The Robber Bridegroom (fairy tale)

"The Robber Bridegroom" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 40.  Joseph Jacobs included a variant, Mr Fox in English Fairy Tales, but the original provenance is much older; Shakespeare (circa 1599) alludes to the Mr. Fox variant in Much Ado About Nothing, Act 1, Scene 1:

Like the old tale, my lord: "it is not so, nor `t was not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so."