There were two brothers, one rich, the other poor.  The poor brother, one day wheeling a barrow through the forest, had just come to a naked looking mountain, when he saw twelve great wild men approaching, and he hid himself in a tree, believing them to be robbers.  “Semsi mountain, Semsi mountain, open!” they cried, and the mountain opened, and they went in.  Presently they came out, carrying heavy sacks.  “Semsi mountain, Semsi mountain, shut thyself!” they cried; and the mountain closed and they went away.  The poor man went up then and cried.  “Semsi mountain Semsi mountain, open!” the mountain opens, he goes in, finds a cavern full of gold, silver, and jewels, fills his pockets with gold only, and coming out cries, “Semsi mountain, Semsi mountain, shut thyself!” He returns home and lives happily till his gold is exhausted.  Then “he went to his brother to borrow a measure that held a bushel, and brought himself some more.”  This he does again, and this time the rich brother smears the inside of the bushel with pitch and when he gets it back finds a gold coin sticking to it, so he taxes his poor brother with having treasure and learns the secret.  Off he drives, resolved to bring back, not gold, but jewels.  He gets in by saying, “Semsi mountain, Semsi mountain, open!” He loads himself with precious stones, but has forgotten the word, and cries only, “Simeli mountain, Simeli mountain, open!” The robbers return and charge him with having twice stolen from them.  He vainly protests, “It was not I " and they cut his head off.

Here the twelve wild men represent the forty robbers, and, as in Ali Baba, it is the hero’s brother who falls a victim to his own cupidity.  In the Arabian tale the hero climbs up into a tree when he sees the robbers approach, in The Dummburg he hides himself behind a tree to watch the proceedings of the monk; and in Grimm’s version he hides in a tree.  On this last-cited story W. Grimm has the following note:  “It is remarkable that this story, which is told in the province of Munster, is told also in the Hartz, about The Dummburg, and closely resembles the Eastern story of ‘The Forty Thieves,’ where even the rock Sesam, which falls open at the words Semsi and Semeli, recalls the name of the mountain in the German saga.  This name for a mountain is, according to a document in Pistorius (3, 642), very ancient in Germany.  A mountain in Grabfeld is called Similes and in a Swiss song a Simeliberg is again mentioned.  This makes us think of the Swiss word ‘Sine!,’ for ‘sinbel,’ round.  In Meier, No. 53, we find ‘Open, Simson.’  In Prohle’s ’Marcher fur die Jugend,’ No. 30, where the story is amplified, it is Simsimseliger Mountain.  There is also a Polish story which is very like it.”  Dr. Grimm is mistaken in saying that in the Arabian tale the “rock Sesam” falls open at the words Semsi and Semeli:  even in his own version, as the brother finds to his cost, the word Simeli does not open the rock.  In Ali Baba the word is “Simsim” (Fr. Sesame), a species of grain, which the brother having forgot, he cries out “Barley.”  The “Open, Simson” in Meier’s version and the “Semsi” in Grimm’s story are evidently corruptions of “Simsim,” or “Samsam,” and seem to show that the story did not become current in Germany through Galland’s work.