing on.
How the story treats them
The court treats them as craftsmen of the highest rank and gives them an official title. Nobody in the story ever calls them liars, including at the end.
One surprising thing
They are never caught. In the older Spanish version of this tale the weavers flee the city with everything they were given, but in Andersen's version they simply stop being mentioned.
If they were real today
The two consultants whose report everyone praises and nobody has opened.
Things they say
- “The colours.”
- “It is as light as a spider's web. You would think you had nothing on.”
Key moments
One sentence, then silence
They describe the cloth, mention its one extra quality, and stop talking. The emperor hires them himself, which is the point.
Sixteen candles
All night before the procession they cut the empty air with large scissors and sew with needles that have no thread in them, in front of an open window where they can be seen.
The joke said out loud
At the mirror one of them tells the emperor the suit is so light he would think he had nothing on, and the emperor agrees.
“It is as light as a spider's web. You would think you had nothing on.”
Who they know
The Emperoradversary
Two men who never tell the emperor a single lie about the cloth, and one emperor who supplies every lie himself.
The Old Ministeradversary
A trap with only one exit, set by two men who never once raise their voices, and a very clever old man walking into it politely.
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